Table Of Content
Eleanor travels to the house, where she and Theodora will live in isolation with Montague and Luke. The doctor, Luke and Theodora explore the library with the treacherous spiral staircase, but Eleanor has a severe reaction that prevents her from entering. Leaning over the veranda to look at the library's tower, she becomes dizzy and is caught by Markway, who speculates that he should send her home, but Eleanor protests, blaming the house rather than her nerves. That evening, Dr. Markway discovers a cold spot outside the nursery room. Despite all these occurrences, Eleanor feels a tentative affinity to Hill House. Dr Marrow enlists Theo, Luke and Nell for a study of sleep disorders at the Hill House.
Production
Watch The Haunting of Hill House — Miniseries with a subscription on Netflix, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.
Filming
Luke defaces a portrait of Crain, enraging his spirit to decapitate Luke. When Crain himself manifests, Dr. Marrow and Theo hide in the house while Nell distracts him. Realizing that he thrived on the fear he created in children, Nell declares she is not afraid of him. Her declaration weakens the ghost and he is cast into a decorative bronze door depicting distressed children in a purgatory-like scene. She finds Crain's hidden office and learns that he extensively used child labor in his cotton mills.
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The 1999 version, considerably different from the novel and widely panned by critics, is an overt fantasy horror in which all the main characters are terrorized and two are killed by explicitly supernatural deaths. Dr. Markway's skeptical wife Grace arrives at Hill House to warn him that a reporter has learned of his investigation there. That night in the living room, the group experiences loud banging and an unseen intruder attempting to force its way into the room, causing the door to bulge inward.
This new version takes the barest bones of Jackson’s 1959 novel and forges its own path, detailing the repercussive effects of grief and trauma on a young family who fell under the eponymous abode’s violent, destructive spell. But the inventory of tried-and-true horror tropes are being used to more sinister ends than just the art of the “Boo! ” As a genre exercise, The Haunting of Hill House is a better-than-decent stab at a supernatural story, the equivalent of a well-executed if slightly overlong bass solo. As a tale of what happens when the ties that bind are the same ones that gag you, and scar you, and occasionally strangle you to death, it’s absolutely terrifying.
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But stay the Crains do until a tragic series of events forces them to leave, for reasons that are not fully explained until the end of all ten episodes. Two decades later, the Crains are estranged from Hugh (Timothy Hutton, whose age gap with Thomas is math best ignored) and they’re each scarred in their own way. Steven (Michiel Huisman) is a best-selling author of books about the paranormal, selling his history for cash. Theo (Kate Siegel), prone to wearing dark gloves for supernatural reasons, is a psychiatrist helping troubled children. Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is a junkie and Nell (Victoria Pedretti) is being lured back to Hill House for the sort of final confrontation the genre demands.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if this closed story opens up again as Once More Back to Hill House or a prequel featuring Annabeth Gish’s stern caretaker. After all, you can’t count exclusively on Stranger Things for your Halloween traditions. The novel has been adapted to film twice, in 1963 and again in 1999, both times under the title The Haunting. The 1963 version is a relatively faithful adaptation and received critical praise.
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Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Is it another victim of the Netflix 10-Episodes-Six-Hours-of-Actual-Story Bloat Syndrome (™)? Are the performances, shall we say, not all on the same level, quality-wise? Is it occasionally heavy-handed in its portrayal of the evil that men do, and did it need to have one character actually say, “Ghosts are guilt, ghosts are secrets, ghosts are regrets, and failings … but most times, a ghost is a wish? ” and seriously, WTF is up with that ending and reversing that famous opening graf line? What sticks with you at the end of those 10 hours is not what rings discordant but what seems eerily relatable — the scorched-earth arguments, and silent treatments, and sibling alliances, and foxhole bonding that constitutes being in a family. We all have ghosts, even if they aren’t as vengeful or CGI-rendered as the Crains’ personal (and perhaps literal) demons.
Cast
Based very loosely on the classic novel of the same name, this was a surprise hit for Netflix, who would work with the creator on many other projects too. The Haunting of Hill House skips from the present to the past as it explores the relationships between horribly flawed family members and the chilling events that happened at their haunted home. Markway wishes to study the reported paranormal activity at Hill House and sends invitations for people to join his investigation; however, Mrs. Sannerson demands that Markway allow her heir Luke Sannerson to join. Only two other individuals accept—Theodora, a psychic, and Eleanor Lance, who experienced poltergeist activity as a child. Eleanor spent her adult life caring for her invalid mother, whose recent death has left Eleanor with severe guilt.
By this point, the show’s momentum is so great that it’s easy to ignore that the closing episodes go a little slack and fall victim to a case of over-articulated metaphors as characters say things like, “Ghosts are guilt. The Haunting is a 1999 American supernatural horror film directed by Jan de Bont, and starring Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, and Lili Taylor, with Marian Seldes, Bruce Dern, Todd Field, and Virginia Madsen appearing in supporting roles. Its plot follows a group of people who gather at a sprawling estate in western Massachusetts for an apparent volunteer study on insomnia, only to find themselves plagued by paranormal events connected to the home's grim history. Based on the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, it is the second feature film adaptation of the source material after Robert Wise's 1963 film adaptation of the same name.
Crain remarried, but his second wife died in the house from a fall down the stairs. Crain's daughter Abigail lived in the house for the rest of her life, never moving out of the nursery room. The companion inherited the house, but later hanged herself from a spiral staircase in the library.
Julie Harris was cast by Wise, who found her ideal for the psychologically fragile Eleanor, though during production she suffered from depression and had an uneasy relationship with her co-stars. The interior sets were by Elliot Scott, credited by Wise as instrumental in the making of The Haunting. They were designed to be brightly lit, with no dark corners or recesses, and decorated in a Rococo style; all the rooms had ceilings to create a claustrophobic effect on film. Wise used a 30mm anamorphic, wide-angle lens Panavision camera that was not technically ready for use and caused distortions. It was only given to Wise on condition that he sign a memorandum in which he acknowledged that the lens was imperfect. Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton planned sequences that kept the camera moving, utilizing low-angle takes, and incorporating unusual pans and tracking shots.
The film received mixed-to-negative reviews from contemporary critics, but was a financial success, grossing $180.2 million worldwide against a production budget of $80 million. The Haunting of Hill House Blu-ray and DVD will include three extended episodes and director commentaries. Largely overshadowed by the same-year release of Oscar-winning The Three Faces of Eve, Lizzie similarly sees its protagonist (Eleanor Parker) struggle with a split-personality disorder. Directed by actor-director Hugo Haas, it’s an agreeably lurid B-movie, with a terrific schizoid turn from Parker, culminating in a mirrored battle between her alter egos. With a Stranger Things-shaped hole in their Halloween scheduling this year (season three of the flagship hit is due to drop next summer), Netflix have plugged the gap with their 10-part adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic chiller, The Haunting of Hill House.
The Haunting of Hill House is an effective ghost story whose steadily mounting anticipation is just as satisfying as its chilling payoff. As the show’s presence ascended, it would attract many A-list celebrities to take part, but some fans would complain that they forgot to keep it scary and credible. However, there are still some scares to be found in the early seasons before it descends into camp and cliche. That night, on Markway's insistence, Theo moves into Eleanor's room, and they fall asleep in the twin beds pushed together.
Flanagan, who admirably adapted Stephen King’s essentially unadaptable Gerald’s Game for Netflix, directs Haunting of Hill House in its entirety and deserves much of the credit for how long and how well the series remains impactful. This isn’t a genre that necessarily rewards prolonged exposure as viewers can become immune to a certain kind of horror, yet Flanagan keeps the jolts coming. Yes, there are a lot of jump scares of the sort you can grow to anticipate when the sound drops out and silence begs to be filled with screams.
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