A New "Haunting" of an Old House

Of all the different adaptations of Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," the new Netflix miniseries is the most unlike the original work. A few of the character names are the same, the house is more or less unchanged, and there are Easter Eggs for fans, but the story is largely original.

Created by dependable horror director Mike Flanagan, the story unfolds in two different time periods simultaneously. Hill House is acquired by the Crain family in the 1980s, who plan to renovate and flip it for a profit. We follow them during their ill-fated initial stay, and then thirty years later in the present day, when the five Crain children have grown up. This allows the viewer to see how the events of the past are still affecting each member of the family. Hugh Crain (Henry Thomas in the past, and Timothy Hutton in the present) and his wife Olivia (Carla Gugino) are parents to Steven (Paxton Singleton/Michael Huisman), Shirley (Lulu Wilson/Elizabeth Reaser), Theodora (McKenna Grace/Kate Siegel), and the twins, Luke (Julian Hilliard/Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Nell (Violet McGraw/Victoria Pedretti), who are six-year-olds at the beginning the series.

The ten episode series makes good use of the format, spending the first five episodes exploring the lives and relationships of each of the five Crain children in depth. Bouncing back and forth in the timeline, the series builds to the fateful night when the Crains were first forced to flee Hill House after escalating supernatural encounters, and their eventual return to the mansion decades later for a final confrontation. However, "Hill House" is at its best in those first five episodes, when it's functioning more like an anthology of intimate personal portraits. The Crains are far more compelling when they're individually struggling with various personal horrors, like mental illness and drug addiction, than they are when they're forced to reunite and hash out all the family drama in more melodramatic fashion.

The show's production is very strong, and there are some lovely, creepy thrills and jolting scares to be had from seeing how the various ghosts and ghouls of Hill House manifest. This is a very dark show from a visual standpoint, with a lot of characters wandering around nocturnal nightmare worlds. The gloomy atmosphere is terrific. The director also employs a lot of neat little tricks, like having hidden figures and faces occasionally appear in the frame that are never remarked on. Easily the best aspect of the show is the editing, which gets us into the headspace of each character by juxtaposing their past and present selves, often with clever match cuts. Swapped POVs and recontextualization of various scenes are also handled very well throughout.

Where the show is weaker is on the acting side. A couple of the performances are noticeably overwrought, and it's clear that some actors were cast for looks over ability. This isn't a major sin for horror media, but it does end up undercutting some of the more delicate bits of storytelling. It also doesn't help that the show is very overwritten at times, especially in the back half. Monologues are so pervasive, it starts feeling a little ridiculous, and nobody comes off well when the Crains start fighting among themselves. Michael Huisman has proven a perfectly capable actor on other programs, but he isn't able to salvage much of the unsympathetic Steven, who is unfortunately positioned as our primary lead.

On the other hand, I like the way that the various reveals are handled, and the treatment of Hill House's many ghosts. Though Hill House clearly has an eventful history, we don't spend much time digging through it (at least not this season). The focus of the show remains firmly with the Crains, to its benefit, and a lot is left unexplained for the viewer to speculate about. And as much as this is a horror series, it's just as much a psychological thriller and family drama. And seeing how the horror is rooted in so many everyday woes and fears really helps to give it more impact. The particulars of how the various supernatural struggles play out is fairly rote, but it's the quieter, more ordinary moments that end up delivering more memorable nightmare fuel.

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