TV Show of the Week: The Haunting of Hill House

Spoiler free review of the first episode.

Netflix has been releasing a monumental amount of content recently. Admittedly, a sizable junk of it doesn’t fall within my taste, but now and again a particular movie or show comes along that intrigues me. The Haunting of Hill House did exactly that, not because I’ve read the book and wanted to see how this adapted the story, but instead I’ve heard great things about the scare factor.

With Netflix being a massive rich company, it can pump a large amount of money into each production, and this show is no exception. And, with it being a primarily online company, whilst it is regulated by the BBFC (British Broadcasting Film Classification) as to what can and cannot be shown, there are fewer restrictions Netflix has to follow. There’s no network guidelines, no need to prepare for any particular watershed, and isn’t working off that network’s budget. Netflix is capable of moving freely when making content, and therefore can ramp up the horror factor in The Haunting of Hill House. The quality of the show before even the horror begins proves this isn’t going to be any ordinary show.

I haven’t read the book. I knew nothing of the story before going into this show. All I had to rely on was how the first episode introduced our characters and teased how the horror would play out. It jumps back and forth across the timeline, giving us two perspectives but from the same people – when they were children, and when they’ve grown up into struggling adults who’ve clearly been affected by some tragedy and was forced to make amends on their own for a while.

It jumps to and fro a few times, establishing who they were and who they are now during present day. If there’s an episode – or indeed if the second episode does cement us in present day after telling all that there is to tell with in the past, then it would make the show better. I’ve nothing against jumping back and forth, but a couple of times during the show, a particular jump scare distracted me from knowing what was going on, or indeed who was meant to be who when it went forward to present day. Netflix completely, unintentionally created a trap for themselves; they made the horror so good it made the pacing of the first episode hard to follow. However, now that I’ve gotten an idea of what to expect for the second episode and probably the following 8, it’ll be better to understand it better.

The horror throughout the episode was on point. This is the first horror TV show where I can say it’s scare factor is on par with the films. The films aren’t restricted by any particular guidelines most networks are meant to follow, and so implementing film quality horror into a TV show, make the show 10 episodes long, and I can fully understand why this show has been getting critical acclaim from most critics and average viewers alike. With each episode being around an hour long, they can tease the horror and spoon feed it to us gradually, really hitting home and ramping up the scare factor. The first episode ended on a huge jump scare that sent shivers down my spine. I lept off my chair and nearly pulled the speakers that had my headphones connected to, off my desk. My heart was certainly racing after that, and made me thoroughly look forward to the next episodes in the series.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)