RANTS AND REVIEWS & other stuff

2; review

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

-English

-series

-Netflix

-horror

-one season

-ten episodes

"Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House"

That is exactly where I knew I was going to love this one, approximately 2 minutes into the pilot episode. As most of you already know, THOHH is a novel by Shirley Jackson. To be honest, it is one of those classic literature books that we have heard about but never read. Now I wish I had, because Mike Flanagan completely blew me away with the adaptation of this masterpiece. I always had the idea that Horror movies were full of corny stuff that only scares you for a minute there. That too, sequels of them mostly turn out bad. ( refer to the Insidious disaster)

UM, MAKING 10 HOUR-LENGTHY EPISODES , PSHHH its gonna be bad

This series was a "bitch you thought wrong" to me, because holy crap. Holy crap.

It started off like a normal horror story, they come to a haunted house , if it wasn't clear enough, a family of seven. The father, Hugh Crain fixes old houses and sells them off for money. The Hill house project would be a big break for them because they'd make a fortune if they sold it.

Now the brilliance of this series lies in the details. Olivia Crain, mamma hot brunette, has 3 daughters who are all hot brunettes and also

They! Look! Like ! a real family!

I mean, how is that possible. ALSO, the child actors and their adult counterparts? That is some fine casting, like whoa.

THOHH has been snatching all wigs from episode 1. All the ghosts from the movie made a cameo in my nightmares, (Bent-Neck Lady I'm talking about you) so yeah, that's how scary it was. That's my opinion. Some found it tragic, intense, moving, but not scary. But I found all of it and more. I wouldn't say its terrifying but its intense. There are people who just fall into the hype and others to hate it due to the hype. In my opinion, its worth the hype. 

You know it's a good series when after 10+ hours of binge watching it, you spend another 5 hours stalking the cast members, watching interviews and playing freakin BuzzFeed quizzes to find out which Crain sibling you are.

(I got Theo Crain and I consider it the proudest moment in my life.)

There are little moments in the series where you cry, laugh, get scared, but mostly cry and relate with the characters in another level because each one of them is so deeply flawed, and I am not talking about general superficial flaws everyone has. Specific, intricate flaws that are buried deep inside that you need a pickaxe to dig them out. 

Steven Crain is selfish, yet brilliant. He's also a bigot and believes only in logic.

Shirley acts quickly on her anger, lashes out without thinking yet protective.

Theodora is a queen, my icon. Not because she is flawless, cause she's so full of flaws that you want to reach out and hug her.

Luke is an addict, and that's the only source of his flaws. His innocence deteriorated as he grew up, and drugs were his way of coping.

Eleanor is so pure, so so pure that it was easy to poison it.

There are little quirks in this series that makes it more interesting;

The five Crain siblings represent five stages of grief in the order.

The opening credits before every episode has a major clue for the mystery of the Red Room.

If you rewatch the whole series, you will find ghosts on the backdrop that you never noticed before.

Subtle hints aplenty!!

Some lines from the series brings chills, literal chills.

To conclude, I think THOHH is almost perfect and brilliantly taken in terms of screenplay, editing, visually pleasing. It deserves all the attention it get because its basically a family drama, with hypocrisy, fear, loss, secrets and when add horror to that mix. I'm sold. 

AND I'D DIE FOR THEO CRAIN AND I'LL MAKE A SEPARATE chapter ABOUT HER IF THIS GETS 10 VOTES

p.s go check out mike Flanagan's instagram page. You'll not be disappointed.