I don't get it.
How is this melodramatic borefest the highest rated show of 2018? If I wanted to watch siblings argue about first world problems, I'd watch a soap opera.
shareOk. Enjoy your soap opera.
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MovieChat Forums > The Haunting of Hill House (2018) Discussion > I don't get it.
Sounds like you didn't get far into it. It really finds its stride around the third episode. The cheap jump scares at the start are more artfully applied and the show really nails some clever moments. Gets very good. Worth staying with.
The end, however ... well, lets just say that is is part good and part horseshit. you should still watch it.
I couldn't stop watching until I was done, wasn't boring at all.
I can see why the show gets its high rating.
And you actually watched the whole thing AND have far more than 2 posts to your credit, so YOUR post had great credibility with me. The OP, on the other hand . . . well, at least he’s not peddling his solipsistic glumness here any more.
shareThe ending *was* a bit of a let-down, I am not going to deny that (but then that's the case with most things in the horror genre IMO), but it's still an intelligently done series, with great acting I thought.
You’re right and, you know what?, there’s nothing wrong with imperfection. I have a valued wise friend who once asked me, “If you can’t have perfection, can’t you be satisfied with ‘mere’ excellence?” The world’s most respected Shakespeare critic summarized his opinion of The Bard like this: “He does nothing outstandingly, but so MANY things WELL.” Haunting of Hill House was worth my time.
shareOh, so you've seen it already? From your previous post I thought you haven't yet.
HOHH does several things outstandingly well.
shareAgreed, why I prefer horror FILMS because they don’t need to drag out middle class drama for hours and hours.
shareYou could do that, but than you wouldn't have been able to fit as much story and character development and it wouldn't have been nearly as memorable to so many people. Appeasing low attention spans should not be the highest priority of art. A film would not have done this story justice.
shareNot necessarily low attention span, but the filler just isn't that interesting or new to me. And since I prefer reading to begin with, I'll consider giving the book a chance, certainly more than I did the show since I consider reading to be a "higher priority of art" than passive viewing. In contrast, I have taken immense enjoyment from the Netflix show Marianne, which is way more intriguing IMO.
shareThe book is FAR different from the show. The show is extremely loosely "based" on the book.
Also, while I'm not a fan of Flanagan's work in general, this show was too long, IMO. 10 Episodes that were, as said, greatly filled with fluff and filler. Most of it empty and unnecessary. The point of the story, was supposed to be Hill House itself, and the effect it had on the poor Crain family. Yet what we get, as already (and not incorrectly) stated, is quite a LOT of soap opera drama between the family and their inner circle. The lesbian relationship Theodora has, for example, adds absolutely nothing to the plot. The same with the (VERY) late and pointless revelation that "perfect" Shirley had an affair behind her husband's back. Or the time and focus given to Luke's relationship with Joey the Hopeless Addict.
A better example of a GOOD, well told haunted house series, was Rose Red. It was told in two or three parts, compared to ten episodes. And in that lesser timeframe, we the audience learned honestly a LOT more about the actual core and meat of the story, Rose Red itself, than we do about Hill House in nearly 10 hours. The show would have, IMO, been far better served cutting a lot of the fat and subplots about the family, and putting more focus on what would have actually been interesting: learning more about the HISTORY of Hill House. Tell us more about the Hill family, the building of the house, the obvious long history of evil it has, as it is filled with FAR more ghosts than are ever explained. THAT would have made for a better show, and made the horror all the more concrete.
But still, I think it could have stood to be about 8 episodes instead of 10, and as stated, I think the audience deserved to have more of the HOUSE'S story told, instead of just being fed vague little bits here and there.
"But still, I think it could have stood to be about 8 episodes instead of 10, and as stated, I think the audience deserved to have more of the HOUSE'S story told, instead of just being fed vague little bits here and there."
This isn't a story about Hill House. This is a story about a family dealing with the trauma that Hill House dealt them. When you watch a story about an abuse victim, do you care about the abuser's back-story? No. That would be irrelevant. The bulk of the horror and drama rests on how Hill House tormented the family, not why it became evil. And no nobody deserves to have Hill House's back-story over-developed because doing that to a horror monster is the lamest thing a horror story can do. Does the audience deserve to know the Xenomorph was created by a gay Michael fassbender robot and have its mystery ruined? Does the audience deserve to know Leatherface just had a bad child-hood? No? Fuck the original Robert Weis movie knew that doing so would take away its aura as a monster that envelopes its victims. The audience doesn't deserve to have their time wasted. The abuse story worked perfectly fine without all that.
This isn't a story about Hill House. This is a story about a family dealing with the trauma that Hill House dealt them.
Bingo. Suggesting that the family's lives were filler, and wanting more history on the house...the other person is just missing the point. It's fine not to like this type of show, but it's silly to act like it's poor because it's simply not what they wanted in a show. share
The point of the story, was supposed to be Hill House itself, and the effect it had on the poor Crain family. Yet what we get, as already (and not incorrectly) stated, is quite a LOT of soap opera drama between the family and their inner circle.
No. That's the exact opposite of the point of the show. The point of the show isn't Hill House, it's seeing the effect that Hill House had on their inter-personal relationships. The point of the show was the "pointless soap opera" drama that you just wrote off, because we're seeing the after-math that this trauma has on their unity as a family. This is NOT a story about a haunted house and why it was evil, it's not anywhere close to that.
Rather misleading title, then.
Haunting of Hill House has no filler. Or at least it has very little of it. Every scene offers a deeper understanding of the character's psychological complex which is the bedrock the narrative lies on. You may not have the span to handle a story past a movie's length (which is something YOU admitted), and that's fine, you don't have to like it as no piece of art it for everyone, but cut the bullshit if you're going to say it needs to be a movie's length because that's demonstrably false. This is a sprawling story with five main characters and you needed an episode just to get a basic understanding of each one. Again, that would butcher a story-line that has the rare honor of havng me care for five main characters and for what? Well I already mentioned it.
shareSomething I've noticed about Flanagan's work, is that he is big on creepy atmosphere and often showing needlessly grusome/"shocking" things, he is also far too often light on actual exposition/explanation, or plots that fully make sense.
Many creators/fans confuse this vagueness with being "artsy" or "clever", but honestly, in my opinion (as both a film fan and a writer), I find it to merely be laziness. Similar to JJ Abrams, he introduces ideas that don't always have any kind of explanation or payoff. And also like Abrams, his endings, I find, are often unsatisfactory, going for shock value or being as mess up as possible (see: Oculus), or outright bizarre.
A great example of this in Hill House, is the ending. We are told the entire show just how evil and wrong the house is. It's basically hell on earth, that lures people to their deaths, and traps their souls there, to grow its power and "feed" on them over time. It is NOT somewhere you want your soul to be stuck. Destroying the house, I have to believe, would destroy the evil, and free the souls within to pass on as they normally would. Instead, they leave the house standing, just as Hugh nonsensically agreed to do after his wife's death. And we're shown Hugh's soul joining that of his wife and daughter, and Mrs. Dudley's soul reuniting with that of her lost children. As if "Oh, well at least they're going to be together forever". As if somehow that's an ok, satisfactory end to all that tragedy.
But no, it ISN'T ok. Because those souls are going to be corrupted and fed upon by the house, just like all the others. Olivia herself had already become part of the house's evil, she was already corrupted, killing poor Abigail, and then as a ghost luring her own DAUGHTER to a horrific death. That is precisely the fate that likely awaits the rest, along with being fed on by the house over time. They're basically in hell, trapped within heinous evil. Definitely NOT worthy of the sentimental music at the end.
That sounds horrible....not destroying the house was seriously doing a disservice to any future inhabitants or people who came across it and were absorbed into the hell hole. It sounds like that was definitely the right thing to do, but the opportunity was sadly was not taken.
I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t quite what I watched....I could only manage the first two episodes before I decided to not torture myself with it, well at the moment anyway.
The second episode especially was super depressing and disturbing.
I was in the mood for horror, so got my fix with a couple of quick horror films....not that I’m adverse to slow-burners and strong story/characters.
Just finished watching this show. It’s actually really good but it is slow as hell. Lots of promise with little pay off.
For me though the horror element took a back seat to the drama and in this show I actually liked it. The family felt somewhat real and it was sad seeing them struggle over time. 6/10