I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to be getting into with The Haunting of Hill House. Weirdly enough, with how much I love horror movies, I really haven’t seen that much horror TV. Then when I stopped to think about it, that’s because there really isn’t that much horror TV to begin with. I think that it’s difficult to stretch a horror story into a full season of television while maintaining the necessary scares and spook factor. There’s a reason why most horror movies are much shorter than movies of other genres, and that’s because you’re likely going to lose your audience if you add too much filler to it. So, I wasn’t sure how The Haunting of Hill House would be, but I heard raving reviews of it, so I figured I’d give it a shot. What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be the perfect horror TV show.

The show takes place over two separate timelines. The older timeline is from when the Crain family moves into a mansion called Hill House. The family’s patriarch, Hugh, has a career in flipping houses, and so he’s going into Hill House with the intention of fixing it up and selling it at a higher price. Hugh lives with his wife Olivia and their five children: Steve, Shirley, Theo (short for Theodora), and twins Luke and Nell (short for Eleanor). This older timeline highlights how the family was haunted while in the house. The newer timeline, set in the present day, now features the kids as full-grown adults, and shows us how the events at Hill House have impacted their lives.

The basic arcs here are as follows. Hugh is now estranged from his family, becoming very distant after Hill House. Olivia died at Hill House in a way that we don’t know about at the start, and so she isn’t alive in the present timeline. Steve is in denial that anything ever happened at Hill House, and thinks it’s bogus. He believes that all of his family’s problems stem from mental illness, but this hasn’t stopped him from making a career out of exploiting their experiences at Hill House by selling it as a bestselling “non-fiction” horror novel. Shirley now runs a funeral home and seems to have moved forward with her life, but still has some resentment and anger that stems from it. Theo lives with Shirley and works as a child psychologist, and is just trying to create a better future despite being emotionally numb due to her experiences. Luke has gone into a downward spiral, becoming a drug addict to dull the depression that he feels from his experiences. And Nell seems to be the most affected by her experiences at Hill House, never really being able to get past it. She’s forever haunted by what she’s seen, and she’s working to come to terms with it. However, things take a turn for the worse for everyone when the first episode ends with Nell committing suicide.

The genius of The Haunting of Hill House, and the key ingredient to me for making an effective horror story, is that it focuses first and foremost on creating compelling characters and stories. While the show does have scares sprinkled throughout, its goal is never to constantly try scaring you. This is a good thing, because this is what would make it go stale quickly. Instead, I was always drawn in and wanting to see where things were headed, because the focus was always on telling an interesting story.

Creator Mike Flanagan does this by ultimately telling a story on how a family deals with trauma and grief in their own ways. This is the central theme of the show. We get to see how childhood trauma impacts people in different ways, and how they will choose to move forward with their lives as a result. The show also touches heavily on the idea of mental illness vs. experiences that people believe are real. These were all very interesting topics that kept me way more invested in the show than its occasional scares ever did. Fans online have made connections to how each of the Crain children represent a different step in the five stages of grief, and this fact alone shows how seriously it intends on telling a great story.

Overall, I just loved The Haunting of Hill House. This is now becoming an anthology series, with a second unconnected season coming out later this year. I can only hope that future installments live up to this season, because it set a very high bar. I recognize that I really haven’t seen many other horror series before, but I think it’s because they’re so hard to get right. That’s why I consider it such an amazing feat that The Haunting of Hill House nails it. I didn’t even really get into some of the really unique things it does, such as an entire episode that’s in the style of a one-take shot. But this show really does nail it at every single stage in its story, and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants a great horror TV series.

5/5