DL Fave "The Haunting of Hill House" being adapted for Netflix

As long as it's not Lili Taylor and CZJ, I don't really care.

I'll be happy to return.

CZJ, go back to your coke binges a herpes and stay away from acting.

In these PC times the roles will be played by a Trans actress wearing Ethel Mertz's hostess pants, and a bisexual black woman sporting purple overalls and a florescent hoodie.

Carla Gugino to star

Also Starring Michiel Huisman....mmmm...hope he is naked A LOT.

Oh no, not ANOTHER remake! The first one was truly godawful. I don't think this one will be any better.

Awful remake #1- color wth idiotic special effects, CJZ in the Claire Bloom part, and now another one? Hollywood never can come up with anything new,

Leave a classic alone.

Nobody could do a classy version as good as the first anymore. American film industry is dead. Everything is so earnest and maudlin. Maybe the Brits or the French could do it?

R7, R8, R9 = three eldergay crones who share a single eyeball

R10 = brain dead twat who adores remakes and sequels

Henry Thomas, others cast

Isn't there a difference between The Haunting and The Haunting of Hill House? They're the same story?

Or am I thinking of a different classic ghost movie?

It's the same story.

Aw shoot, I was thinkin' of The Legend of Hell House.

There's no reason for any remake.

Timothy Hutton cast

[quote]Henry Thomas, others cast

Wait, they made a movie out of Gerald's Game? Did I miss that?

According to the stories, this series will delve into the house's past. Perhaps director Flanagan will want to call it - HILL HOUSE: ORIGIN OF EVIL given his last OUIJA movie (which was actually pretty good).

R18, GERALD'S GAME isn't available on Netflix yet as far as I know.

Did it get a theatrical release?

Great movie.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen is cast!

First look!

Not included in the Deadline article, but the premiere date is October 12

The original film was excellent! That is the single best haunted house movie. The original will always be one of my all-time favorite movies.

I hope this series will live up to it, unlike that horrible remake. (How do you screw up remaking a film like "The Haunting"?)

I’ve enjoyed Mike Flanagan’s films (Oculus, Hush, Before I Wake) so looking forward to this.

DL fave!

Stellar reviews, 93% RT.

When does it come out?

Glad to hear that, will be binge watching it this weekend.

Hope Oliver Jackson Cohen has plenty of chances to unveil that magnificent pelt of his.

Are they releasing the complete season on 10/12?

On friday, R30 :)

Yes, apparently they're going to release all episodes at once.

To make it clear, this isn't a remake, which would be boring and unnecessary. The writer/director is just using the setting for a new story about people who grew up in the house, and have to reunite there as adults for some reason. Also, the director's Gerald's Game has always been on Netflix, it was made for Netflix. Can't wait to get drunk and start binging this Thursday after midnight.

Maybe the best film acting Julie Harris ever did.

R35 me too. Super excited about this release

Gerald's Game was a surprisingly terrific movie. That is perhaps due more to Carla Gugino than the material, but given that she's in this too.

Gerald's Game was BORING! 90% of that film consisted of nothing but miss Gugino having uninteresting conversation with the ghost of her dead husband. The ending was creepy but it couldn't make up for everything that came before.

[quote]Gerald's Game was BORING! 90% of that film consisted of nothing but miss Gugino having uninteresting conversation with the ghost of her dead husband. The ending was creepy but it couldn't make up for everything that came before.

My opinion is 180 degrees from yours. I thought the end was incredibly cheesy, and it dragging the rest of the film down was only prevented by some very effective shots mixed in with Stephen King's traditional inability to stick the landing on one of his books.

The house in this is totally wrong. I hate it already.

you mean they didn’t film at Ettington Hall?

CZJ played a BISEXUAL WOMAN in the 1999 remake - how forward for 1999! (Not.)

Owen Wilson was horrible, as always.

Lili Taylor as unauthentic, as always.

I got up early to watch the first episode before work. It’s really beautifully done. It’s like one of the early aughts family dramas like Six Feet Under or Brothers and Sisters but reimagined as a slow burn horror. The episodic format seems perfectly suited for slow burn horror, it makes me think something like Hereditary might have been more successful as a Netflix series.

The casting of Henry Thomas and Timothy Hutton as younger/older versions of the father is brill. And Michiel Huisman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen are so beautiful to look at.

WW, R10, I haven't laughed that hard at a DL comment in a while.

I’m on episode three and I’m loving...LOVING it so far.

Michael Huisman is some serious eye candy, I'm on episode four and, so far, it's well worth the binge.

Great big beautiful schnozz on Huisman. Reminds me of Dan Futterman.

I only made it through the first two episodes before I fell asleep at 3am. I think the director, Mike Flanagan, (who also writes and edits all his projects) is a horror talent on the level of Stephen King. Managing to make a good movie out of the sequel to "Ouija" of all things (the original gets 4% on RT) was already proof of that. It all started with Oculus 5 years ago. A surprise hit and then people were clamoring for a sequel. Mr Flanagan said he didn't conceive of the movie having a sequel, but he'd consider it. But instead of just cashing in with a shitty sequel, he moved on. He knows he can make great movies so why not do that instead of selling out.

Will be watching for Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

I’m fixing to start episode 6. This show is hitting the spot for me, as I love being spooked out but I hate gore.

I don't know if the show is scary or not, because the cinematography is so dark, I can't actually see what's happening.

Just finished it and it was really good. I teared up at the end of the last episode.

Fabulous from start to finish, despite perhaps (like nearly all shows nowadays) being a little unnecessarily bloated to last for 10 episodes.

Halfway through. The actress playing adult Nell is amazing.

Bleh. Remakes.

In the original, Claire Bloom, the ex of Philip Roth, is one hot lesbo.

I loved the first episode. Mike Flanagan should be considered a great director and writer. I’m a big Carla G fan since Gerald’s Game. My only complaint is Henry Thomas is playing Timothy Huttons character 30 years in the past when he is only 10 years younger.

I wish Mike Huisman would do something with a lot of nudityhe almost did a Greenaway film...

I don’t mind a diverse cast when it is well done but sometimes it feels like casting has been forced by gun point to hire Asians Latinos and blacks like in this show. Where the fuck is the Native Americans?

THIS is an American Horror Story. Ryan Murphy could learn a few things.

I’m liking this more than AHS and 6FU.

Handsome Luke I think is my favorite character.

Thank you wardrobe person for Michiel Huisman’s tight short sleeved shirts.

Actually I liked the original and the remake but why can't they think of a new story?

R64 =

The lead is so hot. Loved him when he was in GOT.

Hollywood really is pushing interracial relationships on us.

I really enjoyed this series. I loved the family/sibling aspect in the retelling. I liked the series enough to rewatch it from the beginning. I also started Light as a Feather on Hulu.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I love you R69

Michiel with his dick out.

I used a lot of tissues during this series. It was excellent.

I loved the lead when he was on Orphan Black. He looks so cute in this with his carefully coiffed hair.

I still have no idea what's going on though. I think I have four episodes left.

Also this thread doesn't show up on searches.

I don’t remember drug addiction depicted so realistly ugly as this show. Sometimes it feels like a soap opera with a supernatural subplot. Still I’m loving it. I can’t wait to find out the secret between the mortician’s husband and system. It ain’t an affair.

I have a crush on Carla Gugino, she's gorgeous. If I were straight I would marry her. Michiel Huisman is hotter than I remember. Wow.

I think the interracial relationships were maybe a somewhat clumsily overt symbol that the siblings’ emotionally incestuous bond divided everyone into insiders and outsiders.

R73 this thread was started in 2017 so it’s a bit always down but I found it by putting in “Haunting”

How do you mean to type sister but it comes out system ?

I’m a little confused at who is who in beginning. I thought maybe two sisters were gay. I liked how the gay sister storyline was handled. Her Asian two night stand is beautiful but hate her tats. Having a sister who is hooked on pills the writing is very true.

Is Tim Hutton playing a different character that Henry Thomas ? Something doesn’t feel right. I’m almost half done.

I also love Carla but her long flowing wig is distracting making her look like the most beautiful Morticia Adams ever.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen was in The Man In The Organge Shirt. Is it any good?

Timothy Hutton is playing the older, present-day version of Henry Thomas's character.

[quote]Is Tim Hutton playing a different character that Henry Thomas ? Something doesn’t feel right. I’m almost half done.

I'm not sure if this is a spoiler or not because I haven't watched yet. But in case it is.

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

Hutton is the older version of Thomas' character.

[quote]Oliver Jackson-Cohen was in The Man In The Organge Shirt. Is it any good?

Yes. His episode (the first part of two-part mini) is excellent.

Timothy Hutton,Henry Thomas, and Annabeth Gish. Couldn't they find a part for Andrew McCarthy?

Anna Beth looks the same but still playing a stern housekeeper.

Something happens I’m not gonna say what episode I don’t want to spoil it scared the fuck out of me and I don’t scare easy

Timothy Hutton is the ToniCollete of this story. He makes you believe all the crazy stuff is happening. This show better be nominated for a lot of fucking Emmys or I’m going to cut someone.

When is this on, or is it over?

Nevermind.

Just finished episode two. Liking the story overall, but not the pace. Curious to find out why Shirley keeps seeing dead people, what happened to the kids mother, why Luke went to drugs, and why Nell killed herself.

I like the scares so far: the father's face changing weirdly, the dead kitten and the bug/creepy eyes, the 2nd woman in the funeral home, everyone pushing the kids to look at dead people in caskets. I didn't like the blatant shot on the little house sitting in Shirley's office - the camera lingered on it for so long that you just knew that it was going to be focused on again before the end of the episode... and it was. Not subtle.

I started watching this and I'm worried I will get too scared! I've only watched the first two episodes and did fine with those. Does it get a lot scarier?

They are mostly just jump scares. Nothing that will keep you up at night. The show is not really horror: although it is set in a haunted house, it evolves into so much more. It really reminds me of Six Feet Under and the like.

Episode six (I think) set in the funeral home was excellent.

Ack. This show is just boring and slow. The characters are too slow, dumb, boring, and similar. Netflix has nothing to offer, except maybe the repeats of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Netflix sucks. Sorry but I’m now on Hulu rewatching the three seasons of Fargo. Season two is perfection.

R90 Nobody cares about you.

I've been told there's a lot of animal abuse in episode 2. Is this true, and if it's really bad, can I skip the episode?

r92 someone is lying to you.

SPOILERS FOR Episode 4

Holy crap -- That floating man thing was truly horrific!

I just finished episode 5 and that hit made me cry!!!

Yes you cry and get scared. What’s the difference if it is a jump scare. At least they are not using a cat.

I’m putting off watching the last two episodes because if it is renewed next season will be a year or longer andS2 is always not as good.

Agree with R80, Cohen is the best thing about Man in an Orange Shirt. It's a heavy-handed and the characters are underwritten and often do or say things that seem way out of character just to advance the plot, like a straightlaced schoolteacher dropping an f-bomb (in 1946 ?!) or 2 middle class ladies discussing homosexuality with a ribald familiarity that would have been unthinkable for women of their background in those days.

Basically it's the story of a doomed love affair between 2 former schoolmates who meet again by chance in Sicily in WW2 and are forced to part because of the social attitudes of the times. Part 2 takes place in the present day, with the grandson of one of the men struggling with self-loathing and sexual addiction, and is far less effective than Part 1. Part 1 has plenty of flaws but succeeds on the magical chemistry between Jackson-Cohen and JamesMcArdle who plays his war artist lover. When these 2 meet by chance for the final time, ten years after their affair, both having made their life choices, and then say their regretful, subtext-heavy goodbyes, it's gut wrenching to watch.

The couple in Part 2 (one of whom is played by DL fave Julian Morris) have zero chemistry and are basically cardboard characters. Also, I didn't believe Vanessa Redgrave for a,second as an old version of the young wife from Part 1, or her 180 change of heart at the end. Since the cast from Part 1 is so much stronger and there are so many frustratingly unanswered questions, if I'd been the director, I'd have used the same cast and killed off Granny at the start of Part 2. The story would then have been Michael's grandson (played again by Jackson-Cohen) inheriting his cottage and embarking on a discovery of family secrets as he slowly renovates it, and along the way has a reunion with a former schoolmate, the great nephew of the war artist from part 1, (McArdle again), because those 2 had chemistry to burn.

An I the only one who thinks Henry Thomas grew up to be a hot daddy?

I liked it overall but the ending wasn’t particularly satisfying, IMO. Also, it was sadly lacking shots of the men’s bare feets.

I haven't read all the replies, so if I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with a post, please forgive me. I don't think the original movie needed a remake. My brother and I were raised on scary movies. My Dad would sit with us for horror movie marathons, or take us to the drive-in for them.. When we'd watch them at home, he'd make French fries, and we'd sit around the TV with our French fries and Cokes (my Dad would have beer) watching them. I shared a room with my older brother back then, and the only movie that kept us up at night was the original version of 'The Haunting'. When we watched that (it wasn't late night, but in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday), we were terrified. We had to keep talking to each other, in the dark, to reassure each other, but we were both really shaken by the movie. Unfortunately, my mean brother decided to start incorporating sound effects to scare me, and I ended up taking my pillow and going to sleep on the living room couch.

This isn’t a remake. The only returning character is Hill House.

I fell asleep through most of it but I agree the ending isn’t satisfying. I like happy endings but this seemed a little too much also Annabeth Gish’s old age make up was terrible. I will rewatch one day.

After it was over Netflix gave me a preview of The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell. I never heard of her. Is she a drag queen?

The girl playing young Theo is excellent. She’ll be a star.

She was in “Gifted” with Chris Evans playing a math prodigy, r101.

Wait, what? That's the same as The Haunting movie with Liam Neeson, Lily Taylor, and Catherine Zeta Jones who was so young she was still in her mother's womb?

Young Theo was also in that new Lifetime movie that Rob Lowe directed, Bad Seed.

I loved the series but didn't feel they stuck the ending. And I wouldn't call this a remake, as much as I would a retelling.

No, that’s actually true R92. There’s an extended thing with dead kittens that goes on for nearly half the episode. The issue with animal abuse in horror films is really fucking annoying. Directors and writers use it as a go to when they can’t come up with anything else.

I disagree with several opinions regarding the last episode. I thought it was fantastic and was very surprised at my emotional reaction to it. This series was very entertaining and is very binge-worthy.

SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The jump scare that happened in the car scene with Theo and Shirley...WHOA!!! I needed a second after that one!

Fun ghost-busting (SPOILERS, obviously)

I'm trying to watch this but it's really dull. Finished second episode last night. All the women look, talk, dress, and act exactly the same. I get they're sisters but I have no idea which is which. They just all blur together. So far it's just been dead cats and silly scares. Not sure if I'll waste more time on it.

Episode 3 and 5 are excellent.

R106 no there isn't animal abuse in the series.

SPOILER>>>> Those kittens die on their own from a disease. But no abuse of the kittens is ever shown or is it ever implied that the kittens were abused. Now you could argue the kittens were diseased because of the house but still no abuse ever takes place.

I hate when there's a cute animal - usually a cat - introduced in a show like this. You know something horrible is going to happen to it. It pisses me off.

It's not like they kill real cats or anything, I don't love it either but jfc it's that only time in 10 episode.

At first I thought it was as boring as fuck and couldn't figure out who was who. I stuck with it and am now hooked.

[quote]This isn’t a remake. The only returning character is Hill House.

There are characters called Nell, Theo and Luke. It may be a "reimagining."

If it had been more faithful to the novel, it wouldn't be a remake either, it would be an adaptation.

[quote] I get they're sisters but I have no idea which is which. They just all blur together.

That was my feeling, too, in the beginning episodes. Then it changed for me with "The Twin Thing" and "The Bent-Neck Lady" (episodes 4 & 5). I started watching the show expecting nothing more than some cheap horror movie thrills. I never expected to cry over some characters in a haunted house story, which is what happened to me while watching those episodes. And then I finally could distinguish Theo from Nell. Theo, as Steven says, is a clenched fist with hair.

Episode 6 (Two Storms) could be a Broadway play, where the family comes together the night before Nell's funeral, meeting up at the funeral home to view the body. They argue, they cry, they point fingers at each other, they reveal secrets. Nell even "crashes" the get-together.

Although I am not familiar with the actors playing the siblings, and they are the most amazing part of it. You discover the character and the actor at the same time, and that's particularly powerful because the actor comes with no prior performance baggage if you experience it this way. And BTW, who the fuck is Victoria Pedretti (Nell) and where did they ever find her? Her IMDB profile reveals she pretty much appeared out of thin air, but I won't forget her after "The Bent-Neck Lady".

I know that writing is everything, but casting is everything, too.

Tried it, but it just didn’t work for me. Apostle, now that’s another story...

The kittens don't even look real.

I love the dad in the series. He was such a good father. Thr last episode made me cry but I still felt like the haunted house part was never resolved for me. I still love the series though. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

🔽🔽🔽

The car scene with Theo and Shirley was scarey af.

I agree Victoria reminds me of a great actress in a foreign movie maybe directed by Pedro Almodovar. I like Carla but she pales in comparison standing next to Victoria. I believe Carla was the weak link and the fake wig doesn’t do her any favors. The actress playing Theo also was very good she starred in the same director’s Hush a great movie....

The point there are extended scenes of animal death and illness, for literally half an hour R111. A tired, boring, useless horror trope and go to for lazy writers and directors. It’s a horror trend that has been discussed and pointed out for many many years and needs to end. It happens in nearly every single horror movie.

It's disturbing to those of us who like animals. As r122 said it's a cheap way to show the evil of the house. In any darkish book or movie (even Handmaiden's Tale) as soon as an animal appears, you know it's a goner. I won't watch some Wes Anderson movies either because he has some pet being killed horribly in several of them.

I've been watching this series while doing other things, which helps diminish the fear, but I fast forwarded through the scenes with the kittens because I knew what was going to happen to them as soon as they appeared.

The kittens were sick and they kept trying to nurse them back to health. I didn't think it was "animal abuse". If that's what bothered you in the series, not a woman hanging herself or anything else, I can't imagine how you get through life.

Plus it wasn’t real animals anyway.

I'm terribly dissapointed to read that this isn't a remake. I was excited to see who they would cast in the Claire Bloom ,Julie Harris ,etc roles, When I first heard about this I thought it would be another recreation of the Shirley Jackson novel and was looking forward to it. Oh well.

I thought Carla was ravishing in this; she looked better than she has in years.

And I think the actress who plays Nell (Victoria Pedretti) is quite a find. When she appears with her dead eyes, she reminds me of something out of Fulci's The Beyond.

The show is filmed in LaGrange, Georgia and Decatur, Ga

I LOVE animals R123 As in I'm an animal MARY! who has volunteered at shelters for a long time and who won't even eat them. I won't watch scenes of real animal abuse if I can avoid them, certainly I would never approve or ignore the issue. That scene depicted fake kittens that die offscreen (one maybe onscreen? Clearly fake too anyway), we may asumme it was peacefully in their sleep. Calling that "animal abuse" is frankly going too far. Humans die onscreen there too, in an equally fake and unexploitative manner.

Agree r101 she acted circles around the other kids. And some of the adults.

Screw her. Why aren’t I a DL icon, bitches?

The director is like Spielberg caliber talent. This is a masterpiece.

[quote] This is a masterpiece.

That was my feeling when I was in the middle of it. Then I watched episode 10. But I don't hold that disappointing ending against the writer/director. He had to deliver to Netflix a conventional haunted house movie, and he fulfilled that obligation with the finale. But before he got to that last episode, when we couldn't tell if the sibs were haunted or mad, it was something very special. If you throw out a few episodes of this series in the beginning and at the end, then I would say this is the best thing I've watched this year. I really loved the twins and their stories/connection.

Michiel Huisman is really gorgeous. He's like a hunkier, handsomer, taller version of the young Dan Futterman.

I am amazed how much Henry Thomas and Timothy Hutton look like the same person as different ages. Genius casting.

Poor Annabeth Gish. She deserves better parts in 2018 than Mrs. Dudley.

I wish the little girls who played the daughters in childhood were less cutesy.

The kittens weren't real for the most part, just when they were seen early on, but I agree it was a cheap narrative trick.

I wish I liked it more than I did. I felt the Shirley character was unfairly maligned because the script didn't set her up as thinking she was perfect like she kept being accused of. Her husband took the money without telling her, then Theo lived rent free and ate Shirley's food then called her a stuck up bitch for not taking the money, but Shirley deserved to be treated that way because of a one-night stand six years earlier? Puritan bullshit. I hate that kind of thinking has come back into our culture.

But then of course the hot mean lesbian was super terrific no matter how awful she was, and let's hint at the lesbian fucking around with her sister's husband because lesbians are sneaky and crave dick. But oh no, it wasn't dick craving at all! Hooray for more cheap narrative tricks!

Meh.

I didn't love it. But Luke and Steve were hot.

And I liked the little Easter egg of the E.T. Lunchbox in the treehouse. Nice touch.

It's weird--the plot is much more like "The Hotel New Hampshire" or "The Prince of Tides" than "The Haunting of Hill House."

I wish the director(s) were better with young children. They give sitcom, smart-alecky performances .

I wish to be spit-roasted or Eiffel Towered by Oliver Jackson Cohen and Michael Huisman. That is all.

I didn't even realize that actor was Henry Thomas until I saw the lunchbox. Then when I looked it up I was shocked to find out Thomas was older than I am -- I'd thought he was years younger than me when I saw ET in the theaters as a kid.

Those contact lenses they gave him looked terribly uncomfortable and aged him. Carla Gugino is his age and looked a decade younger. She looked fantastic.

I just finished episode 5. It's boring me to death. Does it get better?

R135 you sound like a media fed tool.

What happens in the car scene? I'm scared to watch it now.

The most supernatural thing about this is the unaging Carla Gugino. Damn she's got good genes...or a portrait in the attic.

Anyway I got hooked on this and sped through all the eps in three nights. The last episode is very unfortunate, because it's not only weak in its own right but it undermines the whole series. BUT it was a very good journey. Some great acting, great atmosphere, great directing & camerawork, and a clever structure. Sometimes hacky writers use multiple timelines as a cheap way of building suspense but it was really done right here. Loved the moments when the script sort of folded in on itself. Sure I could nitpick stuff but on the whole I found it very good, even with that ending.

I will rewatch at some point, if only to spot the background ghosts. I missed all of them, but I did catch a statue that moved twice. I wonder if there is more stuff like that going on.

Still don't understand why they name checked Shirley Jackson when the story has almost nothing to do with her novel.

I like how the show keeps giving me goosebumps. Goosebumps feel kind of good and you can't control them, so you know you're in the hands of a horror maestro forcing you to have them. This show is as spooky as it gets. Nibbling at it slowly, I think I'm only on the 4th episode.

I got through an entire episode and a half.

I used to mock "The Walking Dead" for casting non-Americans in a story set completely in America. Why not just use the real thing instead of training some overseas person in an American dialect? This show is the answer to that question. It's because sometimes they are too fucking good to pass up-- Jackson-Cohen & Huisman to be specific.

Just finished the episode where they have the viewing for Nell. Puzzled why Steve gets so aggravated when they talk about the wacky things that happened in the house when they were growing up. He was there and experienced his own bizarre events, but now he wants to attribute everything to mental illness. Also, it was unsettling that the dad seems to be seeing weird things in the funeral home, like seeing the house while looking for the bathroom/seeing bent-neck lady. It's weird that the father lived through so much craziness in the house but still seems to take everything in stride - dead wife/daughter, haunted house, etc.

It was really messed up when Nell's casket fell over and she rolled out and the buttons on her eyes. The family just "accepted" it after their upbringing. The rest of us would be halfway home.

Mike Flanagan, the show's terribly talented director, gave an interview this week (I forget where I read it) where he says they almost ended the show on a more depressing note (I almost said what it was but realized that some of you aren't to end yet and didn't want to be a spoiler) but when he woke up the morning they were set to shoot it he decided to give them a more hopeful ending, after everything they've been through; he felt the characters had earned it. I found the ending kind of treacly while watching it but I did appreciate what he said about it.

I am a particularly delicate flower, and even with content warnings from others I may well be triggered by upsetting things that upset me!!!!

Episode 6, in which the family gathers at the funeral home for the funeral of Nell, was a huge technical undertaking (so to speak)-

[quote]Episode six is the centrepiece of the 10-part series, a technical tour de force that brings together the show’s fragmented storylines (and a plethora of paranormal activity) in a single hour-long shot.

[quote] Although it looks seamless, the episode – which takes place simultaneously in a funeral home and the titular house – is actually sewn together through a series of long shots and camera trickery. But it still required some 20-minute takes, a scarily huge task that almost got the better of the show.

[quote] .....It wasn’t just the cast that had to rehearse in such a short amount of time, but the crew too. Because not only did a heavy camera have to work its way around the set, but props were in constant movement behind the lens, with lights being changed on the go too.

Just finished episode 7 and Timothy Hutton is bringing the hour to a halt. His faltering, hesitant speech pattern and no expression face is dragging things to a snails pace. Yeah, his character is traumatized but he needs to bring a little juice to his scenes. Oooof.

I agree the show gets much better as it goes on. It's hard in the first few episodes to keep Shirley and Theo (both younger and older) straight, and it didn't help their older versions both look like Carla Gugino; and the changing timelines are also confusing; but by the fourth and fifth episode things really pick up in terms of making the characters' stories clear.

It is a lot like American family dysfunction fiction, though, which does tend to limit its depth.

[quote] It is a lot like American family dysfunction fiction

Some reviewers have called it "This Is Us" if the childhood home were a haunted house. But I love it anyway.

The “hot lesbian” as viewed through the gaze of a straight male director is one of the most tired horror tropes next to killing animals. Enough already.

R135 is dead on.

R155 = 135

Overall it was nice and spooky enough. A bit heavy on the family melodrama at the end though. But I really liked the reveal of the red room mystery.

I found out why Victoria Pedretti (Nell) doesn't have a substantial resume. She just graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017.

I just finished episode 10. The ending was very much in the DNA of Six Feet Under, but ultimately I felt it was true to the story told.

Yes there are flaws but it’s undeniablely a work of genius (Steven King praised the same on Twitter). This is a classic that will be talked about for the years.

The adult Nell was great, but the child Nell was awful.

^ same with Luke

The childhood Luke was annoying, but at least he seemed real. The childhood Nell might as well have been a regular character on "Small Wonder."

Director Mike Flanagan is loysl to his actors, having worked with Elizabeth Reaser, Henry Thomas and Lulu Wilson (young Shirley) in “Ouija: Origin Of Evil” a couple of years back.

He also is married to Kate Siegel (Theo) in real life. She has been in most of his movies including the lead role in “Hush” which I really enjoyed.

I hope he casts DL favorite Brenton Thwaites in something again!

Mike did the great Gerald’s Game.

This series, like several other recent ones, opens the doors of reality a crack. It is used to let through nightmarish, cyclopean beings from a dark place between the stars. This is what the Secret Lesbians hoped to accomplish.

Uh, I’m four episodes in and I’d hardly call this a work of genius R159. Hyperbole much? It’s not even at the level of “Castle Rock” on Hulu which had one of the best stand alone episodes of TV ever made with Sissy Spacek called “The Queen.” THAT episode was a work of genius, and worth watching the whole series, which never quite got to that level again. I doubt this show will ever approach those heights.

The acting and casting is weird and stilted (Gugino is modern and uncomfortable, the Theo would barely past muster on an NBC cop show, Huisman struggles and looks bored, Hutton is... in another show? - not clear, the others including the kids are bland to forgettable,) the horror tropes and jump scares overflowing, and the green tinted cinematography is so early aughts.

Also, for people to talking about this years after, there’s have to be a clear indication it’s some sort of cultural touchstone or had picked up on the zeitgeist, and that’s simply not the case. To compare is to SFU is totally laughable. It has none of that show’s wit, beauty or brilliance.

Hush, Oculus, and Ouija are complete trash. You’re calling this guy a genius? Come on, Trumpies.

Stephen King called it a work of genius. Clearly R167 with his impressive resume of bitching on the Internet knows horror better than Stephen King.

[quote] I hope he casts DL favorite Brenton Thwaites in something again!

Brenton Thwaites is busy with DC's Titans playing Nightwing. It's available on DC's own streaming service.

[quote] I’m four episodes in

Episodes 5 & 6 were the biggies for me. But episode 4 was the twin thing, and we notice you didn't mention anything about Jackson-Cohen.

If you watch the rest of it with your arms folded on your chest, you're right, it won't get any better.

While Stephen King himself IS a horror genius, he has a LOOOOOOONNGG history of extolling hyperbolic praise on trash like R158, so while I like some of his work and love some of his work, I take his recommendations with a big of grain of salt.

"It was the best thing I've seen so far this year!"

I did this play in college. I was Luke!

I always wondered what King felt about AHS.

AHS is great with visual camp and gore. THoHH is good in its own way. Love the jump scare of Nelly telling her sisters to stop bickering.

[quote]Puzzled why Steve gets so aggravated when they talk about the wacky things that happened in the house when they were growing up. He was there and experienced his own bizarre events, but now he wants to attribute everything to mental illness

Classic denial. Not at all strange. Besides, he seems to have been the least touched by the house. I might be misremembering but I don't think he actually saw any ghosts, did he? He certainly didn't have experiences like the twins.

Yes he saw the ghost with the mustache winding the clock.

Well it is certainly impossible that Steve could cling to his skepticism in episode six, having witnessed the bizarre event of a man fixing a clock 25 years earlier.

He didn't recognize the clock fixer as a ghost. He thought it was a living person. So when he said he never saw any ghosts, he wasn't lying. He didn't think he had.

His dad said it best when he said that Steve "didn't 'get' the house". The twins got the shittiest deal of all the kids for sure.

I liked it much better after the first two or three episodes were done. I don't think they did a good job at all establishing the story (and most people seem to agree); but once you get into it, it gets much better. the fourth and fifth episodes, told from Luke's and Nell's points of view, are very helpful for helping you understand what's going on.

It's a lot like "The Babadook"--it's really a story of family dysfunction, with the supernatural serving mostly to enhance the larger family story.

How I would have made it better:

*I would not have named the eldest daughter "Shirley"--not only is it anachronistic, but whenever they address her it sounds like they're saying "Surely" and I kept expecting Leslie Nielsen to pop up and say, "And don't call her Shirley."

*I would have not cast three women with breast length dark brown long hair as the adult Shirley, Theo, and Nell. Had one of them had short hair, or had reddish-blond hair (like Luke), or worn glasses it might have helped enormous telling them apart in the early episodes. The actress who plays Shirley is shorter than the other two, but height doesn't help because it doesn't always register clearly on screen.

*The clothing and hairstyle for Annabeth Gish didn't seem right. Is she supposed to be a religious fundamentalist? I couldn't figure her character out. She was too pretty and modern to be believable as a frumpy housekeeper.

*I would not have moved part of the story to Los Angeles. It would have made more sense for Luke to be in the NE Corridor still. Southern California is too unlike the rest of the US, so it changed the tone of the series considerably for the scenes to move between Massachusetts and LA.

*It just seemed hard to believe one struggling man could try to flip a house that gigantic all by himself. If he could afford to do it with all those workmen, it did not make sense why he would need to move his family in.

*It didn't make sense the Hugh character couldn't explain in full to his grown children what he thought was going on with the house. He kept trying to explain and they kept interrupting him.

R181 = the second coming of Robert Evans

R181 I definitely agree with your last point. By that point, just freaking tell them what happened in the house. I couldn't stand all the interrupting everyone did and how they talked over each other. I just wanted to yell at them to stfu and listen to each other.

That's why I loved the scene in the car with Shirley and theo and the surprise visit from Nell. Told them to stop and Shirley finally let Theo speak. That was satisfying.

I actually like the child actors. Although I do keep expecting someone to tell young Luke that he'll "shoot his eye out!"

Someone explain the red room to me. “You’ve all been in the room.”

It was a metaphor for their mother’s womb. Note its vaginalike shape.

Rather the vaginalike shape of the door.

The idea of a “womb” in a haunted house is a motif seen in many horror movies, notably “Alien” where it housed the central computer not subtlety called Mother

The concept arises from “birth trauma” the idea that we actually remember the trauma of our birth and remember the womb and it’s relative safety

Recommended reading

Henry Thomas played Carla Gugino's molester dad in Gerald's Game.

So when they were going into the red room before, it looked like they were entering the red room off the top of the stairs. And if it also acted as a tree house, did they enter from outside?

That ending sucked. Steve was too low key to give the final chapter to. Plus, what was that deal with the Dudley's that they factored so much into the conclusion - they practically forgot about Liv and how she destroyed the ones of her children and husband.

destroyed the LIVES of her children

I loved little Luke. He was adorable! The actress who plays Shirley has a gigantic head. Michael Huisman looks like Ashton Kutcher without his beard. Seriously he looks like a different person without the beard. Still hot though.

Huisman is hot but he was stuck with playing a bland and weak character. He also did just okay with the American accent. Reaser had more to work with but it was pretty much a thankless role.

Oliver Jackson Cohen and the actresses playing Nell and Theo made much more of an impression.

I was also annoyed by the disagreement about who took money from the sale of Steve's book. The story wanted to make it this big lifelong morality issue among the siblings but I just thought it was a whole lot of yelling about nothing. Theo (and Nell?) should have just smoked a cigarette and got over it.

I didn’t understand Young Luke’s imaginary friends storyline at all.

I really love Little Luke too. He's not a trained actor or anything, you can see the seams, but he has the gift that you genuinely feel protective of him - whenever he got scared I wanted to crawl through the screen and hug him. Felt the same way about Jacob Tremblay in Room.

Mike Flanagan actually worked with Tremblay before in Before I Wake, which I also thought was a fine little scare flick, if you want to look for something new after finishing this.

I don't think Flanagn's made a masterpiece yet but I think everything he's made has been solid and smart and scary, and he might just yet. Fingers crossed for DOCTOR SLEEP, which he's working on now. I never read the book, though.

Agree R197 it all seems a little trivial.

‘Why did you let her keep that box of sick kittens???’

So underwhelmed after the first two episodes. Given the positive word on later episodes maybe I’ll stick with it. The diagramming of the characters between youth and adulthood couldn’t be more crude.

And if the writer thought that ‘Shirley’ would be a nice homage to Jackson it turned out to be an irritating distraction.

R198 my understanding was that his imaginary friend, Abigail, wasn't imaginary at all. She was the caretakers' daughter and lived in a house somewhere in the woods, but no one ever saw her but Luke. I find that a little hard to believe, so maybe I'm wrong and she wasn't real.

Did he have any imaginary friends other than her? I can't remember.

r201, it gets much better after the first two-three episodes. Stay with it.

I was initially looking forward to this, because I thought it was an actual remake of the Shirley Jackson novel. Frankly I am really pissed, why did they present it as something it isn't? On that note, I would love to see a decent remake of the 1963 film, I think it would be so interesting to recast the parts. Both the novel and the original movie were incredibly sophisticated in a lot of ways.

I liked most of it, but the end was really a letdown. Basically, the house was a helicopter parent. I was genuinely frightened by some of the scenes, although once the bent neck lady is revealed it lost some power and just became sad. However, the last episode was truly hokey and treacly and I ended up rolling my eyes more than anything. I will say, the actress playing Poppy Hill, the one in the flapper dress, was outstanding. The actress playing Theo paled in comparison, made her sobbing speech to Shirley just look amateurish.

Shirley’s husband was played by Anthony Ruivivar who played the dad of the family who buys the murder house at the end of AHS, season one.

R206 It's been a while since I've watched Murder House, but didn't his family see the ghosts the first night and got the hell out of there? Very smart of them.

Connie and Dylan scare the family into fleeing.

For the first three episodes I thought Shirley was called Cheryl.

Her pussy did stick.

Stick? The entire thread is ruined by your typo.

Me-OW.

Do you think this show is Emmy worthy ?

No R213. Not even close.

Episode 4 = more meh. The walking stick guy was scary the FIRST TIME when he was terrorizing little Luke, not the next ten times he showed up in the episode when Luke was counting over and over, stalling the episode. Uuuggghhhhh. Little Luke is pretty much the only one I feel anything for in this mess. He’s getting the shit end of the stick and I completely buy his drug addiction, HOWEVER, that does NOT carry over to Oliver Jackson whasthername who is overparted by the role and couldn’t pull off a believable scene if his ass depended on it. I was slightly moved by the girlfriend’s dinner scene, she acted it well, but the tone in general just continues to be off and the writing and acting are subpar.

If this episode was supposed to be an indication of the season picking up or better things coming... I don’t buy it. I find the family bickering and disbelief of each other not at all convincing and an annoying plot point to slow down a basically empty story. And can someone tell me wtf Carla Gugino is doing in this other then she worked with the director before?

This should have had maybe three episodes, HEAVILY edited, like most Netflix shows. Maybe Netflix is learning, they seem to be canceling everything left and right these days.

Also, downtown Atlanta doesn’t look anything like downtown LA.

Fuck off, R156. I don't shill my own posts on DL because, unlike you, I'm not bothered by people who don't share my opinion of a Netflix original series.

Maybe you need to examine why you're so upset at something an anonymous person on DL said about a TV show.

The argument over the book makes sense, because the know-it-all asshole brother who didn't see half of what went on and didn't believe the little he DID see decided he was going to tell the whole family story. He wasn't sympathetic or doing it for the right reasons, he was just using the family trauma for selfish gain. Nell's comments to him at the book reading were dead on, but everyone acting like she was crazy for confronting him there really undermined what I thought should have been a big explanatory point as to WHY the book mattered so much.

And of course the husband taking the money without telling Shirley is a huge deal-breaker in most marriages. Here, it was just another "let's examine both sides" fake-out where we're supposed to see the husband's point. "Well, you're always being nice to people which costs money, so I had to humiliate you in front of your family. It was all your fault, you see."

It was more of the "two sides of the story" theme, R198. In a story about the supernatural and hauntings, we discover a lot of the so-called ghosts aren't ghosts at all.

Luke's imaginary friend wasn't imaginary at all, it was just the caretakers' daughter Abigail.

I can only imagine how fans of this series are going to react if they buy the book and learn that, aside from use of character names like Nell, Theodora, and Luke and the Crain family owning Hill House, the series has nothing to do with the book. I hope the Shirley Jackson estate made some decent money off of this.

All the family members were kind of dicks and cunts. The mother fucked them up by not preparing them for having supernatural powers (the twins and the middle daughter at least). The father kept them away from the house and him to keep them from finding out that their mom did kill someone (Abigail) that night. Of course to the kids it looked like he abandoned them. And all these resentment issues, losing their mom under suspicious circumstances, and some of them having paranormal abilities turned them into, well dicks and cunts.

R220 I'm a huge fan of the book and was very dissapointed that the series wasn't really a remake at all.

r221

what powers did the twins have?

R222 Hollywood needs to put together a decent remake of the ACTUAL Shirley Jackson novel and 1963 movie, not just an homage that will let down Jackson fans who were expecting a recreation of the novel . I won't even count the 1999 version, the less that's said about that the better. Carrie Mulligan could take the Julie Harris role while Mila Kunis could take Claire Blooms role. Perhaps dl fave Armie Hammer for Russ Tamblyns role and Gabriel Byrne as the doctor.

You'd think the dad would've been arrested for the death of his wife. He must've had a great lawyer.

[quote].... Oliver Jackson whasthername who is overparted by the role and couldn’t pull off a believable scene if his ass depended on it....the tone in general just continues to be off and the writing and acting are subpar.

I tried to see Jackson-Cohen's subpar-dom like you do, but somehow I just can't. Can't.

I watched the whole series and I find the reason that Nell killed herself is murky (other than to drive the rest of the story). Was it because her husband died or was it the house? She seemed happy when she was with Arthur - not that traumatized by what happened in HH. But after he died, suddenly she's inexplicably drawn back to the house, where the flapper ghost goads her into suicide. Am I forgetting a key scene where Nell expresses that the house has a hold on her?

"what powers did the twins have?"

They could shoot lasers out their asses, but that was edited out to keep the pace lively.

Male pulchritude + creepy = I'll be streaming.

Didn’t you see the scene with the mother’s ghost tricked Nell to kill herself r227?

[quote] what powers did the twins have?

Zan could take the form of water; Jayna could take the shape of any beast.

I really enjoyed this series, I don't care what a bunch of naysayers here say. There's so much crap on tv nowadays, this series, even though it didn't follow the book---which I'm glad it didn't-- was pretty entertaining.

I’ll give you the fifth episode, which finally got this series going and actually had some stakes and an emotional price.

The scariest parts was the tall guy with the cane floating down the hall opening doors and when Luke goes down to the hidden basement in the dumbwaiter but the last episode seemed to jumped the shark. It went from a horror story to a love story.

There are 30 hidden ghosts in the series. I didn't see any when I watched the show even though in one or two of the stills it should have been obvious.

~R234

Victoria Pedretti (Nell) will play Leslie Van Houten in the next Tarantino movie " Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

Other casting news... we're dumping Jake Gyllenhaal from any future Aaron Rodgers bio film and are replacing him with OJC instead.

Sappy ending.

SPOILER

.

The truly scary part was the end of episode five, where Nell hangs herself over and over, showing herself to her younger selves and realizing in death that she herself is Bent Neck Lady. That was shocking and trippy and frightening.

The mostly-one-camera funeral episode was cool.

The rest was just the usual boogity-boo crap.

And they didn't explain half of the dead family's background. Will that be explored in Season 2?

The ghost of Nell in the car with the sisters was truly scary...

What movie was OJC talking about being naked ?

Show definitely peaked with the Nell episode, the end of that ep being the one truly inspired moment in the entire series. It was horrifying but moving and sad at the same time. The rest was a mess. The “one shot” episode was more about trickery and choreography and kept taking me out of it, and has been done much much better by far more gifted directors than this guy. I mean, I’m glad that you all seemed to like it, but a seasoned horror viewer would find this show slow, about a decade behind the times, and fairly unsophisticated.

So the father never met his grandchildren until Nell's funeral and Nell used to write him letters once a month. They didn't say whether he was in prison but I assumed he was charged with the mother's death and was incarcerated for a while?

I agree that the show got better as it went on: the first 3 episodes were pretty awful, the writing was corny and hackneyed, and the characters were fairly one-note. I especially found adult Theo to be particularly ridiculous with her silly gloves and her tiresome "I've built literal WALLS to protect myself" story line. The series started to improve with the 4th episode, and I thought episode 5 was quite brilliant (as r239 pointed out, that ending when you finally realize that Nell has been the Bent-Neck Lady all along was a real shocker, and very well executed). I do have some quibbles with the final episode (it was a bit too sappy for my taste when all the "nice" ghosts -Crazy Liv, Nell, Daddy Crain, little Abigail and her mother- are reunited at the house), but overall I ended up liking the show a lot more than I initially thought I would after watching the first 3 episodes.

[quote] The mostly-one-camera funeral episode was cool.

I notice that they've been using the one-camera thing a lot in other shows too. It challenges the actors to be on their toes and spontaneous; for example, when Theo bumps against the couch and lands on her butt, I think that was an accident and the reactions afterwards is improvisation. Another time they use the one camera scene was in Daredevil in certain fight sequences. That stuff is heavily choreographed and rehearsed.

I went back and got through the 3rd episode and was bored to tears. No more of this crap. On a scale of 1 to 10 the first movie was a 10. The 2nd movie was a 5. This thing is a -6.

R246 No one cares what you think.

Dlers wants to be so "edgy" by being contrarians.

"Another time they use the one camera scene was in Daredevil"

Yes, the acclaimed Season 2 stairwell fight scene. There are a few 'cheat' cuts, but it's pretty cool if you like that sort of thing. Is it Charlie's hot ass or his stunt double's?

They also used the one camera scene in True Detective, Season 1. That was the first time on tv.

I really liked how they filmed the scene in the morgue. The actors had to be in top form. It was like watching a live play.

The director talks about certain challenges they faced in filming Hill House-- the details of the one-shot episode that "almost killed everybody" and the problem the actors had with a 10-hour movie--

[quote]... it wasn’t broken up in a way that allowed for a lot of continuity for the actors. They had to constantly figure out where they were in the overall 10-hour arc, which I think is brutal for them.

Could there be a sequel involving the Crain family?

[quote]... the story of the Crain family is told. It’s done. I think that there are all sorts of different directions we could go in, with the house or with something completely different. I love the idea of an anthology as well.... the show is about haunted places and haunted people, as Steve says, and there’s no shortage of either. So, there’s any number of things we could do, in or out of Hill House.

The actress who plays Theo looks just like Angelina Jolie, pre anorexia..

I thought that too, R251. Her acting reminded me a lot of AJ in Girl, Interrupted. Not in a good way.

Theo is played by the director’s wife. I actually thought she did a great job. Check her out in “Hush” (also on Netflix) where she plays a deaf woman terrorized by a serial killer.

I just re-watched The Bent-Neck Lady and the end credits were rolling when I noticed the name Russ Tamblyn. Holy shit - I didn't even recognize him as Nell's therapist/psychiatrist. Cool that they brought him in for a role (he was in the original movie The Haunting).

Yeah, I noticed Russ Tamblyn was the therapist but didn't realize he was in the original movie.

Is he the only original actor living today? Julie Harris was so great in that movie; if she were alive, she could play the old lady dying in bed.

He was crazy in the original. Crazy like a fox. I'm guessing R254 never watched Twin Peaks.

Finale was one of the weakest in memory. Whatever goodwill was built up by this overlong show with major Netflix bloat (could have easily dropped four to five episodes and cut this thing in half) was totally dissipated by the poorly constructed finale with its purple prose.

Was it me or was older Hugh very nonchalant about his ghost wife lurking about, knowing that she tried to kill her twins, and basically pushed Nell to suicide in The Bent-Neck Lady. He didn't seem angry about either of those things when they met up in the final episode. - he was accepting and even loving toward her.

The guy Shirley had an affair with is hot.

That's actor James Lafferty of "One Tree Hill."

The whole Shirley affair plot was beyond trite.

James Lafferty was briefly in “Oculus” too. Director Flanagan likes to use the same actors.

I think the actresses -- from the regulars to the guest stars -- really outshone the actors in this. The men were not bad, but they just seemed to be present in most scenes to give the female characters something to react to. Michiel Huisman, Henry Thomas, Timothy Hutton, and Anthony Ruivivar were all just kind of just there; the actress who played the young Theo had more presence on screen than all four of them put together.

I agree the women were great except miscast Annabeth Gish (her last scene had bad old age makeup) and Carla who looked beautiful but her role was badly written.

Was the little girl murdered the daughter of Annabeth Gish ?

Yes, casting Tamblyn was clever.

I would not have felt a shred of guilt for banging Lafferty, and my boyfriend would have asked me to tell every detail, and photos!

Kate Siegel looks like a cross between Jessica Brown Findlay (Sybil of Downton Abbey) and Angelina Jolie.

It was good up till the last two episodes. Episode 9 was downright boring (no horror, no opportunity of being scared), and the finale was a true anti-climax.

I also liked how they kept all things politics out of it, until the last few minutes when they started talking about how walls are bad for you.

[quote] Is he the only original actor living today?

Claire Bloom is still alive.

You're right, I must have mistaken her for someone else who passed away. She's 87 years old. I always thought she was gorgeous.

The whole thing was boring. Henry Thomas is a hot daddy. Also put off by the overt racial quota used. Two Asians for love interests, one black for a love interest. Where was the Latin? They forgot to tick off that box. Wasted time on this series. Kept hoping it would turn out great.

Shirley was married to a Latin. So you want an all white cast? Go complain to your daddy Trump, you racist pig.

The ending was a slog. I was fast forwarding. As much as I like Carla G and think she acted very well, her scenes brought everything to a halt. Bad pacing and really mediocre all in all. And no male nudity. Such a waste with Michael Huisman and OJC.

I missed Tamblyn. That was a nice nod.

[quote]I think the actresses -- from the regulars to the guest stars -- really outshone the actors in this. The men were not bad, but they just seemed to be present in most scenes to give the female characters something to react to.

I half agree. Huisman wasn't given much to sink his teeth into, and Hutton's performance was not up to his usual standards. But I thought Thomas and Oliver whatsisface had good material and did well with it. Well Thomas pretty much had to play the same note over and over, but he did it well I thought, without getting stale or hammy.

I started rewatching the series but I had to stop because playing spot-the-ghost didn't prevent me from noticing the flaws and inconsistencies I brushed aside on first viewing. Not worth a second watch IMHO. Still need to check out more of this director's stuff.

Who cares abou the male actors? Datalounge is so vain and horny.

R271: the guy who played the husband is Filipino and Chinese.

When Huisman pregnant became a demon ghost that was pretty scary. What episode was that ?

Despite the flaws I still like anything I have seen on AHS.

Pregnant wife.

R274 we probably think this show is about us... 🎶

Why this show sucks, and why the Nell episode is the only skillfull one. Feel free to try to argue with a Pulitzer Prize winning TV critic. She’s smarter than you, and I totally agree with her.

I enjoyed it, but did feel it fell flat the last few episodes (esp. the finale). I think they could trimmed a couple of episodes, they could have combined some of the siblings stories and not given each a full episode, because they were showing things that you had already figured out from the previous episodes. I think I would have also reduced the number of siblings by one. I think they could have gotten rid of Shirl, since they already had the skeptical older sibling with Steven. Her obsession with the blood money was annoying and anger at her siblings and husband got tedious and one note. The affair story line thrown in at the very end seemed out of place with everything else happening.

The last two episodes were surprisingly tension free. The "last night: flashback" did not really introduce anything new with the big exception that Abigail was real and the wife killed her. Still we barely saw the girl and saw no real emotional reaction to her death. I did think the fact that she was real made no one believing Luke that she existed far less likely, esp. since they knew the Dudleys had a daughter who lived near by. The Dudleys were pretty overprotective and would have been figured out the daughter was hanging out on the property. The Dudles were way too low key about their daughter being killed, although I could see part of Mrs. Dudley liking the idea of her daughter being forever a child. I had previously thought the Dudleys might actually be dead and part of the house or Abigail being their dead daughter the entire series. Mrs. Dudley was presented with an old fashioned hair style and her telling of the stories of earlier in the house made it seem like she might have witnessed them first hand. That episode should have really brought things to a fever pitch, esp. since they cut away from the dramatic Luke being grabbed at the end of the prior episode. Instead it largely showed things we had already seen and set up a rather low-key finale.

The finale really did not need the kids to all have their extended fantasies in the red room, since they show had spent 8 episodes showing their demons. It just brought things to a halt. I liked the idea that the mother had to let go and be the one to release them from the room, but the house itself should have resisted. They spent nine episodes presenting the house as this evil that fed off of the family even haunting them miles away. All of a sudden the ghosts were presented as simple occupants living out their after life and let the kids walk out. I doubt they would have been satisfied with just the dad, esp. since they seemed more interested in the kids when they lived there. Also, they spent 8 episodes showing the kids had big issues with the daughter, and he only has a scene with Steven at the end. There should have been a scene with them all fleeing -- in danger even after out of the room - and the kids having an emotional moment as they see the dad somehow sacrifice himself. In the eighth episode, the Dad was telling how the kids would all be in danger at the house, esp Steven (after the creepy reveal that Steven actually had been seeing ghosts and their was no tree house. That really was not followed up, since Steven just nonchalantly exited at the end.

Also, Nell's happy ghost ending is with her parents dressed as a little girl. She had a husband she loved a lot and was happy with, letters aside - she was basically estranged from her dad most of her life, she barely knew her mother - plus her mother's ghost basically manipulated her and helped murder her by hanging.

Negative post aside, for the most part I did enjoy it, but it did end with a whimper.

Young Theo also plays/will play young Margot Robbie, young Brie Larson, and young Kiernan Shipka.

[quote] Feel free to try to argue with a Pulitzer Prize winning TV critic. She’s smarter than you, and I totally agree with her.

Oh honey. [italic]Maureen Dowd[/italic] also has a Pulitzer Prize.

Big. Deal.

Are you actually comparing Maureen Dowd to Emily Nussbaum? You’re a moron. Blocked.

R282 naussbaum is a talented and insightful writer. Dowd is a deranged loon seething with jealousy and various psychopathologies. Though I agree with your point that a Pulitzer doesn't always mean anything.

R279 I mostly agree with the New Yorkers review. I thought that the show was decent and chilling for what it was. But I am endlessly irritated that they gave it the name of the Shirley Jackson novel, but changed it so much that there was absolutely no real connection except for the characters names. As a Shirley Jackson fan, I was looking forward to seeing flanagans spin on the book and 1963 film and was very dissapointed. Nausbaum is right that the book was not about family love as some sort of unifying force, the book was about loneliness, anger, repressed sexuality and people who feel trapped by others . Nell's character in the book,who spent 10 years as a caretaker felt her life was limited and damaged by her family members, not made whole. I really don't understand why Netflix gave the show the name of the book. A genuine remake would have been fascinating, this was a bait and switch.

[quote] But I am endlessly irritated that they gave it the name of the Shirley Jackson novel, but changed it so much that there was absolutely no real connection except for the characters names. As a Shirley Jackson fan, I was looking forward to seeing flanagans spin on the book and 1963 film and was very dissapointed. Nausbaum is right that the book was not about family love as some sort of unifying force, the book was about loneliness, anger, repressed sexuality and people who feel trapped by others . Nell's character in the book,who spent 10 years as a caretaker felt her life was limited and damaged by her family members, not made whole. I really don't understand why Netflix gave the show the name of the book. A genuine remake would have been fascinating, this was a bait and switch.

I feel the same. Some episodes seemed like a mix of "Six Feet Under" and "Brother ans Sisters".

Red!

Can we all agree it needed more James Lafferty.

I'm not reading anyone else's comments cuz I don't want the ending spoiled for me, but HOLY SHIT did the scariness ever ramp up after episode 4!

If anyone's reading this and is on the fence about continuing past the first few slow eps, it is well worth it!

From an EW interview with Mike Flanagan:

"...Olivia, being sensitive, as she puts it, kind of having a type of emotionality that is supernatural in the way she processes it, that she would have passed that down to her daughters, and that each of them would have gotten a splinter of that from her, if she was the prism of it. Theo gets the touch and Shirley has the dream sleep and the intuition and Nell is able to look across time."

I think Season 2 should be the story of the Crains and/or Dudleys, and their experience with the house and leading up to the movie.

I hate this idea. The original movie was perfect. Nothing could be better,

I Did love the first one but I liked the second one too.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen is one of the finalists to be the next James Bond.

There was an awful lot of cheese in this show.

Most of the conversations, especially in the first few episodes, were completely unrealistic and grandiose. People don't speak that way!

As soon as the mother said that the kids were to come home for dinner when she flicked the porch lights, I just knew that was going to be a haunting thing, and it was. Totally forced and unoriginal.

Now that it's been a couple of weeks, I'm even less impressed with the show and would not recommend it to someone who hasn't seen it yet.

Never going to happen R294, but you tried. And where’s all the nominations for this “brilliant” show?

Shirley Crain has a huge forehead.

[quote]“The Haunting of Hill House” is returning to Netflix–sort of.

[quote]The streaming giant has ordered a new installment in what they are calling “The Haunting” anthology, meaning the next chapter of the horror series will feature an entirely new story and new characters from those seen in the first season.

[quote]In addition, Netflix has entered into a multi-year overall television deal with series creator Mike Flanagan and executive producer Trevor Macy. Under the deal, Flanagan and Macy will produce new TV projects exclusively for Netflix.

Both excited for the news and disappointed it won't bring back beautiful Oliver.

[quote] three eldergay crones who share a single eyeball

Bubble, bubble...

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