Until a couple of years ago, I HATED scary movies. I was never the person anyone wanted to hang out with and see a movie; I talk a lot and give commentary that isn’t necessary and laugh at inappropriate times. Recently, my roommates and I decided to really embrace the month of October and really get into the Halloween movies we were too scared to watch.
We didn’t want to buy or rent anything so we decided to stick with Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, and Amazon Prime. We watched a few movies and of course, celebrated right with the Halloweentown movies, but wanted something genuinely scary. That’s when I saw the new trailer for The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix.
The show is an adaptation of the 1953 Shirley Jackson novel and is quite a bit different from the book. Netflix added new characters and changed the plot line slightly, making it, if possible, even scarier than before. The show relies on psychological terror instead of the typical horror, ghosts, gore, and spook that we’re used to.
The Haunting of Hill House tells the story of the Crain family and their 8-or-so weeks within the newly purchased Hill house. The family plans to fix and sell the house but quickly find many problems with it, in typical scary movie fashion. The show goes back and forth from the past, when the family was living in the house, to the present, when the family is grown and living with their emotional past. The show is focused on what happened to the children’s mother and how the ghosts surrounding it never left them. Between Stephen’s passive nature, Shirley’s aggression, Theo’s otherworldly touch, Luke’s addiction and Nellie’s ghosts, this family has a lot to be afraid of.
With a star-studded cast of four siblings: Stephen (Michiel Huisman, Game of Thrones), Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser, Twilight), Theodora (Kate Siegel, Hush), and twins Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Nellie (Victoria Pedretti). Their parents are even more iconic with Henry Thomas (ET) as Young Hugh Crain and Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) as Older Hugh and Carla Gugino (Spy Kids) as Olivia Crain.
While I consider myself a scaredy cat, my friend Sarah, who is rarely scared by anything, was genuinely scared by this show. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show that was so well thought out and planned as this one. The frights are there, the script is there, the AMAZING set is there. This show is begging for you to watch it. In fact, the house really wants to welcome you home.