The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix (Spoilers)

Yep, they were all aware that there was a young girl that actually lived on the property and they never thought for a second Luke's friend might be real

It was both dumb and an incredibly obvious twist

another thing that irked me was Shirley's one-night stand, the way it was just sort of tossed in at the 11th hour as a way to explain her being an asshole and more importantly to give her a reason to need redemption.

yeah, that dude literally materialised out of nowhere

yeah i think it could have been integrated better

I'm not going to read this whole thread since I'm only three episodes in but I think the casting in this is superb. They did an amazing job of not only finding people who actually look related to each other (at least the women) but also casting younger people who really do look like the older actors.

It seems to not be a universal opinion (to say the least), but I thought the casting and acting was excellent.

i agree except for stupid dumb Steve

I think some of the kid acting was a little kid acting-y but that's more than forgivable; all the non-Huisman adults are great. it's kind of funny to see his previous leading ladies (Reaser, Gugino, Siegel) united as one unhappy family.

agree!

Siegel is so good. I need to see Hush and Ouija 2 now. Huge fan.

the amazing one take (if it really was) during Eulogy when she misses the arm of the couch and falls on her ass!

Her screams when she touches Nelly's body ... i rarely find anything in a horror film heartbreaking but that was.

of the Flanagan flicks I've seen, I'd rank 'em:

Absentia
Oculus
Ouija 2
Gerald's Game
Hush

Oculus was pretty decent imo. I havent seen any of the others

Oculus was great.

Way, way better than a movie about a ~spooky mirror~ has any right to be.

otm

karen gillan also. which is the only reason I watched it at first

Man I really hated oculus and would put it dead last of the Flanagans I’ve seen

Man, that ranking is so not my ranking. Hush is his best movie imo

Madness. It's fine but no better than a half dozen other home invasion flicks.

I'd say the premise and execution is a little better than that

but I guess I think all his other movies have major elements that don't work for me, and Hush just does exactly what it sets out to with maximum efficiency

Finished this last night. Last episode was a little cheesy but at least it wasn't a complete letdown the way the end of Castle Rock was. The implication at the end though that the House itself isn't evil.. I guess this is consistent? I'm trying to think back on everything that happened in the house and is it true that nothing inside the house itself ever actually hurt anyone? Aside from mom going insane...but... how much of that was delusion on her part and something that the house created?

I thought the conversation between her and the dad around how he inflicted harm on the children by taking them and then shielding them from the truth was quite moving. but again I was fucking stoned.

Kate Siegel's speech about feeling absolutely nothing was quite great also, because that could be supernatural, but it could just be an accurate depiction of how grief can settle in.

Anyway I appreciated this show. It was intelligent, legitimately spooky and disturbing without ever being gory, and the performances were all pretty great. Of course there won't be a second season. Wouldn't mind seeing them helm another series though but i see he's doing Doctor Sleep (there are several shots in this that looked to me like "this is my Shining Sequel audition shot")

all the wee secret ghosts were creeeeepy

they were! i cant remember which ep it was but when little steve opted to hide ~under~ the bed from the tall man ghost i was like in any other house maybe but there’s prob something under there too!!
turned out there wasnt but it wigged me nonetheless
(then again i still have residual under the bed fears from childhood lol)

So I just finished this and really enjoyed it, until the last 15-20 mins of the last ep at which point I was basically:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Va5_rn3vG3A/hqdefault.jpg

But I loved the creepiness of the ghosts, especially tall man (was that meant to be ol'man Hill?) with his stick and hat.

And did anything ever explain the clock repairman? Were we just meant to assume the house is populated with old ghosts who like being there? The ending jarred with the rest for me, it made little sense that this was their "home" when the last 95% of the show had depicted the place as insane and distressing and evil.

yeah totally

This was total shit.

Just finished last night. I want to start with this:

another thing that irked me was Shirley's one-night stand, the way it was just sort of tossed in at the 11th hour as a way to explain her being an asshole and more importantly to give her a reason to need redemption.

― evol j, Thursday, October 25, 2018 2:51 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, that dude literally materialised out of nowhere

― Number None, Thursday, October 25, 2018 3:05 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i think it could have been integrated better

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, October 25, 2018 3:09 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...and say y'all are bad at paying attention because Shirley's one night stand dude popped up intermittently through the entire series.

So I'm one of those who complains about horror stuff that manages to stay good for a long while before shitting the bed in the home stretch...and I don't think that happened here. Maybe my opinion will change after some reflection, but I was actually pretty satisfied by the ending. I could write (and have written) a lot about how one of the most important functions of horror imo is as a proxy for processing trauma, and that subtext was brought very much to the fore wrt this show. The hauntings, the ghosts, were at the root the various traumas afflicting the characters. So it felt like a 'you can survive and overcome' ending felt appropriate to this particular journey.

In terms of plot mechanics, I don't really expect overt explicability from my supernatural fiction, but I feel like it was mostly consistent. The house had been painted as evil, but it was also pointed out on various occasions that there some real nutbags among the myriad of ghosts in residence, and it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to assume that the presence of a loving family of ghosts might have an effect on the psychic aura.

Absolutely everyone involved in this endeavor (save maybe Huisman) brought their A-game. I will be paying very close attention to future projects from these folks.

I gots lots to say but it's early and I have, y'know, work to do but I thought I'd just get down some first thoughts.

(I kinda feel like Huisman's primary impediment is possession of a physiognomy which doesn't transmit 'gravity' very well. Which I can sympathize with.)

Huisman is/was fine as a swinging-dick soldier on GOT, he just seemed miscast to me here.

He probably would've been fine as part of a slightly less talented cast, but everyone else in this was SO GOOD.

I don't know how I've apparently failed to see pretty much everything Carla Gugino ever did...except Son-in-Law apparently? But man. I hope her career gets a serious boost from this. All of their careers.

She was great in Gerald's Game.

I give Huisman a break because I find him ridiculously good-looking. He’s probably not as good primarily because English isn’t his first language.

The casting of the adult Luke was bad. The actor was ok but the child Luke was a very particular kind of child that wouldn’t have looked yow that adult looked.

how*

yeah casting of adult luke was hilarious.

generally in Flanagan's stuff the women get the meatier/more interesting roles and this was no different (with the exception of Hutton/Thomas)

Did they buy that house on the super-cheap or something? Seems odd that they moved into this place that was pretty immaculate as it was, were going to spend 3 months there (with 5 kids in tow) doing everything themselves and then flip it? I don't think they could have painted that place by themselves in that time, let alone whatever else it was that needed fixing. Were they counting on real-estate hysteria to drive the price up?

This is a hot mess, couldn’t make it past the first episode. Why they felt a need to mess with the perfect plot of the book I don’t know

Well, it'd be tough to get ten episodes out of it

It's not the book. If I have any one real qualm about the show, it's directed more generally toward the more tendency these days of Die Hard-ing essentially original properties into 'adaptations' that aren't actually adaptations in any meaningful sense.

more (I don't even know what that was, my keyboard must be haunted)

yeah, I agree with that.

It seems like Netflix bought the rights and then approached Flanagan to turn it into a show, but how much name value does did the book really have for the majority of their viewers? I don't see why it couldn't have been an original haunted house series and succeeded just as well.

another thing that irked me was Shirley's one-night stand, the way it was just sort of tossed in at the 11th hour as a way to explain her being an asshole and more importantly to give her a reason to need redemption.

― evol j, Thursday, October 25, 2018 2:51 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, that dude literally materialised out of nowhere

― Number None, Thursday, October 25, 2018 3:05 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i think it could have been integrated better

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, October 25, 2018 3:09 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...and say y'all are bad at paying attention because Shirley's one night stand dude popped up intermittently through the entire series.

― a butt, at which the shaft of ridicule is daily glanced (Old Lunch), Friday, November 2, 2018 8:19 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do remember seeing him at least once, I more just meant the payoff felt tacked-on, like the show needed to give Shirley something to have to atone for and this just felt like a half-assed 11th hour choice.

Nah. Every time the dude manifested, Shirley reacted to the vision in a way that suggested she was avoiding something shameful. The intention was fairly clear throughout and the reveal was consistent with the reactions we (or at least I) had seen previously.

I mean, there are plenty of loose threads to pick at in this series but this is not one of them imo.

As we barrel toward the start of production on @intrepid's new @netflix series THE MIDNIGHT CLUB, based on the work of Christopher Pike, I'm honored and thrilled to announce our cast:

— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) February 1, 2021

Christopher Pike! 12-year-old me would've been stoked about this lol

oh and I finally saw Oculus. The climax is better than most Flanagan endings but I still wouldn't exactly call it good - somehow it was both heavily foreshadowed AND seemed to come out of nowhere

Oculus isn't perfect but it manages to be a good movie about an evil mirror, and that's enough for me

that is true - as always, saved by great character work and a strong emotional core

is this the thread where we can discuss Midnight Mass? I'm on the final two episodes now - so far it's got both Flanagan's best and absolute worst tendencies on display, but i'm still mostly into it.

it's less scary than the two Hauntings, but potentially more traumatising for anyone who had a strict religious upbringing

it is good though?

I like it! But I can see how it can test some viewers' patience - it's slow-going to start with and he does love those goddamn monologues/long conversations. They hit hard on some occasions and completely kill the show's momentum on others.

Excellent cast though - Hamish Linklater esp but almost everyone is on point, which helps to distract from some of the clumsier writing. pleasantly surprised by the accurate and thoughtful portrayal of Muslim characters in this too.

And it sounds like you're really gonna hate his next series, No Ghosts, Just Talking

― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Monday, November 23, 2020 2:03 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is not entirely inaccurate, lol