So, it's Halloween, and there's this series that's been released on Netflix (handily in time for the season), and everyone's talking about it, and I want to chip in.
When I was young, and pretty much all through my life really, I would get pretty excited about the announcement of a new horror series, thinking that this would be the one to meet my expectations. It would be exciting, it would be intriguing, and most importantly, it would consistently scare the life out of me. It never ever happened. All horror tv has, to some extent, been a let-down. Let's make our way to Hill House, then, see what it has in store for us.
Ultra quick recap: Shirley Jackson's original novel is a masterpiece (if you write horror, then you better read it if you haven't already - it's an excellent lesson in how to create creeping dread). The 1963 film version freaked me out when I was 11, and all because of great acting, excellent camerawork, and knock-out sound design. The 1999 version was a disgrace.
Now we've got Mike Flanagan bringing us a ten episode limited series. The feller's got good form. 'Absentia' was the first of his films I saw, and while the pace was a bit too slow for me, some parts were genuinely creepy, and showed him to be a writer/director to watch. 'Oculus' was great, and then he pulled a real surprise out of the bag: he directed the sequel to 'Ouija' which was a terrible movie. His sequel was great. No kidding. Towards the end it really ramps up the crazy. 2017 saw him film the unfilmable 'Gerald's Game' and somehow made it great (and with a gruesome scene that even I found hard to watch). So, hopes were high.
I won't say a lot about the storyline. You should discover it for yourself. If you've read the original novel, expect large amounts of significant changes. This is a remix on a grand scale. You will recognise many of the elements, but there's been a lot of expansion. You get to know every member of the family. The story spans twenty years or so, we move around a lot on the timeline, and you will eventually get all the pieces of the puzzle, just not necessarily in the right order. It's great fun tracking the timelines.
The acting almost across the board is excellent - didn't really dig the guy playing Steve (a shame as it's a smashing name) as he seemed to be trying too hard and couldn't keep up with the rest. Luke and Theodora are stand-outs. This is due in large part to the writing. It really is a cut above pretty much anything else out there, whatever the genre.
There's a particularly stunning episode halfway through which is basically made up of about three or four long-running shots. It's so well-done, I really don't think I'll forget it for quite some time. So much happens in the background as the camera roams around a funeral parlour and then in the house itself. It really adds to the variety displayed across all ten episodes, where you never quite know where the story will go next or how it will be presented.
Unfortunately, the final extended episode was a scare-free zone for me, which was a disappointment. It's still a good ending, however - the story is wrapped up effectively, the characters reach the ends of their arcs as they should, I can't fault the writing there. There was simply a lack of frightening elements, a let-down given how much had come before it.
Look at this place. I mean, would you ever
go in there? Ever?
Here it is, then: Hill House works. I never would have believed that a near-ten hour haunted house movie (which is what this basically is) could work, but it does. And there are a LOT of spooks to mess with your head. (At the time of writing, I heard that there are even two dozen ghosts hidden in the background of the episodes, so there's plenty here for easter egg hunters to enjoy.)
The Haunting of Hill House is the only REAL horror series out there.
To back up my claim (which is only an opinion (but it's the right one)), let me restate my key point: a horror show, a really good horror show, should be scary. It should be frightening. It should instill a sensation of dread. I mean that at some point (and fairly regularly) I should feel fear. I went through a few lists of 'best horror tv series ever', so let's take a few of these examples and rip them to bits (kidding, most of these shows are good, but not good at what I'm looking for in this blog).
The Walking Dead. Many would claim this to be the biggest and best horror series ever made. I would not. It's a gory drama show. Also, a lot of time (far, far too much of the time) it's a boring gory drama show. And I mean dull. The first season, the short one, was great. Enjoyed it. However, it got dull real quick. Season 4 (or 5, can't remember), the one after they leave the prison behind (that was dull as well), is possibly the worst of all. Episode after episode, the characters found a safe place, then the place wasn't safe, then they ran away. It happened again and again. There's just not enough in the world they've created for the writers to explore.
Thing is, and this is the main issue here, zombies aren't scary. I have yet to see a scary zombie movie. They're gross and horrible, but it's really only a case of waiting for the next gore scene. How many ways can we tear someone apart and gobble them up? This is coming from someone who was a real champion of gruesome special effects, by the way.
American Horror Story. Not scary at all. Ever. It's a freakshow. It's only interested in trying to be shocking. Sorry, but I really can't stand this series. It always strikes me as being written by a bunch of teenagers too busy dreaming up rude and disgusting things to put on camera without actually considering the important things like story and character. I've made it through two seasons - Coven, and... actually, no, that's the only one I got to the end of. I always have to give up after a few episodes. The latest season, got to halfway through episode two. Can't be bothered to waste my life on crap.
Stranger Things. Not horror, no scares. Move along.
Tales From the Crypt. Too tame to be remotely scary. And in all honesty, a lot of the episodes now are barely watchable. Even at the time the production value on this series was pretty low. Age has given this a battering.
The Terror. An okay series with great production values, but the scares just don't work for me. It's another one that relies on a bit of gore to get a reaction. The book is better, but not particularly scary. It's depressing, and involving, and atmospheric, and you feel bad for the characters, but that's not the same thing as frightening.
Castle Rock. Now, I've only watched four episodes of this, and I'm curious to see how it turns out, so I don't want to be overly judgemental yet. However, again there's no scares. It's just odd. It seems to be going for a Twin Peaks vibe which doesn't really gel with the notion that this is meant to be a series encompassing all things Stephen King. King does not write in a Twin Peaks style. And it might just be me, but I find the characters hard to connect with. I'm simply not that bothered about what happens to any of them.
To clarify, I'm not saying all of the series above are bad. Not at all. Apart from American Horror Story. I'd rather bash nails into my elbows than watch that again. But none of them are the horror series I was hoping for when young. I wanted something to scare me, to rattle my bones, to quake my boots. Gore is not horror. It's just gross. The writer, the director, they need to do real work in order to make the horror effective. We have to care about the characters, and we have to believe they are in genuine danger, because if we believe in the characters we will feel the danger as our own. The Haunting of Hill House nails it.
Laters.
