Stephen King ranted about Shirley Jackson's original book the haunting of hill house 1959. In Dance Macabre, King isolated Dracula, Frankenstein, wearwolf and hauntings. He also spoke a lot about the fact that a good horror needs to be relevant to the times. For example, the Star Wars bad guys didn't accidentally look like German soldiers. More recently, black mirror has us all panicking about the rise of technology, big brother and privacy. Based on this, one would surmise that both King and Jackson would be delighted with the Netflix reboot of haunting of hill house 2019.
Themes of mental health, trauma, attachment, dysfunctional families, secrets, love and passion and generally maladaptive coping strategies in difficult times are key elements. These higher order messages pair nicely with a good share of things that go bump in the night, boo scares and grossness.
The parallel storyline's of past and present allow the story to be told and the plot to unravel simultaneously. Time is irrelevant with trauma and as Nessie says, I am like fresh snowflakes across all of your life. "There's no without, I am not gone. I'm scattered into so many pieces, sprinkled on your life like new snow."
Fantastic cinematography allows for long, purposefully uncomfortable scenes that almost bring the viewer right into the house to share the discomfort. Unlike some other recent binge watches, (walking dead, handmaids tale), the discomfort is pleasantly scary rather than boringly annoyingly reliant on , long boring shots of over done face acting.
Early on in the piece, there are scenes where people openly acknowledge seeing the same ghostly vision, which means that you need to believe early on that ghosts exist. They also acknowledge that certain supernatural powers exist. Even with this, there is a compelling counter arguament about mental health with genuine mental illness and drug abuse running parallel to the haunting. Is the haunting supernatural or psychological?
The plot tells a story where the house follows and haunts people as they grow older. Leaving the house doesn't fix things but returning to it risks death. Unfinished business seems to be the narrative.
Interestingly, other ghosts in the house aren't there to haunt you. Although the mischievous ones can if you let them. They are there in their own journey.
There are plenty of Easter eggs to be searched for, from figures in the background and carvings on the wall to the character resemblance from the original version.
Love and passion right or wrong, Hugh talks about arguing with passion. The house is much the same, initially causing malice but as things progress, you begin to see the love within the walls of the house and you can see some goodness from its standpoint. Perhaps the source of the trauma may not embody the evil but just be a piece of the bigger knot
When the Forever house's footprint is drawn into the master blueprint for the house, the real horror is named. Our biggest fear that we will become trapped in our forever house with it being not what we dreamed of. The house is a metaphor for the haunting of our life, work and marriage. We are haunted by our past and present and future as well as integenerational traumas. Our responses are the same as ghosts and whether avoid, ignore, dissociate, abuse drugs and alcohol, enable or suppress it.
