The Haunting of Hill House Review

I’m not a big horror fan. Well, I guess that’s not quite true. I’m not a big fan of what constitutes horror most of the time today. I don’t like “torture porn” and I want my entertainment to have interesting complex characters and an equally as compelling story. Something like Saw doesn’t really interest me, but something like the classic film The Haunting is worth my time. So, I was pretty intrigued to hear that Netflix was releasing an adaptation of the Shirley Jackson story “The Haunting of Hill House” (which was adapted for the big screen in, you guessed it, the film The Haunting). Having watched all ten installments of the series, the show is definitely worth a look, whether you’re a big horror aficionado or if you’re more discerning like me. It’s not perfect, and suffers from the same streaming bloat that nearly every other Netflix series deals with, but it’s fascinating in its focus on the impact of suffering and pain on a family over time, while still providing just enough jump scares to keep the blood pumping.

Unlike its source material, The Haunting of Hill House focuses on a family – two architect/designer parents and five children – who arrive at the titular home in an attempt to flip it for profit (which they will use to build their “forever home”- a term that takes on a new meaning by the story’s end). The action moves back and forth between the past (in the summer and early fall of 1992) and the present, exploring what happened to the family in the house that scarred the surviving members for the rest of their lives, and how each person has succeeded and/or failed to put that summer behind them. It’s here where the series has its greatest successes and failures.

The biggest problem with the series (outside of its final installment, which is . . . very disappointing on a number of levels) is that the series places the bulk of the focus on the Crain family’s eldest two children – Steven and Shirley – who, despite a strong performance by Elizabeth Reaser as Shirley, are the weakest of all seven central characters. The first five episodes follow each of the Crain children, both in the past and present, in age order (meaning episodes one and two are Steven and Shirley-centric, respectively). Getting through those two is difficult, but the prize for that is three strong episodes, with the three interesting children (Theodora, Luke, and Nell). And then there’s the exquisite sixth episode, a brilliant feat of filmmaking that was completed in only five separate takes (seriously – it’s an incredible episode, and the highlight of the entire series).

But, outside of the disappointing finale and the bland and ineffective lead characters, the series is pretty great. And much of that comes from the brilliant performance of Carla Gugino, as the Crain family matriarch. Gugino has had a long and varied Hollywood career, but never seemed to break through like some of her peers. In Hill House, Gugino has a star turn (despite not being one of the show’s two leads, the reason for that is something I won’t spoil here). Olivia Crain is the most complex of the Crain family (which is really saying something when you take into account the rest of the clan’s quirks and issues), and Gugino makes her slow descent into paranoia and mental illness tragic without becoming cartoonish.

In a story filled with ghosts and things that go bump in the night, it can be easy to heighten one’s performance to match the surrounding noise. Gugino resists that temptation, grounding Olivia in her maternal nature and fear of losing her children to the wide and dangerous world (a fear that is present from the beginning of the tale, and only stoked by the ghosts around her). It’s something that is all too easy to understand, particularly once you see just how the world has treated those children as adults. Even if she weren’t surrounded by several other strong performances (namely, Kate Seigel and Mckenna Grace sharing the role of Theodora, Victoria Pedretti as the older version of Nell, and Julian Hilliard stealing scenes as the young, incredibly empathetic Luke), Gugino’s work would be enough for me to recommend the series.

Great horror stories use normal, everyday themes to draw out their scares and emotional beats. Hill House does this by focusing on the inner-workings of a family- something everyone can relate to on some level. And, for the bulk of the series, it’s successful, using each child’s role within the family as a jumping off point to build their character, and using their relationships with the rest of the family unit to propel the story forward. Then the finale arrives, and the show forgets everything that has come before it. Characters are reduced to their most basic traits. The story flounders. The role of the House changes. And the central allegory – wanting to keep one’s children close and protected – comes apart at the seams. It’s incredibly disappointing that after such a great tale it cannot stick the landing. Nevertheless, I recommend watching the series. It’s worth the time, and the story is smart enough that you can roll your eyes at the finale and not lose the strong lead-up. It’s certainly a better way to spend your time than watching the final season of House of Cards.