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The Haunting of Hill house [spoilers]


red snow

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Or the "house on haunted hill" as I keep calling it.

It seems there's a lot of chatter about this on the "currently watching" thread but based on the 5 episodes I've seen this show could easily support its own thread for discussion. Unless my search didn't work - which is always possible on this site and I'm only willing to search 3 pages of topics to see if there is one. If not feel free to merge or resurrect the original.

I'm enjoying it so far although I'm limited to watching it during daylight as I get too freaked out watching horrors on my own once dark. Which I guess means it is actually doing its job as a horror. It's heavy on the "this camera is going to be pan onto something freaky" but I'm finding the family dynamics the main draw which is a change for horror (but not the show's creator based on his work on "Gerard's game"). It's kind of "lost" format in that so far it takes a character and makes them the focus for the episode with flashbacks. An interesting addition is that we get to see the same events from multiple POVs. So far there haven't been any "holy shit" twists but I like how they lay strong enough hints so that when I predict something it feels earned rather than too easy or the creators simply cheating and springing random stuff. I thought there was a "time-travel" vibe in the sense I thought the mother was seeing future events that we, the viewers hadn't seen but was pleasantly surprised by the sequence of Nell seeing the hauntings from a different POV. Would have liked to watch the next episode but that was freaky enough for me for an evening.

I'm getting the impression the kids parents should be up for child abuse irrespective of whether the ghosts were real or not. That house was messing them up and they should have had them stay with the aunt rather than keep them in a house that would freak kids out even if it wasn't haunted (those statues are an issue for one). Based on the show's format so far , I guess there will be an episode for each of the parents coming up.

Actually I'd be bingeing this a hell of a lot quicker if not for the lack of daylight to watch it in!

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The ending disappointed me. The whole show seemed like it was building up the fact that the house was evil in itself. That the house was the thing that was killing people, "eating" them.

But the ending made me feel like the house was pretty benign. And just that one ghost liked to torment/murder people for the hell of it.

P.S. - and I kept on calling that one couple the Dursleys. 

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I'm fine with spoilers, I just won't read any comments until I'm finished. I get the impression a lot of people have already watched it so being buried under spoiler tags is counterproductive for discussion. 

If people feel the need they can always start the post with whether they have finished or which episode they are on. But it's meant to be a spoiler thread.

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Once you're finished take a look at one of the hidden ghosts articles. I didn't see all that many of them in real time. I think I was subconsciously/semi-consciously trying not to look too hard at the screen in case I saw any additional awful things. 

A friend said he saw one, rewound to check, then screamed and threw his remote at the TV. Someone else threw a cup of tea on themselves during episode 8. :rofl:

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1 hour ago, Isis said:

Once you're finished take a look at one of the hidden ghosts articles. I didn't see all that many of them in real time. I think I was subconsciously/semi-consciously trying not to look too hard at the screen in case I saw any additional awful things. 

A friend said he saw one, rewound to check, then screamed and threw his remote at the TV. Someone else threw a cup of tea on themselves during episode 8. :rofl:

I looked at those articles before watching. I have trouble spotting them in the photos. Like you I tend to go peripheral vision when bracing for scares so only noticing the odd ones. Knowing they are there beforehand makes it more unsettling.

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6 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Isn't there a thing with kittens?  Don't think I can watch that.  It annoys me so much that all modern horror always has the pets getting killed.

Yes. There is an episode that has a couple scenes of dead kittens. Also mutant kittens. Surely no animals were harmed during the filming of this series.

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23 hours ago, red snow said:

I looked at those articles before watching. I have trouble spotting them in the photos. Like you I tend to go peripheral vision when bracing for scares so only noticing the odd ones. Knowing they are there beforehand makes it more unsettling.

That's why I didn't look until after I'd finished watching. If I knew in advance they were there it would make me way more scared while watching. I admire the attention to detail of adding in so many extra scares though. 

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On 11/3/2018 at 5:55 AM, Isis said:

Once you're finished take a look at one of the hidden ghosts articles. I didn't see all that many of them in real time. I think I was subconsciously/semi-consciously trying not to look too hard at the screen in case I saw any additional awful things. 

A friend said he saw one, rewound to check, then screamed and threw his remote at the TV. Someone else threw a cup of tea on themselves during episode 8. :rofl:

If it is the scene I am thinking of (episode 8 seems about right), there was a jump scare that got me so hard that I actually yelled out loud which is a first for me in adult life.  Took me totally by surprise and we had a good laugh over it afterwards.

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3 hours ago, Isis said:

That's why I didn't look until after I'd finished watching. If I knew in advance they were there it would make me way more scared while watching. I admire the attention to detail of adding in so many extra scares though. 

It's weird as I think they largely go unnoticed but maybe do subconsciously add to the uneasy.

Managed to finish the show in the limited daylight today. It was pretty damn good and certainly my favourite horror show since season 1 of American horror story which is very similar.

The "scene" in episode 8 will go down as a notorious jump-scare and I'm pleased they didn't pull something like that off early in the series or I'd  have had trouble watching throughout. That said "there was no treehouse"" was the most disturbing line in that episode.

I liked the ambiguity of the mum. I think she was nudged by the ghost into her actions but I think she may also have gone nuts. I think the eldest brother was right in the sense there was something wrong with the family.

If I was being picky I'd say the last 2 episodes were a bit too neat. I kind of felt like the house got off way too easy and that we were owed some kind of showdown with Poppy/the malevolent force that drove a mother to try and kill her kids (or possibly did in regard to adult Nell). Also while the caretakers kid provided a reason for the house remaining I was unsure of how done ghosts could play happy families while others where evil? The show did a great job with the crain family and the atmosphere but I think they fell a little short on the history of the house and the ghosts there. Although of course that have been left to explore in an additional series I guess. But these are a few of the things I'd have liked so more resolution on.

So Abigail was both alive and an imaginary friend/ghost at the same time? Or was Luke just playing with the actual kid in which case why didn't  the parents believe  him? There were severalral times I wasn't convinced Luke's addict friend was real/alive but I think it was just a loose end/thin character.

What were the barking dogs about?

What was the monster that ran through the house?

Why did the house need to eat? How did it get by for 25 years without a meal. Will it need to feed again

Maybe fodder for a second series which I'm sure Netflix would like even if the creator says he's done with the crain family. I'm not sure, I think there's more mileage to get out of the family to be honest.

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Just finished. I mean, overall I enjoyed it but maybe not for the reasons I was supposed to. Personally - I don’t think it’s scary at all. The only scares are cheap jump scares and they end quite abruptly. Overall it’s incredibly sentimental and on the nose & about as subtle as a sledgehammer. There are moments of genuinely clever unsettling horror but overall it’s a sappy family drama & thats OK for a lazy day binge but if you want genuine terrifying horror I don’t think this is it. I cried because I even cry at adverts if the background music is sappy enough and I cared about the characters enough to want to finish their story but it’s just some nice fluff to pass the time with brief flickers of something darker and much more clever sprinkled throughout but never quite reached.

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1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Just finished. I mean, overall I enjoyed it but maybe not for the reasons I was supposed to. Personally - I don’t think it’s scary at all. The only scares are cheap jump scares and they end quite abruptly. Overall it’s incredibly sentimental and on the nose & about as subtle as a sledgehammer. There are moments of genuinely clever unsettling horror but overall it’s a sappy family drama & thats OK for a lazy day binge but if you want genuine terrifying horror I don’t think this is it. I cried because I even cry at adverts if the background music is sappy enough and I cared about the characters enough to want to finish their story but it’s just some nice fluff to pass the time with brief flickers of something darker and much more clever sprinkled throughout but never quite reached.

Cheap jump scares and cheap cry triggers? I hadn't thought of the character stuff being as manipulative as the scares. For me the house freaked me out even without the scares. But it doesn't take much to scare me

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2 hours ago, red snow said:

Cheap jump scares and cheap cry triggers? I hadn't thought of the character stuff being as manipulative as the scares. For me the house freaked me out even without the scares. But it doesn't take much to scare me

Personally I thought the whole thing was quite...pedestrian but that sounds SO snobby of me LOL. I think it had some really good elements - but it was hyped way too much as scary when for me it just wasn’t. I really liked a few of the characters though. Despite the ending basically solidifying Olivia as a crazy b word. The middle episodes very good. The first and last not so much. Olivia, Luke and Theodora made it worth watching for me though and Nellie made me very sad. 

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On 11/4/2018 at 4:29 PM, red snow said:

So Abigail was both alive and an imaginary friend/ghost at the same time? Or was Luke just playing with the actual kid in which case why didn't  the parents believe  him? There were severalral times I wasn't convinced Luke's addict friend was real/alive but I think it was just a loose end/thin character.

I thought this was a nice twist. That she was both dead and alive - like Leonard Cohen (a joke for Young Ones fans).

As I said in the watching thread, I did find it a bit saccharine at the conclusion. But I still think that overall it was one of the best things I've watched this year.

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