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Sorry, Hereditary, but The Haunting Of Hill House is the most traumatic horror story of the year
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Haunted-house stories are, by their very nature, self-contained. So it’s especially impressive that The Haunting Of Hill House, the newest in a series of collaborations between Netflix and director Mike Flanagan, manages to be both sprawling and terrifying at the same time. Flanagan and the show’s writers take pains to include at least one horror sequence in each episode of this 10-part series, ranging from hauntingly subtle to nauseatingly intense. They’re all elegantly executed, however, and powerful enough to linger in that floating space between waking and sleep for nights on end. (Episode five, which details a woman’s lifelong torment at the hands of a buzzing black void in the shape of a nightmarishly mangled woman known as the Bent-Neck Lady, had this writer sleeping with the lights on for the first time in years.) But what’s most effectively upsetting about Hill House isn’t how scary it is. It’s the devastating sadness that lingers long after the ghosts retreat back into the darkness.
Themes of generational trauma, inherited mental illness, and the guilt and fear that accompany them have been popular in horror this year. The new Halloween movie touches upon them, and Hereditary explores them in harrowing depth, but The Haunting Of Hill House is the most moving depiction of trauma and its aftermath to come out of the horror genre in 2018. Of course, Hill House has about eight more hours in which to explore these themes than either of those films. That’s just the nature of the two mediums. But Hill House puts its extra breathing room toward commendably novelistic ends, taking a contemporary, character-based approach that carries little over from Shirley Jackson’s original novel, yet still feels in the spirit of the book.
I started watching last night, and have no objections so far. I'm not a huge horror fan, but this is striking a good balance of dread and jumpiness and atmosphere. It just seems weird to me that it's branded as an adaptation of Haunting of Hill House, when it has so little to do with Shirley Jackson's story or the previous movies. Why not call a series about a family affected by trauma and a haunted house something else?
It's also from a book by the same name. I read that years and years ago, was very good.
As I said above, this series has very little to do with Jackson's story. There are nods to it here and there, but it's not so much an adaptation as a reimagining.
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Originally Posted by tmozer
Watching E2. Not liking it. Kind of boring.......
If you're not all in by the end of episode 5, then I don't know what to tell you.
The constant flipping back and forth in time with no warning is confusing...
Agreed. I've seen the first two episodes. It's not bad, but I'm sure not hooked yet. The story suffers from lack of a central trunk. It's all branches. A good story is a tree with strong branches. So far, The Haunting of Hill House is more of a bush. The cast is really good though, especially the kids. Remember when child actors were cute but couldn't act? Those days seem to be gone. Kids in this series are excellent.
I'm a little disappointed that the filmmakers have the jump scare down but seem a little lost as to how to build suspense. They need to watch fewer modern horror movies and more Hitchcock.
My wife and I are really enjoying this so far not scary but it has a nice level of creepyness that we love. Except for the floating guy with the cane!! no problems keeping up with it. it lets you know on screen not seeing how anyone can be lost.
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it lets you know on screen not seeing how anyone can be lost. 
