I'm genuinely surprised people dont like the finale
What didn't you like? Was it the entire finale? I loved the first..50 minutes? The actual climax with the different perspectives/dreams and the explanations. I thought it was mind blowing at the time. The neat wrap up at the very end was so-so but that first half...amazing stuff
I'm genuinely surprised people dont like the finale
What didn't you like? Was it the entire finale? I loved the first..50 minutes? The actual climax with the different perspectives/dreams and the explanations. I thought it was mind blowing at the time. The neat wrap up at the very end was so-so but that first half...amazing stuff
Give me the inciting incident prior to the '20s. Because (spoilers ahead for specific ghosts )
We know who all the big ghosts are from Polly onwards, Polly was the mother of the old lady and the boy in the wheel chair. She killed the boy in the wheel chair directly ( the source of the nightly knocking) and and apparently drowned her daughter. We know about Polly's husband "bowler hat guy", who bricked himself in to escape the ghosts but couldn't escape and produces the rat scratch sound. We know about the cyring infant sound being the dudley's first child. Bent neck lady is Nell. Old granny is Polly's sister Hazel Hill. but what about the faces hidden in the windows/mirrors, the clock worker, the pale long haired lady seen in the background frequently?
Cheezy way to do it would be to use Steve as needing more material for his second book.
More hidden ghosts spottings. Finally found some in ep 2
Ep 2
04:14 Looks like a man standing outside looking through the window. At first I wasn't sure but, he's gone when the camera looks outside at about 05:45 so something was there.
I'm looking through the scenes, in particular the past scenes at the house and so far these are the ones I've seen. No story spoilers:
Ep1
34:56 woman on the left behind stairway, other ghosts on the right.
Ep3
9:52 Face in the glass of the open door as theo walks by. Maybe a woman.
18:25 Right side in the hallway looks like a blond woman in the dark room, barely noticeable.
38:18 Looks like the same blonde woman on the rightside by the table and chandelier.
39:41 Bald man in the hallway.
39:46 Creepy blonde woman again very back of the scene
Ep4
8:37 Creepy blonde woman again on the right in the back of hall.
14:34 Shadowy figure, looks like a lady, on the rightside as Luke runs down the stairs
Ep5
23:09 Shadowy figure leftside, looks like a man behind nelle.
Ep 8
08:28 face of a woman in the reflection of the glass.
Ep 9
8:29 face of the woman in the glass on the left side behind the mom.
35:54 Man standing in the doorway rightside. Again at 36:13.
39:34 Looks like a lady barely noticeable in the room as the girl passes by.
Edit: Found another in episode 3, face in the glass in the door at 9:52
Also in episode 9 at 8:29 face of the woman in the glass on the left side behind the mom.
Also fixed the time of the first one in episode 1, it was 34:56, not 4:56. Typo.
Thank you for this, i'm at episode 4 and unsure if i was correct in spotting freaky stuff in the background. Glad i'm not crazy, this show is really good , me and my gf are loving it.
Give me the inciting incident prior to the '20s. Because (spoilers ahead for specific ghosts )
We know who all the big ghosts are from Polly onwards, Polly was the mother of the old lady and the boy in the wheel chair. She killed the boy in the wheel chair directly ( the source of the nightly knocking) and and apparently drowned her daughter. We know about Polly's husband "bowler hat guy", who bricked himself in to escape the ghosts but couldn't escape and produces the rat scratch sound. We know about the cyring infant sound being the dudley's first child. Bent neck lady is Nell. Old granny is Polly's sister Hazel Hill. but what about the faces hidden in the windows/mirrors, the clock worker, the pale long haired lady seen in the background frequently?
Cheezy way to do it would be to use Steve as needing more material for his second book.
Episode 5 was great - just watched it last night. It was spooky enough that my wife was legitimately scared to go to bed.
I'm not easily scared by movies or TV but this show is hitting all the right nerves. Lots of tension and very few jumps. Not nearly enough shows like this.
said holy shit out loud when it became obvious that Abigale wasn't a ghost.
Although this raises a question. In one of the interrogation scenes doesn't the officer refer to another body found in the House? It wasn't Abigale since her parents took her away. Am I miss-remembering what the officer said or was this not resolved?
Thank you for this, i'm at episode 4 and unsure if i was correct in spotting freaky stuff in the background. Glad i'm not crazy, this show is really good , me and my gf are loving it.
Yeah, wasn't sure if anybody else cared or not but it's kind of fun looking for them. Still haven't confirmed if they appear during the adult scenes though.
said holy shit out loud when it became obvious that Abigale wasn't a ghost.
Although this raises a question. In one of the interrogation scenes doesn't the officer refer to another body found in the House? It wasn't Abigale since her parents took her away. Am I miss-remembering what the officer said or was this not resolved?
the way they decided to keep the house and not destroy it probably means they will. Maybe they will just go with the whole American Horror Story route and just use The Haunting of blank title with a new setting.
the way they decided to keep the house and not destroy it probably means they will. Maybe they will just go with the whole American Horror Story route and just use The Haunting of blank title with a new setting.
Now that they've explained more about the house and the ghosts inside it, I don't think they'd be able to maintain the spook/scare factor in any future seasons. Once you explain something it stops being scary imo.
Lol seriously. You have people saying this isn't a thriller but a mystery, but I know I was spooked enough Saturday night to sleep with my tv on a timer.
I was actually a little confused about that, forgot to ask.
When did the caretakers come back to die? I don't remember that. But yea, specifically I meant all the family stuff up to Nellie leaving. I thought it was genius
But then there was also a scene of I believe William, an old owner, carrying in a dead body of his old wife. We see this, and then it like transitions into the caretakers or something. I couldn't really follow what was happening. Anytime someone saw a ghost does that mean they were dead too? I should rewatch
No, it's not really scary. So far it seems like a "spooky" family drama. Idk, I love horror, but nothing supernatural really scare me. I'm more scared by true things with real life monsters (serial killers and cruel people who take pleasure in hurting others.)
I don't watch AHS but it's not scary at all 5 episodes in. A few "creepy" moments but that's about it. It's more family drama than it is horror, but is a bummer for me, but it still ain't bad.
I love AHS, but AHS is pretty much not scary except for jump scares and very gross stuff. Occasionally it's mildly disturbing and very occasionally (like a couple of times in the entire series) is it genuinely scary.
Haunting of Hill House? Genuinely scary. From episode 1.
It paces the scares well, still only 2-4 good ones per episode, but that's perfect or it would be unwatchable. It treads slightly into ham territory on occasion, but that's also fine - it's not like AHS's wall-to-wall ham.
Edit: huh surprised others don't find it very scary. I mean it's like a 6 or 7 out of 10 scary, which is rare for anything not a videogame IMO. Most movies and TV shows are 2 to 4/10 scary.
Just finished it, it failed to truly grab me until episode 6 and then it failed the landing but overall I recommend it. If you like the recent IT movie I think you'd like this too since this feels like that but expanded over a much longer time.
For the first 5 episodes I was really not to engaged, felt like a fairly predictable "adults haunted by ghosts of their past" type stuff. I think it could have been squeezed to 2 family members an episode. After Nell died and the family got together was when I got more into it, something about family coming together over a death and being forced to confront the crazy shit they experienced was much more engaging to me than just them experiencing it alone. From that point I binged it until the final episode which I just finished.
The ending really did not feel all that great cause it turned into a complete sap fest with accompanying music for added teary eyed-ness which they layered it on even thicker by throwing the caretaker's families in there as well, did not feel like they deserved to really be there and then for them to be the reason that the house was not destroyed just seemed like a cheap way to give them more purpose than they deserved. Don't get me wrong, it did its job and there were many time I was close to tears but I just think none of it was executed in a way that I felt good about and in the end the ending was fairly predictable.
I did like the scene where Olivia was unsure if that she should let the kids free and Hugh managed to convince her otherwise, that was really touching I felt. Its nice to see her ghost have some doubts and not be an all knowing sagely ghost. Considering the house mind fucked the hell out of her until her death it made more sense for her to be like that. Nearly lost it when Hugh was about to go into the red room and they used the younger version to say goodbye to Steve lol.
The other criticism I had was that it felt like the show did not feel shy about using jump scares at times and loud ones at that. The scene where the 2 sisters were driving to the house and Nell popped out made me literally gasp....FUCK that shit. That was the worse but I remember a few more.
I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10.
It did not do anything new or remarkable in terms of a horror story but the way the story was structured was what sells it even if it ends up being fairly predictable in the end. Its a family sap story wrapped up in ghost sheets but it was enjoyable.
I want to say something about the sappiness of a certain sequence in the ending.
I do not love the caretaker stuff tonally, but I do feel like it serves an important function in that it sort of seals what the family members individually said over the course of the show. Death, ghosts, hauntings all come from our wishes and regrets. They are born of us, not necessarily of the house -- even though in the context of this narrative the house does have explicit supernatural significance, the house 'means' something different to everyone. The Caretakers went from not wanting to stay in the house overnight to caring for its literal corpse, and finally finding their way there in death as a means of reuniting with their children. As Olivia says twice, there is more in the earth and heaven than what is outlined in the Dudley's philosophy. But it is exactly their limited perspective that allowed them to navigate around the horrors of the home, and what allowed them in the end to find peace.
In short, that scene is sappy, but it does some pretty cool thematic heavy lifting.
Edit: Anyone who liked this should for sure check out Kitty Horrorshow's Anatomy, which shares some similar themes and variations on the same core ideas.
Yeah, this page alone is strong evidence for the subjectivity of horror lol.
The Conjuring is something I view as popcorn horror. Good films with effective but maybe "cheap" scares.
AHS never really scared me--it was just entertaining and disturbing.
Hill House doesn't feel like either of those, to me. It isn't afraid to be very patient. I was surprised by how many slow shots or pans across a room there are. It has good jump scares, effective tension/buildup, and really satisfying payoffs and explanations. It even feels a little The Shining sometimes in how it treats the house as this ominous entity, although that's all there in the book and the original movie, FWIW.
Hill House doesn't feel like either of those, to me. It isn't afraid to be very patient. I was surprised by how many slow shots or pans across a room there are. It has good jump scares, effective tension/buildup, and really satisfying payoffs and explanations. It even feels a little The Shining sometimes in how it treats the house as this ominous entity, although that's all there in the book and the original movie, FWIW.
Fully agreed. Mike Flanagan has exceptional horror timing and his patience with the camera is a large part of it. It's not often jump out of your skin scary, but the creeping dread creates the kind of horror atmosphere I love to soak in. Even when he's dealing with well worn tropes, he does it so well that it doesn't matter.
Holy crap that long, complex single take at the start of Ep 6! My jaw was on the floor watching it evolve! Has to be some kind of record if no computer fakery was used.
Edit
Flanagan did Oculus? No wonder I love this. That was a fantastic flick and the similarities are obvious in hindsight
Edit 2 - this whole episode is master class filmmaking
I've seen a lot of folks calling this a horror version of "This Is Us". Since I haven't seen it and can't use it as a frame of reference, I'd call it a blend of "Six Feet Under" and "The Shining". Loved it.
Holy crap that long, complex single take at the start of Ep 6! My jaw was on the floor watching it evolve! Has to be some kind of record if no computer fakery was used.
Edit
Flanagan did Oculus? No wonder I love this. That was a fantastic flick and the similarities are obvious in hindsight
Edit 2 - this whole episode is master class filmmaking
The first point where there was probably a cut was at around 10 minutes where the camera pans to the front door and there is no one in frame for two or three seconds then another 10 minute segment without a cut. It isn't the most technical single take (True Detective) or longest (Victoria is nearly two hours without a cut) but it is impressive due to the sheer amount of dialog.
If I'm not feeling this halfway into episode 2, is there any reason to continue? I'm finding it surprisingly boring, especially after all of the praise it has been receiving.
If I'm not feeling this halfway into episode 2, is there any reason to continue? I'm finding it surprisingly boring, especially after all of the praise it has been receiving.
