Now that we're deep in the month of October and fully in the Halloween season, I find myself returning to my favorite ghostly pieces of media. Among them is the 2018 Netflix miniseries The Haunting of Hill House, an adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel, which follows the five Crain siblings (Steve, Shirly, Theo, Luke, and Nell) through two different timelines: the summer their mother died when they were children and the days surrounding Nell's suicide in the present. The show hops nonchronologically between these two timelines, showing various events at Hill House, the haunted mansion where they lived as children, and [narrating] the prelude and aftermath of Nell's death.
Most impressive is how the show visually transitions over the timelines, tying each sequence together through some physical, sonic, or thematic connection. In one scene, young Theo pushes through a door and reveals adult Theo opening a fridge in Shirley's kitchen. As a child, Luke hears the ghostly sounds of dogs barking outside his window in Hill House and in the present-day Luke listens to another group of dogs while sitting in a park. Shirley, the mortician, prepares Nell's body for her wake before the scene transitions to Nell's wedding where Shirley helps her apply her makeup.
Aside from being visually compelling and creating a flow to each hour-long episode, the inescapable connection between the past and the present is one of the show's driving themes. In the first episode, Steve explains his understanding of the supernatural: "A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. But, in my experience, most times they're just what we want to see."
For the Crain family, ghosts are memories. They are haunted (sometimes literally) by their pasts, which we fade in and out of. For example, Shirley in the present day is haunted by a male ghost, sitting and raising a glass to her. Deep into the season, it's revealed that Shirley met the man at a conference and had an affair with him. Her guilt literally haunts her with his image.
Furthermore, while telling the story non-linearly, the first five episodes are organized around the five siblings from oldest to youngest. Each sibling is given an episode documenting their chilling experiences in Hill House and their reactions to Nell's death. Dividing the story like this not only allows for some spectacular character development, but it also raises the question of perspective. Our understanding of each scene changes depending on whose story we're following and what context we're allowed.
In episode one, Steve's episode, Steve returns to his apartment to find a sick-looking Luke presumably robbing Steve for drug money. However, when we reach episode four, from Luke's perspective, we see the scene again with the understanding that Luke is trying to procure some money to help his friend from rehab get off the streets. In one haunting scene from Steve's point of view, he hides in his room with his father while something turns the doorknob on the other side. The scene takes on a new context, when in episode nine we follow their mother Liv and discover that she is on the other side of the door, crazed after the house has been slowly eating away at her sanity.
Each moment and each line is meticulous, carefully building mystery and intrigue, but ultimately fitting together neatly when the audience is able to reflect on the full timeline, slotting each scene into its perfect place with new understanding.
In the final episode, the remaining Crain siblings return to Hill House and see Nell as a ghost, who says, "Everything's been out of order. Time, I mean. I thought for so long that time was like a line, that our moments were laid out like dominoes, and that they fell, one into another... But I was wrong. It's not like that at all. Our moments fall around us like rain. Or snow. Or confetti." And ultimately this is how we see the Crains and their story, like confetti, flowing in and around their lives through time, through sounds and motions and ideas, each memory slowly settling around us.
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