The Haunting Of Hill House TV Series (Netflix)

RTL said:
Excellent breakdown, and pretty much summarizes my thoughts on the series (just finished it last night).

In watching it, I too felt that this was "family drama vs. horror," where at times it feels like it's more consumed with being a drama between the Crains' relationship with each other, and the horror aspects are shoehorned in. In the latter half of the series, it seems to even out more, but analyzing everything in retrospect, the horror definitely took a backseat (pun intended, if that's the jump scare you were talking about?) to the interpersonal turmoil between the characters.

Everything else is great, but like you said, there are times where the dialogue is just plain frustrating, since the characters are trying to say something, but are constantly getting blown off / interrupted by their siblings, and you just want them to spit it out so it progresses the story. Like how are they all getting haunted by their own unique ghosts, but have never come to mention it to each other by this point in their lives, and rather bond over it?

It seems that the narrative is so reliant on this family being distant from each other and broken individuals, that from their actions and dialogue, they're kind of dumb. Which itself conflicts with the fact that they're mostly successful professionals (a psychologist who took down a child molester, a bestselling author, a master mortuary cosmetologist, etc.), and so shouldn't they have shared their own hauntings with each other and banded together? In most horror films with similar scenarios, this happens halfway through, but that "assembling" didn't even really happen here.

Although I think the casting is excellent (if not perfect), this goes to the point that Michiel Huisman, especially playing an intellectual, feels unnatural just obsessively brushing off his father's expositions as mental illness, and that's not to blame the actor, but rather one of the rare flaws in the storytelling that the characters are written a bit too one-dimensionally at times, whereas the actors are capable of more than that, and it's noticed.

Anyway, those are just the very few criticisms in an otherwise excellent program. I never thought horror could be done effectively in a television series format, but this show changed that opinion.
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Watching this now and I agree with everything, especially the bolded part. Communication is not this families strong suit. I'm 7 episodes in and the whole time I'm just waiting for this family to have a good conversation and come together, but .....it hasn't happened yet. I also feel like steve has been a really neglected character thus far. His episode was mainly used to present the whole family, where as everyone else really had their own episode to shine.

Still a very good series thus far. It's just frustrating at times.
 
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jericksen5 said:
The real question is, Nellie or Theo?
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Theodora all day for me. Hell I think Luke’s girlfriend from rehab was hotter than Nellie. The tatted up Asian chick was hot too; I remember her from Shameless.
 
jericksen5 said:
The real question is, Nellie or Theo?
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Nellie for me, but I think that's partly because Theo was a lesbian, and character affects that stuff for me.

You have to be cool with it, these days, since every girl in kissing other girls in bars, but that's usually as far as it goes, and that's fine. Generally speaking, it's a turn off for me: bisexuality or lesbianism. I'm just not into women who are into other women.
 
Theo is exponentially hotter than Nellie IMO

also, Carla Gugino has been bad as fuh since like what Son In Law w/ Paulie Shore. Respect to her genetics, she's like the curvier Diane Lane
 
I love scary, and this show is great so far. I love the history, the acting, the settings....very cool show...shits on AHS.....
 
Finally got around to watching it and god damn such a good show. Can't find a single thing to nitpick about it. I was even impressed that they even got actors that looked quite a bit like the parents!

The reveal of who the bent neck lady was the highlight of the series for me.
 
Some people were disappointed with the ending , I thought it had a lot of heart and showed the family's resilience.
 
heavyarms21 said:
Some people were disappointed with the ending , I thought it had a lot of heart and showed the family's resilience.
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I loved the show. I’m happy how they wrapped things. My only issue with the last episode was that it had a lot of monologues and was slightly uneven. They should have brought the terror harder. This has been my favorite series I have watched in a long time.
 
BB in Crazy!!!! said:
What ever. Different things for different people. This wasn't terribly scary. But the atmosphere and creepy build up work on me far more than in your face jump scares. And the few jump scares they did have on this were very well set up. I love horror movies, but I rarely get creeped out these days. Last time I was this scared was the Conjuring. A few other horror movies since then have been good and I enjoyed, but really weren't scary. For example "A Quiet Place" I loved. But it was suspense with fear of what may happen more than scary.
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Dude, it’s no different than teenage boys denying they jumped when they got scared at something. It’s state of mind with stuff like this. Some people go into these shows with a defense mechanism....nothing scares me....this is stupid....so they aren’t scared. Anyone can do that. I watched this show and let it in. There is genuine tension, creepiness, and sense of fear. Also 2 of the best jump scares in TV history. I can’t think of a better one than the scene with Theo and Shirley. That was fantastic. All the scenes in the funeral parlor were so creepy and well done. The scene with Theo and her Dad on the floor was great too.
 
Just started binging this show today and I have already finished five episodes. God this is a great show. Although I went from watching this show to a meet8ng and I was so depressed/ pdark that some of my coworkers were commenting on it lol.
what did y’all think of the bent neck woman reveal? Cliche and troupey, masterfully done, decent regular horror fare? Personally I put it together when she got to the house what they were probably going to do but it was done so well I was actually smiling at the warmth of the scene and her dancing with he r hubby etc..
I’m all in so far
 
this show is the worst, most poorly written, poorly acted, piece of shit I have ever come across.

the hype forced me to start it, the wife forced me to finish it. Waste of time. Hated it more than anything I've ever seen.
 
Watched this recently and wtf. I thought this show was pretty damn bad. No idea how it’s getting this much praise lmao. 5/10
 
D3THRONED said:
Watched this recently and wtf. I thought this show was pretty damn bad. No idea how it’s getting this much praise lmao. 5/10
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Iceblink Luck said:
That describes pretty much 90% of Netflix's originals.
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It is the second highest rated English-language television series of 2018 by the people (Cobra Kai is #1).

It's tremendous. If you didn't get it...sucks for you. But the show is great. Your criticism of it is a drop of hatred in an overflowing bucket of love-- not the manufactured political kind.
 
A lot of the characters were annoying as shit sometimes. But decent show.

And Carla Gugino
 
Madmick said:
It is the second highest rated English-language television series of 2018 by the people (Cobra Kai is #1).

It's tremendous. If you didn't get it...sucks for you. But the show is great. Your criticism of it is a drop of hatred in an overflowing bucket of love-- not the manufactured political kind.
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Sorry to tell you this but... a lot of highly rated things aren't actually that good.
 
Iceblink Luck said:
Sorry to tell you this but... a lot of highly rated things aren't actually that good.
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Sorry to tell you this, but I already know that, and I simultaneously know these are massively outnumbered by highly rated things that in fact are good, but are said to not be good by straggling dissenters who can't cogently articulate why they're not good.
 
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