Halloween is on demand (Hill House, et al)

[Phyrebrat]

I wanted to start a different thread on this TV show that's currently doing very well, just because I seem to be one of the people disappointed in it, and also to offer a balance to those on here who are not horror fans or are not familiar with the format/direction this show has taken.

There's been a rather healthy glut of horror series' and films on demand at the moment due to this being the Harvesting Halloween season. As such, it's a great time to catch up on things like American Horror Story, the new seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. But in addition there are new things being made available every day, notably the exceptional Ghoul (Ghül in it's own country's language), Season 2 of The Exorcist, and even the great Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

When I saw The Haunting of Hill House had been made into a series, I was so excited; I've read the book many times and seen the 1963 film adaptation even more times, so to be offered a load of episodes was a treat.

It's a disappointment.

That such a simple story can be drawn out (albeit in inspiration only) for so many episodes - all of which are entirely too long at 53-57 mins - and produce an ensemble cast of the most dislikable, inept, selfish, narcissistic swine is a great miss fire. So many times I've been watching it and thinking, 'If we put this up for crit in Chrons, it'd be torn apart'. In fact, the whole show made me feel that we are quite a brutal and exacting lot here, and that this production was self-indulgent.

Some thoughts:
The characters are portrayed by generally exceptional actors, but the material they're given to work with - as in their personalities - makes it impossible to care or like them. The series is a tour-de-force of misandry (whether misplaced or not) which seems a little reactionary at the moment bearing in mind the struggles for gender equality; every man in the script (there are only 3 main; 4 including a husband) is ineffective, selfish and unpleasant. The women who have the best characters, however, are super-empowered, super-successful, holding everything together in a crisis. It's almost like watching a feminist manifesto/agenda propaganda flick.

Now I'm all for rounded roles for women and men actors but this series is trying to make unjustifiable conflict a reason to push the drama, and contrive a way to get the family back to Hill House. If you want edgy characters who are hard to like, but easy to love, check out Breaking Bad. These women are horrible. The men are horrible.

That said, there are a couple of set pieces that I really enjoyed - mostly the floating man - but that's like saying The Empire Strikes Back is good because of Boba Fett...And at an hour long per episode, any tension, any pace that the (rare) supernatural elements are able to elicit, are spread too thin and the sense of jeopardy and stakes fizzles out before the end of the episode.

One of the main problems is the premise hinges on the death of the youngest at the beginning. The decision, however, to not introduce her character in any meaningful way till well into the series is an odd one, and so whilst all these nasty characters are wailing/not wailing about the youngest's plight, we're feeling as an audience: "so what"? We didn't know her, we didn't care, and quite frankly, didn't understand what or why she did what she did - if she even did it - till a lot later on.

And then that brings me to the father - the lynchpin of doing things because the plot requires it, and don't even mention his interraction with the most ineffective detective in TV history (again, male).

Theodora shows up as the most enjoyable, interesting character - riffing on her black gloves from the 1963 movie and her sexuality. But her motives are reductive and halfway through the series, she becomes drab, unjustifiably mean, and - like the others - prone to extended solilquys delivered through whinging/screaming/crying/shouting/pining.

Woefully underused are the housekeeper and caretaker husband. So underused, in fact, as to make them irrelevant. The whole end of their journey, their story, is another lazy attempt to try and ring sympahty from us, and the reason why it doesn't work? Because, we just don't care. Their loss is played in the background and so when it comes (telegraphed) its just another opportunity to say 'meh.' Never have I felt so nonchallant about the death of little kids!

Any family that is this dysfunctional and hateful would never, ever, meet or a reunite.

Then there's the eponymous house. Some designer sat down and said 'let's even give the teeth their own teeth'. The house is augmented with poorly rendered CGI and the internal sets are like the TARDIS in reverse. The house is huge but the same rooms figure again and again, the sum of which would make a well-appointed suburban pile in St George's Hill, perhaps, but not the middle of the (perhaps) New England countryside.

I really, really wanted to like this, and perhaps, if the final moments hadn't reduced and remixed the iconic opening paragraph of the novel to contrive a pat ending, I might have even given it a pass. But the liberties taken with one of my favourite passages in all literature are so egregious, schmaltzy and cringe-o-rama, I just can't.

If you must waste your time on this carbuncle, then do so for Theodora and the floating man.

In the meantime, I'll give myself a mindwash by quoting the wonderful opener - the one violated by the series:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

1

pH

____________________________________________
1 Jackson, S (1959). The Haunting of Hill House. (1st ed.). NY, New York: Penguin.

 

[HareBrain]

That such a simple story can be drawn out (albeit in inspiration only) for so many episodes - all of which are entirely too long at 53-57 mins - and produce an ensemble cast of the most dislikable, inept, selfish, narcissistic swine is a great miss fire.

For a moment there I thought you were talking about Trust (the recent series on BBC about the John Paul Getty III kidnapping). "Series sprawl" seems to be quite common these days.

Interesting rant, pH. I'm unlikely to see it, but I might now read the book.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm three episodes in and I'm forming a theory about the "best" stuff on Netflix: it's moody, slick and very expensive - and pedestrian. I feel much the same about Hill House (which I think is an overrated book, for what it's worth) as I do about The Expanse. The effects and acting are pretty good, it's very lavish, and there's a slackness to the scripting and the direction that ruins things.

Everything takes slightly too long. I don't mean that it's slow - Alien and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are slow, at least at the start - but there's no real sense of gradual buildup of tension. As Phyrebrat says, the cast are basically dislikeable. And the family has a literal morgue in the basement, which is ridiculously convenient. There also seems to be a lot of people explaining things very slowly to children, which is starting to get dull.

I feel that it wants to be both gothic and real-world at once, and fails to capture either very well. We have psychoanalysis and drug abuse, and yet the housekeeper could be a spare from the Addams Family. As PB says, the family are both unsympathetic and unconvincing. I thought the Daniel Radcliffe Woman in Black was scarier, to be honest, and probably better-made.

 

[ctg]

When I saw The Haunting of Hill House had been made into a series, I was so excited; I've read the book many times and seen the 1963 film adaptation even more times, so to be offered a load of episodes was a treat.

It's a disappointment.

I haven't started it because it didn't strike me immediately as something I'd like to watch. In fact I've been avoiding as there has far more interesting games to watch, while I've waiting patiently to rebuild my machine. I've seen quite many haunted house movies to know that the Netflix series wasn't my first choice for the Horror month.

At the moment I'm watching Castlevania, and I'm enjoying it's story much more than I would by getting myself tied to a ghost story. Additionally, for the past twelve month I've writing about ghosts, ghostly worlds and so on, so someone else product wasn't the first thing I wanted to engage. The Castlevania story is however far more entertaining, and it engages my mind far more than watching a family trying to live in a haunted house. And the funny thing is, it actually wants me to make to write about the things that lurk in the shadows.

 

[Toby Frost]

SPOILERS

Episode 4 was, I thought, something of an improvement. It’s still not classic TV, but I felt that Luke (why do they even bother using the same names as the book?) was more sympathetic than the others, and that his wretchedness was convincing. The apparent death of his friend was for me the most powerful bit of the story so far, managing to be frightening in a supernatural and conventional way at once. It goes to show that for horror to work, there has to be some sympathy with the characters.

I felt that the hovering man was a bit Edward Gorey for my tastes, but at least he wasn’t the full-on zombie of the earlier episodes. Anyway, the series has got good reviews. I rather feel that whoever doesn’t like Hill House walks alone.

 

[ctg]

I rather feel that whoever doesn’t like Hill House walks alone.

Netflix hasn't really made a bad series. It has taken a great care on trying to make their best with they have, and what they can acquire. In some perspective what they have done is phenomenal, because they're pushing way beyond the standards of normal cable television.

 

[Toby Frost]

EVEN MORE SPOILERS

Well, I've reached the end. It was slick and lavish and ultimately rather unsympathetic. And about four hours too long.

I agree with all of Phyrebrat's comments in the original post. While the acting was fine, all the adult characters were unlikable. Actually, that's unfair on Luke and Hugh, who just seemed rather sad and broken. I found myself longing to flash back to the house instead of dreading it, because (for once, in a TV show) the children were less irritating than the adults.

Several times, someone behaved obnoxiously (rather than just, say, mysteriously) so as to alienate the viewer and then had their behaviour explained in a later episode (Luke and the camera, the father disappearing, Theo and Kevin and others). I don't think this works, because by then the damage is done. And they communicate in long, wistful, unrealistic soliloquies. I kept thinking "Humans do not talk like this".

I thought some of the references to the original book were unnecessary and crowbarred-in (the cup of stars, etc). I do think that it deserves credit for resisting the temptation (which the book didn't) to diffuse the tension with comedy interludes. I liked the Dudleys as much as the Crains, despite the efforts to set Mrs Dudley up as a religious fanatic.

And yet it was well-made in terms of effects and camerawork, and despite the soliloquies I think the actors did a decent job. I jumped a few times, but was genuinely unsettled only once, by a smiling man standing in the kitchen (the changes in the background were a good idea). Towards the end, there was an excess of rotting people. It's a strange programme, because the main thing it makes me feel is mildly depressed.