Netflix Series - The Haunting of Hill House

I can relate to that. To me, it's shaping up as more dysfunctional family drama than haunted house story.

I don't think there ARE any ghosts - those people are just nuts!

 

After Ep. 5 it's kind of gone a little downhill for me. Not badly, but once they touched upon all of the children's perspectives, and I guess they began touching on dad, it hasn't had the same impact. I'm still highly interested with only 2 more episodes to go.

That 20 minute scene, there's one big problem:

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Why in the hell were they sitting right outside of the funeral home's chapel, just hanging out with their dead sibling in the next room? They even hung out in the room. I spent 25 years in the funeral business, from birth until I was 25, and these are just morbid people. I mean, it was kind of cool how all of the family members were represented, as the camera would pan passed Nell's casket, and the mother was some sort of spook hanging about; otherwise, that was it.

Well, faults are in the eyes of the beholder. I'm still very much surprised how well this show is done for what seems like a beauty contest. I like it.

 

I finished the series over the weekend, and I'll admit there was a bit of a letdown after Episode 6. Not enough to ruin the series, though. I liked it. I'm a little disappointed that there's talk of a second season. This one was a one-off IMO.

 

We finished it last night. I still don't get it, but it wasn't bad by ay means. The last few episodes were just too dialogue heavy to keep me interested. These people need to learn how to make their point and move on.

 

Finished it Sunday night and I don't get it either. I liked it, did not love it. Thought the last episode tried to pack in way too much drama and still do not understand why Henry Thomas became Tim Hutton, although when I saw how bad they aged the caretakers I can kind of see why they replaced Henry. Cannot see how Netflix can squeeze a second season out of this unless they go the anthology route.

 

My dad and I have both watched the first episode and we're both not loving it yet. I'll give it a couple more before giving up.

 

To me it started to get good around the middle of the second episode . I didn't think much of it after the first episode but was intrigued enough to see if it would go anywhere.

 

That's where I kinda am. I want to continue and will try to watch Episode 2 tonight.

 

Great show. One of the best thungs I’ve seen on television in awhile.

Very smart. Well acted and wonderfully directed.

 

I finished it last night. It was good. A quality show despite my nitpicks. That is to say, I could look past most of my quibbles, as the story, itself, and how it was designed was well done.

As for the last episode, I liked the story beats, however, they could have

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shaved a lot of empty dialog out and still brought home Nell's individual bonds with all of her siblings, her father and her mother to explain how it all fit together.

It was super cool how they

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showed that each of the kids had spent time in the room with the red door, only they did it without knowing so.

The bad?

Spoiler: Ringy Ding-Dongs

Where in the hell were these people's cell phones when Luke was on the floor dying? Nobody thought to call 9-11? I was practically yelling in my head for someone to use the goddamn phone!

Otherwise, Season 2 has to be another family in the house, right? I don't think there's anything left to tell with this family. Sure, I bet there's more secrets and reveals to Hill House, but not with the current troop.

Parting words?

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How come mom has been dead for 20+ years, yet her ghost looks like she had just showered, while the other ones, including the recently deceased Nell, are all crusty, cracked and milk-eyed?

 

I think that they were morbidly obsessed with each other's fate due to a tragedy they could just barely remember and knowing that something was being kept from them. It was a reunion of sorts--not the type that they wanted or the type that they needed but the only one they could ever have now.

 

I immediately got that vibe and went back and played the credits. About 80% of the producers are women. That explained it. The greatest drama is the world, according to women, is not being "in touch" with each other. At least men do sensible cinematic things like gun each other down for a little action.

 

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It was inconsistent all over. Flapper Polly could appear all glam to one character, then all crusty and cracked to another. Clock Guy looked normal but Very Tall Man and the ghosts in the background had grey faces. Idano.

--Geoff

 

I found it took a couple of episodes to get going & the last couple of episodes fell apart for me. Way too padded & way too many endless monologues. Edited to six hours, it might have been better. It was creepy at times but light years away from scary. I liked the explanation for the Red Room but didn't like how uninterested they were in getting the door opened. I would have had a locksmith there within a couple of days after moving in. The father even said that he thought the mold was originating from that locked room. In real life, that door & most of the events in the rest of the show that occured in the house would have caused much more alarm than it did. 6/10

 

I tend to agree. If you cannot get into a room call a locksmith or break the damn door down. It was always an option.

 

Might it have been better if they had a key to the red door, yet it would only unlock sometimes, seemingly at random, thus nobody takes the room? It seems to me that it would have the same result, and even if they called out a locksmith, the mystery is why the door locks and unlocks on a whim.

 

But that ruins the mystery of ‘what’s behind the door’ if it opens sometimes, but others not.

 

Heh. Yeah. Well, it's moot because they played their hand. But, just for giggles, the mystery then becomes why does the room remain locked sometimes, and other times it is unlocked? Then, when we see the inside of the room it's just a plain white room - nothing special, yet when it's locked, we still see shadows behind the door, and other creepy stuff. Personally, I think that would be kooky enough, and still not ruin the end that...well, you know what was revealed. Just a thought. I mean, I didn't write the show.

 

just finished watching last night and this pretty much sums up how i feel. all netflix series seem needlessly padded and 4 episodes too long to me and this one is no exception.

the "drive" with the eldest son and dad was one of the hokiest looking and unnatural scenes i've seen since a dukes of hazzard chase. seriously--they couldn't have directed these guys a little better? not for a second did i believe they were driving let alone actually emotionally invested in whatever it was they were discussing.

also, can someone tell timothy hutton to cut his hair? i was having the hardest time taking him seriously with that bizarro hairdo he's donning. it's like a rats nest covered in LA looks gel.

 

A bit of weird one having Timothy Hutton serve as the older Hugh Crain. Granted there’s some resemblance between him and Henry Thomas, but they’re not like twins or anything.

I think Hutton’s hair was disheveled like that to show how haunted and distracted Hugh has become since that night; doesn’t worry about his appearance. I do agree it looked prettty bad.

 

I think he had that same hairstyle on American Crime a couple of years ago.

 

same hair also in amazon's jack ryan. i laughed at it there too. not sure what's up with it.

 

Eh, I give the guy the pass. I have shady hair that can grow but looks horrible. I can give the guy a break. He still has hair :/

 

Man, action is slow in the visual arts forum.

 

I finished the series last night. As predicted, I watched the whole thing. Contrary to my predictions, I did not suspend my critical instincts. I have a LOT of criticisms!

1. I'm glad that it got resolved at then end, and not in a "bwahahahaha evil wins" way. However, the way they resolved it was almost more problematic than these things normally are. To wit:

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So this hundred year old mansion is an entity that feeds on people and coaxes them to kill themselves, but at the end, it's practically portrayed as Shangri-La. Die at Hill House, get to spend eternity with your beloved family in your imaginary Red Room vision. Plus, there's too little attention paid to the fact that Hill House has driven Olivia permanently bat**** crazy. She actually thinks that murdering her children so that their spirits can inhabit Hill House forever is preferable to living life and facing all its attendant dangers and risks. This is a loathsome concept and the last time I encountered it, it was presented as the terrifying hell-logic of two characters in American Horror Story: Murder House.

2. Some of the most important concepts of the series are straight out of American Horror Story: Murder House.

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The idea that to die in the house is to live forever in the house; the idea that it'd be a good idea to let your kids grow to a certain age and then kill them so that they stay cute and safe; the phenomenon where the ghosts alter their appearance to either seduce or terrify.

3. The reveal of the Bent-Neck Lady was one of the biggest disappointments for me.

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What the hell, is Hill House timeless and omniscient? How is it able to show Nell her future and then lead her inexorably to it?

4. The Dudleys? Huh?

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These people cannot even bear to work in the house after dark when it was occupied, but their response to Olivia actually murdering their hidden daughter with rat poison is that they agree to keep it all quiet so that Crain will let the house stand so they can presumably go there every night and elbow through the hordes of truly evil and violent spirits in order to spend some quality time with the ghost of their daughter. Now that's just a mishmash of nuts.

5. Every character in the series was nearly thoroughly unlikable. I felt very little sympathy for any of the Crain family except for, of course, the helpless twins. I came to really dislike Steve and Shirley. And Hugh was pathetic in every scene. The ruin of Olivia's character was infuriating. I'll just leave it at that.

So, in conclusion I found it very flawed on many levels. The scare content was actually quite good - nothing to vomit or leave the light on over but it was impressively frightening and tense in many parts. It was almost TOO morbid and I didn't really enjoy that. The many monologues approach was actually pretty appealing to me because it presented so much information about the characters. It also lent a sense of gravity to the story, perhaps more than the story itself merits. I conclude much as I did a couple of episodes in that this series was really more about messed-up family relationships and not so much about ghosts and the supernatural. Which is OK, it was at least a sort of different angle on the haunted house story, if not entirely successful and convincing.