Favorite Stuff from 2018: The Haunting of Hill House
I tend to avoid horror movies. I scare pretty easily, and I generally find horror movie to not be particularly interesting enough in terms of things like character story to make me want to push past being scared to watch them. So when I saw Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, I didn't even really think of watching it. Now, the 1960s adaptation is one of the few horror films I will watch because it truly is an excellent film, but given the kinds of horror movies being made these days, I didn't think it would be worth my time.
Then I saw everyone talking about it. So I wanted to see at least what the fuss was about. By the end of the first episode I was immediately pulled in. As far as scares go, those first three episodes really did lull me into a false sense of security, with what seemed to be just a few blatantly scary-to-look at moments. I mean, upon rewatch, I started noticing the background ghosts and realized how false that sense of security was, but at the time I was thinking that maybe this would be more in line with the 1960s version and that we wouldn't actually SEE much of anything.
By the time the third episode happened and it became clear just how false that sense of security was, I was far to interested in the characters for me to quit.
Characters are usually the thing to grab me the most. I've sat through many movies and shows where I found the story lacking because I found even just one character so fascinating. Obviously, the ideal situations is a good story and good characterization, both of which feed off of one another to create the best overall product. I do think that's what we get with Haunting of Hill House, but the thing that grabbed me so hard and didn't let go was the characters, they way these five kids and their parents were being written explored, they way there was such clear and understandable development, even when we didn't know exactly what happened, between the children we start with and the adults they become.
There's a lot to identify with in each character, and using them to explore these ideas about grief, what it does to is, and how we live with it is really the thing that makes this show so special. The idea of ghosts and hauntings being used as metaphors for the ghosts of the pasts, the mistakes the characters made, the things they want to forget, is hardly revolutionary, but The Haunting of Hill House explores those ideas so brilliantly in how much it really focuses on these characters and their story. The episodes, for most of the first half of the season, unfolds in a Lost-esque way, with each episode focusing on one of the siblings, flashing back to their childhood in the house and the things that happened to them there, and then taking us through their present, showing us how those events from their childhood has shaped who they are now. We get a deep, deep dive into these characters and who they are, and why they are who they are, and all of that characterization is so precise, so delicately handled.
Beyond just how well each character is drawn and explored, we get to see these incredibly complex relationships within the family, and each one of those relationships, even when we don't get to see every single relationship in as much depth as others, is so interesting and so clearly shown for what it is and what it means. Relationships between families, and siblings in particular, can be some incredibly complicated, and The Haunting of Hill House doesn't just know that, it rolls around in it, making so much of the basis of the entire story in how these siblings relate to each other, how that effects each one of them, and how those relationships can change
I'm definitely a fan of long running series and the ways that characters can develop over years (I grew up on soap operas, for heaven's sake), but there is something to be said for a series with a limited run, where the writers KNOW it's going to be a limited run, where that characterization and character and relationship development can be fully realized and very carefully plotted to a natural fulfillment point. There's nothing superfluous. It's all very precise and careful. That's definitely one of The Haunting of Hill House's greatest strength, the way the character and relationships developments are paced. Story pacing is important as well, and the pacing in that regard is very well done. But this is a piece that relies so heavily on characters. We don't really get all that much mythology or story about the house itself and what's going on to make it so damn haunted, because that's not what the story is. It's not about these characters discovering the secret of the house. It's not about what they do to and about the house. It's about what the house does to THEM. The story comes from them, not the house, so the fact that the way these characters were managed, the way the reveals about them and their development were paced is the things that makes this show so special.
I know there's been some "this show doesn't have the same story as the book at all" complaints about The Haunting of Hill House. I don't agree at all that this is actually a problem. We already have a pretty much perfect adaptation of Shirley Jackson's book (the 1963 film The Haunting). That's a brilliant film, that took what Jackson wrote and produced a very faithful-to-the-text adaptation. So we don't need another adaptation that's just a reproduction of the book. The 1999 movies where Owen Wilson gets his head eaten off by a stone lion. Not every adaptation should be exact reproductions (in fact, really, no adaptation should be an exact reproduction, but that's a musing for another time). Not every adaptation is going to fit the idea of a "faithful" adaptation. And that's fine, as long as it's not purporting itself to be. It's a good thing. Some adaptations are going to be more "inspired by" than "an adaptation of". That's what Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House is. It takes the basis of Shirley Jackson's story, looks at the characters and the themes, and uses them to explore new ideas, and new themes.
This is a show I would recommend to anyone who love stories where the characters are at the forefront, regardless of genre. Even to people who don't like horror. Admittedly, this is a show that can be very spooky, and there are some definite jump scares. But the core of this show is the characters and relationships. For me, it was worth the scares to experience such incredible character work. This show is really something special, and I'm worried it's going to be too easily dismissed by a lot of people (and awards shows, if the Golden Globes is anything to judge by. Hopefully it won't be forgotten by the time Emmy voting rolls around) because it's a "horror" show or a "ghost story" series. Those things, truly, are secondary to what it really is at its heart: a story about siblings struggling with their childhoods, the way that's effected their lives, and how they continue to deal with the grief that's come with it.
