“Fear and guilt are sisters”: Horror with a Twist

A review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House

Reviewed by Faith Nelson

*Warning: this article does contain spoilers*

“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. 
Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls” (Shirley Jackson).

Despite its outward appearance, Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House (2018) is not a traditional horror series. There are numerous horror elements throughout the show’s runtime, offering myriad effective jump scares, an eerie soundtrack, and many, many ghosts. Under this haunting exterior, however, lies a heart-wrenching exploration of grief and trauma, with the horror elements not only shocking and scaring viewers, but also introducing the deeper psychological themes of the plot. Through Mike Flanagan’s sophisticated storytelling, this limited series creates a thrilling, poignant experience I would never hesitate to recommend.

The Haunting of Hill House follows the Crain family, leaping between ‘Then’—the childhood of the five Crain siblings as they experience the supernatural terrors of their recently acquired Manor home—and ‘Now,’ which anthologises the lives of the now-adult Crain children, haunted by both their past and the present as they reunite after the death of their youngest sibling. Without revealing too many details, the trajectory of the plot moves from a traumatic past to a hopeful future.

In many supernatural horror films, the writers seem to have the mindset that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” when it comes to their antagonists, and the ghosts tend to be exactly what they seem—ghosts. However, Hill House twists in the direction of psychological depth, and the ghosts—specifically that of the youngest Crain sister—become multivalent symbols, denoting “[a] memory, a daydream, a secret” as well as “grief, anger, [or] guilt” while remaining frightening (“Steven Sees a Ghost”).

Some might scoff at the concept of a psychologically deep horror film, as the genre’s purpose is often merely to cause temporary, harmless fear in viewers. This idea, however, diminishes the importance of the process of catharsis when witnessing tragic events. When addressing the importance of the tragic genre, Aristotle states that it is through experiencing “pity and fear” when observing the tragic that the “catharsis of such emotions” occurs (Poetics). As the horror genre is arguably a descendant of the genre of tragedy, I feel this sentiment applies to both genres. In particular, The Haunting of Hill House not only offers a catharsis via fear through its creepy visuals, but also through pathos (pity) in its many depictions of other forms of painful human experiences, such as grief, addiction, infidelity, and broken familial relationships. The audience is not abandoned after their “purgation,” however, as much is resolved in the show’s finale, where the characters are saved from the imminent threat of ghosts, as well as receiving the opportunity to heal from their grief and rekindle their family ties. Hill House allows its audience to explore and expel both superficial and nuanced fears in its ten episodes, as well as offering hope for healing their own grievances and traumas, just as the characters find a measure of peace in the epilogue.

In recent years there has been a rise in more psychologically complex horror films, such as Get Out (2017) and Hereditary (2018), the former receiving widespread critical acclaim and “Best Original Screenplay” at the 90th Academy Awards. In some ways, The Haunting of Hill House is representative of the increasing depth of some recent horror films, which was the heart of said genre when it was in literary form. Some could say this increasing depth is caused by certain horror writers beginning to turn back to the early literary sources, which Hill House evidently does, borrowing its title—and some of its ghostly concepts—from Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name. 

Bibliography

Aristotle. Rhetoric and On Poetics. Translated by W. Rhys Roberts and Ingram Bywater, The Franklin Library, 1981.

“Steven Sees a Ghost.” The Haunting of Hill House, season 1, episode 1, 12 Oct. 2018. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/search?q=The%20Haunting%20&jbv=80189221.