Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House is like a scary version of This Is Us

Vulture

"I expected Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House to remind me of the Shirley Jackson novel on which it is based, or perhaps of other horror stories I’ve absorbed over the years," says Jen Chaney. "I did not expect it to remind me of This Is Us. Given the current TV landscape, maybe I should have." She adds that "the Netflix version is as much a family drama as a work of fright. Instead of casting Hill House as the center of a paranormal investigation like the book and its two subsequent movie adaptations, the series introduces us to the members of the Crain family, who move into the aging Massachusetts estate in the early 1990s with the intention of fixing it up and flipping it. But immediately, spirits start appearing and wreaking havoc on the five children, as well as their parents, Liv (Carla Gugino) and Hugh (Henry Thomas). More than two decades later, the kids are still reckoning with the effects of residing in that massive, creepy manor. Or, to put it in This Is Us terms: The haunted house is to the Crains as the Crockpot fire is to the Pearsons. But unlike the NBC weeper, The Haunting of Hill House isn’t interested in making its viewers cry. It would much rather scare them to death."

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• The Haunting of Hill House is scary as hell, offering more grown-up chills without the escapism of Stranger Things
• Despite a slow start, The Haunting of Hill House ultimately comes together in a way that’s both scary and unexpectedly moving
• It builds characters so well that finding out their mysterious backstories is far more engrossing than watching them get freaked out
• The Haunting of Hill House manages to be both sprawling and terrifying at the same time
• Creator and director Mike Flanagan saw his version "was more about having a chance to riff on the characters, themes, and nuances" of the Shirley Jackson novel
• Flanagan tells how Lost was a major inspiration: "I loved the way that it put me in one specific character’s shoes for an episode and then handed off"