The Haunting of Hill House

A semi-trailer of The Haunting of Hill House Season 2 released 1 or 2 weeks back. Now I'm only briefly going to go through the trailer, because this article is about a review of Season 1.

Right now, all I know about the trailer (or rather announcement) is that Season 2 is based on a book called "The Haunting" just like Season 1 was based on another book. The title of Season 2 will be "The Haunting of Bly Manor". The show follows the format of anthology shows much like "American Horror Story". With different plot, different characters, and different settings, we're not sure if Hill House will even be back based on the title of Season 2. Ok now, back to the review of Season 1.

The review is just going to be a quick probe of all the important factors, instead of a thorough analysis. I will also mention my personal judgement on the topic. One of the things we know about "The Haunting of Hill House" is that it features a normal family being torn apart with a mystery and a lot of questions in 1992, and the same seemingly dysfunctional family featured 26 years later in 2018.

The story is featured in the viewpoint of each character. The characters featured are 3 sisters (Shirley, Theo, Nell), 2 brothers (Steven, Luke), the father (Hugh Crain), the mother (Olivia Crain), and the ghosts. Hugh Crain takes the kids to a motel scaring Olivia Crain, who knew this was coming. After growing up, Steven and Shirley mostly refuse to believe anything supernatural about the death.

Luke and Nell who are twins are the most affected because they were in the red room when their mom tried to kill their friend Abigail (and maybe even them as well), a fact they are not aware only Hugh is properly aware of. Hugh thought she was trying to kill all of them (maybe true), and Olivia wasn't aware of the fact that she was doing this, she was under control. The ending said she was only trying to protect them (by killing them?) because the world is dark outside. Which brings us to the red room.

The red room is featured like the Room of Requirement. Every room, every setting we've seen in the viewpoint of the kids, or at least some of the settings are always the red room. The kids say they've never been in the red room but all of them have. It is a room that changes according to your fantasies, so if you want a treehouse you get one, so for each member of the house if has reconstructed itself in its own way. Why? probably to keep them here. I think the ghost in the house is alone.

That's not to say that's the only ghost. There are many, but that ghost is a psycho so at times we move from supernatural dram to psychological horror.

The past/present presentation was wonderful, though it could have been a teensy-bit better. The genre is horror, so you won't really notice the change, not until a few episodes later and you get the characters in your mind.

Things to admire are the characterizations and character development though the 10 episodes. High point of the show. I loved the effort the show put into creating a horror series, with the bent-neck lady and the ghosts. The presentation is something that could be improved but was something worth admiring. The psychological horror, the Victorian English settings in the House were all great. I'm psyched for the new Season.

In the end of Season 1, the dark ghosts are seen outside. This works in favor of Season 2 and I'm waiting for a real trailer. Release date should be some time in 2020.