re: The Haunting of Hill House-Netflix

Watched it this weekend. Snoozefest. Lifetime drama about inner demons. However, it was obvious that a lot of effort was put into this series. Great production value. Just thought the story was boring af. The only thing I really enjoyed was the tall skinny man looking for his hat. Freaky as hell.

I did like the actress who played the middle sister. She has an Angelina Jolie thing going on. And Carla can still get it.

I was also freaked out at Elliot and Timothy Hutton playing the younger and older versions of the dad but in the end they looked so much alike it really didn't bother me.

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Did they ever explain Arthurs death? Was it really an aneurysm?

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I feel like it definitely was. I don't think that any of the ghosts actually harmed anyone, unless I'm forgetting something. Especially after it was revealed that the bent-neck lady was actually Nell. Why would she harm Arthur?

That makes sense.

Finished it the other day as well and I really liked it. Everything about it was really well done.
The only thing I didn't really care for was the ending and the long speeches about love etc. Seemed kind of sappy.

Otherwise though I really thought it was great.

Just finished the series. I don't start or finish many series and am not great at following them so forgive me if this is a stupid question. The main thing I'm confused about is...

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So Abigail was real. So when they saw her dead they were upset but then when her ghost appeared they immediately were ok because they knew they would always be able to see her there? Yes? What about their other kid, did they just never come into the picture or did I miss something?

Also, at the end were they trying to say Hill House was good because the spirits just wanted everyone to be together? If so I think that's a stretch and if so why did the ghosts terrify the kids so much if they weren't evil?

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So Abigail was real. So when they saw her dead they were upset but then when her ghost appeared they immediately were ok because they knew they would always be able to see her there? Yes? What about their other kid, did they just never come into the picture or did I miss something?

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Are you talking about the Dudleys? The house "takes" Mrs. Dudley's first child, so to speak, causing her to miscarry. Later the Dudleys have a child (Abigail). When Mrs. Dudley dies in the house at the end, she is reunited as a ghost with Abigail and her baby-that-never-was.

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Also, at the end were they trying to say Hill House was good because the spirits just wanted everyone to be together? If so I think that's a stretch and if so why did the ghosts terrify the kids so much if they weren't evil?

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The house itself is basically evil in that it attempts to drive people to madness and kill them. The ghosts are different. Some are malevolent and some aren't. Poppy Hill was insane and murdered her children and as a ghost she actively seeks to help the house drive people to madness and death. Poppy killed her wheelchair-bound son, and as a ghost he scares the kids by banging the wall and..well, being a ghost. But he doesn't seem to be especially malevolent. He's just there because he belongs to the house, and the kids are afraid of him.

The same sort of goes for William Hill. He went crazy and walled himself up in the basement and repeatedly scares the shite out of Luke, but he doesn't seem to be especially malevolent either IMO. Hazel Hill also doesn't seem to be trying to harm the Crains. She even tries to help sort of (giving a warning about Poppy and saying "she lies.")

Olivia's ghost actually wants the children to come back to the house and die so if anything she's the most malevolent toward the kids, but the house and Poppy Hill have driven her insane.

There's also a difference between the family being visited at times by the actual ghosts of Nell and Olivia vs. being "haunted" by fear, guilt, psychosis and so on.

The most obvious clue in this regard is the affair man at the bar and of course we find out that Hugh seeing Olivia all through the years is similar. IMO William Hill following Luke around out of rehab is probably another one. I think it's more likely a manifestation of Luke's using heroin to escape facing his fears rather than the actual ghost of William Hill following Luke around.

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What if someone buys it 25 years down the road and the same thing happens to them? The nature of the house is to consume its occupants though manipulation, tricks, and deaths.

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Yeah, my assumption is that this could be the basis for a season 2 if they end up making it into a series.

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The true victim of the series is abaigail. She lives with over protective parents to the point that the craines thought she was imaginary. The once time she snuck out and had a sleep over, she was poisoned by Olivia. And when she died, her parents made a deal with Craine Sr so she can roam this shite house for all of eternity. Why now destroy it let her soul Rest In Peace?

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I've been pondering stuff along these lines as well. Or for example, why do the ghosts of Poppy, Olivia, Nell and others sometimes appear normal and other times horrific? I don't know that it's just the house lying to the living and letting them or making them see what they want to see or what it wants them to see. If that were solely the case, I'm not sure how to reconcile the appearance of the ghosts outside the house I.E. Nell appearing to Steve in his apartment the night of her death, the car scene, Olivia in the funeral parlor etc.

I want to assume there's a mythos known to the creators about the nature of the power behind the house and the ghosts and that they weren't just doing the aforementioned sequences for scares without worrying about the implications. In that case, why do the ghosts appear hideous at all? Is the house feeding on their souls in death and their "true forms" are reflective of their souls wasting away, and their normal appearances are a facade? Or do they just look hideous sometimes for scares?

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Finished last night. Mike Flanagan knocked it out the park with this one. Not a huge fan of how it ended but the ride to get there was great

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Spoiler!!!





Couldn't agree more. Having now finished the season, I was VERY disappointed by the finale. So these ghosts, the ones our characters have feared their entire lives, are just "living" in the house because it has special powers? Incredibly disappointing ending. I still have no fricking clue what the hell they were talking about when they said they'd all been in the Red Room in the past, be it when it was a treehouse, playroom, dance room, etc. What?!

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I still have no fricking clue what the hell they were talking about when they said they'd all been in the Red Room in the past, be it when it was a treehouse, playroom, dance room, etc. What?!

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What about it didn't you understand?

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Enjoyed the show but it had some issues in my opinion. The child actors were pretty bad overall. The pacing was slow at times. The Matrix style green tinting is an over-used tactic to make a production seem more polished nowadays.

The house as a metaphor for our patriarchal society was interesting and the "red room", or heart of the house, represents the womb which can be a nurturing and fulfilling environment, but can be made toxic when women are only able to be mother and nothing else.

Father represents toxic masculinity for the most part, all though at times the writing waffles on that. While he is capable and protective, his children don't feel love from him because he is focused on fixing things and not understanding them.

Mother is pre-feminist overly concerned with her role as mother and unable to let go of that role when she is no longer needed (her babies are growing independent). She literally cannot think outside this model, thus repeating the mother trope over and over by inserting her "forever home" into the boundaries of the Hill House in a manic attempt to be fulfilled in a system that doesn't value her as a person.

Children represent the different types of people that have developed from this patriarchal model, broken and lost in a world that no longer accepts the either-or type of dichotomy the system is built on. The masculine lesbian unable to be herself. The cheating spouse finding no fulfillment in being the man-of-the-house bread winner (opposite gender role), the father emulator who wants to be like his dad resulting in a duplicitous life where he's neither honest nor a father because modern society doesn't value genuineness, and the twins: the effeminate man and the emotive female (the world isn't ready for their sensitivity).

The mother and father have to die in this context in order for the children to progress into a new world in which the patriarchy and it's proponents/victims have crumbled (the parents and the house).

The theme was a little overbearing especially when the dialog was beating you over the head in its overtness.

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I don't agree with a lot of your interpretations, but still find it thought-provoking. I think you're really crazy about the child actors, though. Nell and Luke broke my heart.