Hill House Rewatch: An Introduction
October is here (or will be tomorrow), and it's horror movie season. Last year I watched a horror movie every day, and it was exhausting. I wanted to do something this year, but I wanted it to be more manageable. So this year, I will rewatch Mike Flanagan's fantastic series "The Haunting of Hill House."
This show aired on Netflix in October 2018 and is loosely based on the Shirley Jackson book of the same name. The series follows the Crane family in two different periods, the summer of 1992 when Hugh and Olivia move into Hill House with their five kids. They are going to renovate the house and sell it. The other half of the story is set in the present day, 26 years after the events that forced them to leave Hill House.
This show was the turning point in my enjoyment of horror. I watched the ten episodes over two days, and I didn't have any of the trouble that I had with other horror movies/shows. I was in awe of how amazing and scary this could be. It was not just frightening for the sake of being frightening. The family story at the heart of the show is what drives it, and the horror is just the setting.
When Netflix released a Blu-ray, I saw that there were extended episodes. I watched the show again and then watched with commentaries, the special features, deleted scenes, and everything those discs contained. And I love the show even more. I loved the show so much that I needed to see what was added, and even though I could watch it anytime I wanted to on Netflix, I bought the box set. When a friend of mine said he had never seen the show, we watched it together.
My approach to this is not going to be episode recaps. I highly recommend watching because I don't think I can stay spoiler-free. I have many feelings about how things connect across timelines and overall themes. "Two Storms," episode six, is a masterpiece of filmmaking and the best hour of any television; I will be gushing about this episode at length. If you have any worries about the horror elements, I will tell you this; there are some jump scares and some unsettling scenes. It is not gory or disgusting. It is nothing like a slasher movie or a "Saw." It is a show about a haunted house, plain and simple.
"The Haunting of Hill House" is the single greatest season of a show ever. I still think about the show all the time. October seems like a good time for a rewatch. If I were feeling more ambitious, I would watch Flanagan's "The Haunting of Bly Manor" and "Midnight Mass," but this school year is kicking my ass, so ten episodes are more manageable at this time.
