As a child, I remember the tales of Hill House whispered around our own family hearth, sending shivers down my spine and filling my dreams with eerie visions. But it wasn’t until I watched this haunting series that I truly understood the weight of those stories.
Two experiences become apparent when one spends their childhood in a supposedly haunted residence. Firstly, it may take leaving the place to understand the true extent of its otherworldly nature, an insight I gained at 16 when my family departed from the home where I had grown up. Secondly, a haunting, despite being bothersome and somewhat loud, is inherently a melancholic situation.
“Not many TV shows or horror movies capture this feeling as effectively as ‘The Haunting of Hill House.’ The series understands that ghosts are not just jump scares or pale faces in mirrors; they represent lost souls with unknown identities and untold stories. Essentially, ghosts symbolize death, sorrow, and the passage of time – elements that create an atmosphere of haunting.
The mansion in “The Haunting of Hill House” is deeply affected by death and explores the theme of grief. This is particularly evident through the Crain children, who embody the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Grief evolves with time and shapes individuals following a distressing incident.
Mike Flanagan’s melancholy masterpiece stands out as one of the most poignantly sad horror tales due to its profound understanding of the human condition, a trait that sets it apart from other eerie narratives. Each time I revisit it, particularly during Halloween, it serves as a poignant reminder of the depth of insight Hill House possesses in comparison to its spooky counterparts.
The story of my house and the story of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House is an engaging tale about ghosts, filled with chilling, hard-to-believe, and just the right amount of fantastical elements for a captivating movie experience. In comparison, my own ghost stories tend to be more like appetizers rather than main courses during Halloween, as they may not always deliver the spine-tingling fear that typically precedes them.
These narratives revolve around feelings of unease, suspicion, and eventually, acceptance towards peculiar occurrences within a household. They are tales of the enigmatic woman who would often appear at the top of the stairway while my mother applied her makeup. Of the unseen presence that frequented my room until the fateful night when I requested it to be silent. It is also the story of our spectral companion in the playroom, whom I have yet to find the right words to describe.
The most common misconception in horror films is that ghosts are the source of fear. However, Hill House demonstrates that ghosts can be exploited for their potential to create jump scares and loud frights. Yet, what truly resonates is the understanding that nothing is more heartbreaking than a ghost, or the individuals who encounter them.
The Crain siblings each respond uniquely to the legendary Hill House, having grown up with varying levels of denial, suppression, and skepticism. However, it’s not so much their fear that causes harm but rather what their fear has done to them. They are more adversaries to themselves than any external entity, and the true haunting they experience stems from their own past, not the spirits said to inhabit it.
“Nobody could see me.”
In Episode 6, young Nell Crain tells her family that she was right there, invisible to everyone during the fierce storm. Tormented by the terrifying “Bent-Neck Lady” throughout her life, Nell’s heartbreaking story reaches its end when it is revealed that she has become her childhood ghost, reliving her past after leaping from the library staircase.
In many horror stories, it’s rare to encounter a ghost who continues to haunt after their initial encounter, as they are often expelled through dramatic rituals or saved by divine intervention. It’s challenging to find another ghost story that can evoke the same level of emotional resonance from such an unexpected twist.
But not in Hill House. There’s no solution to Nell’s afterlife. She’s doomed to forever exist in that house with the others. Our only reprieve from her fate and the back-breaking weight of loss is the final episode in which she says goodbye to her siblings, telling them that she loved them and how nothing else mattered – a dignity rarely given to other on-screen spirits.
“If nothing else, be kind.”
In Hill House, both the living and the deceased share an equal measure of sorrow and suffering. Life and the hereafter seem interchangeable in their capacity for pain and hardship, and no one escapes unscathed. Although the surviving Crain siblings are given a chance to begin anew at the end, this new start comes with its own set of costs.
scarcely does a moment pass in the series without the audience witnessing the turmoil of the Crain family, either in their past or present. Luke’s despair, evident in his drug-addled adulthood, stands in stark contrast to his youthful innocence, both hinting at an inevitable fear. Additionally, Theo’s enigmatic “gift” brings her confusion as a child and emotional torment as an adult.
Nell’s intense fear and sleep immobility make it difficult for her to take a breath; meanwhile, the burden of Shirley’s anger and responsibilities heavily press upon her, much like the constant struggle of Steven to refuse, refute, and evade.
Afterward, one encounters numerous ghostly apparitions. With so many, it has turned into an intriguing quest to find one of the countless spectral beings that director Mike Flanagan embedded in the series. They appear so frequently that it’s almost commonplace, making us forget the grimness of our current situation. One wonders how many spirits can dwell within a single dwelling before it transforms into an eternal resting place? Could there be other realms where they reside? Is there a destination for us to eventually find solace?
“Whatever walked there, walked alone.”
As the Crain children mature, their fear of Hill House is overshadowed by other challenges, making its haunting less evident (for a brief period). This shift occurs because Flanagan understands an essential truth often overlooked in horror narratives: ghosts may be terrifying in the short term, but it’s the underlying themes they symbolize that leave a lasting, unsettling impact.
Reflecting on the ghost tales I’ve spun and those I’ve shared within our home, an interesting thought crosses my mind: none of us ever admitted being frightened by them. Strangely enough, it wasn’t until we’d moved out that we could truly acknowledge the “haunting” as something real, because it was only then that we understood its presence.
Even when I was by myself at home, I had the sensation of company nearby. It wasn’t until we moved to a place devoid of any such entities that I truly realized the feeling I’d been experiencing, though it didn’t scare me, was not typical.
In the last episode of Hill House, after decades of skepticism and resistance, Steven acknowledges that he indeed saw a ghost. This apparition turned out to be harmless – just a man tinkering with a clock, glimpsed briefly. However, it wasn’t until his father Hugh admitted he never hired anyone to fix the clock that Steven recognized the truth of what he had witnessed.
Essence of Hill House lies not in frightening scenes, single-shot episodes, or exceptional acting performances; rather, it revolves around the theme of abandonment and releasing one’s haunting past.
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2024-10-31 18:48