Like everyone and their sister, I binge-watched Netflix’ The Haunting of Hill House this past week. I hate scary movies, so this would not normally be something I’d line up to watch, but I was told that it was not super frightening/gory and I was intrigued by the reviews. I would say that it’s more emotionally devastating than psychologically scary. Some of the jump scares were easy to anticipate – and the ability to quickly fast forward came in handy for those – and those that were not, weren’t too terrible. I thought the execution of the show was excellent, and I definitely got sucked into the story big time. However, my overall reaction is somewhat ambivalent.
The storyline that resonated the most with me was Olivia Crain’s. I think it has to do with the fact that my kids are roughly the same age as Luke and Nell in the flashback scenes. [Also, their names are Luka and Teodora, which is an even bigger coincidence when you think about it.] When, at one point, Olivia says that she wishes she could keep the kids small forever … daaamn, that pulled at my heartstrings because, yeah, SAME. But by the end of the show, I didn’t know how to feel about Olivia’s storyline. What was its ultimate moral or message? Was there supposed to be one? Unlike the other characters, Olivia never got a true resolution as far as I’m concerned, and that really bugged me.
SPOILER WARNING
So, the house preyed on Olivia’s love for her kids and her possible (never quite clarified) preexisting mental illness and drove her to do something terrible. She was clearly horrified by the sight of Abigail’s dead body, and killed herself shortly thereafter. But unlike Nell years later, she remained under the “evil influence” of the house afterwards. Why? Later, Hugh volunteers to be the sacrificial victim to appease the “mad woman” to whom he used to be married, and with whom he will now (presumably) spend eternity, all the while apologizing for, you know, not letting her kill their kids. Again, why? The rest of the show’s ending was positively upbeat – the bit with the Dudleys was over the top, IMO – so it would not have been tonally dissonant for Olivia and Hugh to reunite on a different footing; Olivia could have acknowledged that Hugh had done the right thing in taking the kids away all those years ago (while Olivia posed an immediate danger to them), and Hugh could have decided to remain with Olivia at Hill House not as part of some devil’s bargain but as a matter of choice – true lovers reunited, blah, blah, blah.
And let’s not even get started on the notion that Olivia’s “possession” is a metaphor for mental illness, because her storyline is even more problematic under that lens.
I have, umm, clearly spent way too much time thinking about this. And I still don’t really know if I loved the show or merely enjoyed watching (most of) it.
If you’ve seen The Haunting of Hill House, what did you think? Who was your favourite character and what did you like and/or dislike about their storyline? And what do you think about the theory that each of the Crain kids represents one of the stages of grief?
I loved this show! Out of all the siblings, I think I personally liked poor Nell best (the actress did a really good job in her episode). I agree that the ending was very odd and too upbeat given the rest of the series, it doesn’t quite fit. Seems to me that the house was supposed to be a bit more malevolent than that.
And I also agree that Olivia’s character didn’t get a good resolution, which was a pity.