Photo: Steve Dietl/Netflix Spoilers below for Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House and its ending. Trauma builds walls. Left untended, they keep going up. Soon, you’re trapped in a house of its making: long hallways leading nowhere, empty rooms, doors that swing open and slam shut by the weather of your moods. You climb the stairs and shout through the windows, hungry for a way out, lost in the labyrinthine sinew of personal devastation. Some of us find an escape. Some of us don’t. Netflix’s new ten-episode horror series, The Haunting of Hill House, uses Shirley Jackson’s famous novel as a road map to explore this house-as-body metaphor, and it does so with a profound and precise tenderness. Creator and director Mike Flanagan crafts a wholly unique haunted-house fable — abandoning the book’s paranormal investigation plot — using the hollow halls of a disordered mansion to tell the story of the disordered family who lives there. The hidden ghosts of Hill House aren’t nameless spooks trapped between spiritual realms; they are personal manifestations for the people they haunt, visual aids for the truths they must accept and vanquish. It’s not a paranormal story so much as a meditation on the distinct way grief and trauma maim the living. And it’s scary as hell. Hill House follows the Crain family, who move into the eponymous mansion in the early ’90s with the intention of flipping it, selling it, and using the profit to build their “forever house.” Patriarch Hugh (Henry Thomas) is a loving, dedicated father and husband, and his wife Olivia (Carla Gugino) a dreamy free spirit with a maternal warmth that glows off the screen. Their five children — Steven (Paxton Singleton), Shirley (Lulu Wilson), Theodora (Mckenna Grace), and twins Nell and Luke (Violet McGraw and Julian Hilliard) — explore their new home, but are more trepidatious of it than their parents, feeding more directly off its malignity, seeing things only children might: specters in the dark, phantom bugs, rooms that shouldn’t exist. Hugh and Olivia initially chalk the kids’ anxieties up to childhood imagination, but Olivia soon falls under the same spell as her kids. One night, something tragic and mysterious happens — the exact circumstance is nestled in the show’s deliberately obfuscated storytelling — and Hugh flees Hill House with his children in tow, leaving Olivia behind. She dies, but we don’t know how because her children don’t know, and Hill House keeps us locked to their perspectives. The mystery of their mother’s final, fatal moments haunts them into adulthood. Her loss is the house they must escape. We spend most of our time with the grown-up, present-day Crains. Steven (Michiel Huisman) is now the best-selling author of a book about his family’s paranormal experiences at Hill House, though he remains a skeptic. Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) is a mortician who lives in a funeral home with her husband and two children. Theodora (Kate Siegel), a child psychologist with psychometric abilities, lives in Shirley’s guest house, filling her void with booze and one-night stands. The twins have fared worst in their mother’s absence: Nell (Victoria Pedretti) is clinically depressed and manic, and Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is addicted to heroin. The two weave in and out of their older siblings’ lives, burdening them with their sharper anguish. They were the only Crain children there for their mother’s final moments, and so they carry the weight of her absence. The first episode of Hill House ends with a sting that sets the tone for the series. After scaring her father Hugh (played by Timothy Hutton in the present) with a chilling phone call, Nell turns up in Steven’s apartment. He’s annoyed that she’s arrived unannounced, but before he can fully chastise her, Hugh calls with bad news: Nell is dead. She killed herself in Hill House. Steven, frightened, turns to face whoever or whatever is in his home. Nell, suddenly right behind him, begins to scream, her face contorting into a grey, deadly vision before she disappears. Nell, who in her childhood was haunted by a disfigured ghost she called the “Bent-Neck Lady,” has become that ghost herself, the victim of an inborn phantom that lives in all of the Crain children, but most tragically in her. Each Crain gets their own bottle episode, but Nell’s — episode five, named after the Bent-Neck Lady — is the crux of the series, an inevitable hour of impending doom that marries paranormal activity with psychological calamity. Nell, like her mother, is okay until she isn’t, happy until life grips her psyche and suffocates her sanity. We witness her evolution from a young, happy bride whose struggles with sleep paralysis are cushioned by her technician husband, to a widow undone by his sudden death. We watch as she spins out of control — enabling Luke’s addiction by buying him drugs, lashing out at visiting Theo, crashing Steven’s book reading and accusing him of trading her personal pain for profit. Lost in the depths of her mania, she flies from her Los Angeles home to just outside of Boston, back to Hill House, where she sees the ghost of her mother. “Mommy,” Nell calls out, her voice breaking. Olivia is scrawling “Welcome home, Eleanor” in red chalk on the wall, a clear link between a mental disorder shared by mother and daughter, the house as their meeting point. Nell then wanders through Hill House in a dreamy trance. She sees the mirage of a happy family; she dances with her husband. Then she hangs herself from the same staircase where her mother plunged to her own death two decades earlier, under the influence of mental illness or ghosts — ghosts that may or may not exist, but they are wildly real to the women they break. Many shows tell stories about grief and mental illness — This Is Us, The Affair, A Million Little Things — but rarely with such an authentic gravity as The Haunting of Hill House. It’s the little things: the blunt way an adult Steven tells his father, “I miss my mom”; a model of the “forever home” that Shirley keeps in her office; the gloves Theodora wears to avoid her telepathic abilities, but also because they were her mother’s suggestion. A sober Luke clinging desperately to the female friend he made in rehab, looking for whatever vestige of salvation he can find. The way Hugh whispers to his dead wife as if she’s standing beside him, knowing full well she isn’t. Nell realizing she was the Break-Neck Lady all along, visions of her future suicide coloring the brighter days of her youth. As the child of a dead mother, Hill House struck me in my core, especially in the show’s beautiful centerpiece sixth episode, “Two Storms.” As the Crains gather at Shirley’s funeral home for Nell’s wake, the brunt force of their grief boils over in ways anyone intimately familiar with loss will recognize. Filmed in a series of continuous long takes, the episode is suffocating: We watch in real-time as the Crain siblings bite at their mutual insecurities and shared grief, and air out their anxieties. “There were seven of us, and now there’s five, because two of us decided to die,” Shirley says through tears, condemning her mother and sister before circling back around to Nell’s pain. “I wish she felt like she could have talked to me.” Theo pours drink after drink, Steven and Luke share childhood stories of their sister, while Hugh wanders the halls of the funeral parlor, stumbling on a memory from their Hill House days that links his daughter’s suicide to the early stages of his wife’s paranoia. Hill House makes great use of its setting and genre, with plenty of jump scares, ghouls, and gore to satiate horror fans. But its power is not in how thoughtfully it scares, but in how deeply it penetrates.<doc-sep>The Haunting of Hill House 'Bent-Neck Lady' episode is leaving fans "emotionally destroyed" Picture: Netflix/The Haunting of Hill House/Screenshot By Nicky Idika Audiences are absolutely floored by the emotional 5th episode of Netflix's 'The Haunting of Hill House' Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House is already shaping up to be an audience favourite this spooky season. Each episode is a completely different level of terror and the fans are already turning their fear into hilarious memes. You might need someone to explain that PACKED ending to you, but one episode you'd probably rather forget is episode 5, The Bent Neck Lady. Picture: Netflix/The Haunting of Hill House/Screenshot Depending on your threshold for terror, you probably reacted to episode 5, The Bent-Neck Lady, with a mix of horror, unease, and sadness. Warning: Spoilers ahead! So, if you don't know about the Bent-Neck Lady, you're about to. In the episode, we follow Nell Crain from her childhood in Hill House to her adult life, where she is still trying to deal with the trauma and sleep disorder she developed as a kid, thanks to the Bent-Neck Lady. The Bent-Neck Lady was an apparition she encountered in Hill House who would often appear standing at the foot of Nell's bed or hovering above her where she lay. Picture: Netflix/The Haunting of Hill House/Screenshot Fast forward to Nell's untimely death and we see her falling through time, back to moments in her life where she was most traumatised by the Bent-Neck Lady. Only, now we realise that the ghostly figure wasn't just a random Hill House ghost. No, NELL was the Bent-Neck Lady the whole time. Nell. Was. Haunting. Herself. The conclusion to this episode was a perfectly executed twist and fans are definitely shaken at the reveal. After watching the story of the bent neck lady #TheHauntingofHillHouse pic.twitter.com/RoxWpqg5jW — AngryRavi (@ravikiran248) October 15, 2018 thinking about the bent neck lady pic.twitter.com/E08ad8K9ra — eraserhead baby (@vickykrieps) October 16, 2018 Did anyone else have nightmares about the "Bent Neck Lady" last night? Seriously I don't know if I can sleep anymore with the lights off. #Review coming your way tomorrow for #TheHautingOfHillHouse on @netflix 👻🌄🏡 Prepared to be scared...😨😱 pic.twitter.com/jWFQ1R4ADA — Amy Koto, TV Fanatic Girl (@TV_Fanatic_Girl) October 15, 2018 Episode 5 of The Haunting of Hill House. This is all too much. pic.twitter.com/1rlTPJl0d3 — ROACHES ! (@FiveSecondPose) October 16, 2018 The Haunting of Hill House series on @netflix is so good. Bent neck lady and bowler hat guy are creepy as hell pic.twitter.com/2y6SDqrGSU — Vance Barnes (@Ven13Vance) October 13, 2018 One person said they were even scared to sleep because they'd also experienced sleep paralysis like Nell. Another person said that the episode had "emotionally destroyed" them. Which, same. People think it's one of the best bits of television they've ever seen. episode 5 of The Haunting of Hill House is one of the best episodes of television i’ve ever seen — jonathan (@pynechone) October 14, 2018 The Haunting of Hill House is the best horror I have seen in a very long time episode 5 holy shit — Nutritional Beast (@Facesovpain) October 15, 2018 The Haunting of Hill House is freaking bonkers. It's unsettling, intense, perfect, and terrifying. I just finished episode 5 and I have full body shivers and am in tears. I'm a horror junkie is this is the best thing I have watched in years. #netflix #TheHauntingOfHillHouse — Mandy Romanuk (@Mandyrmk) October 16, 2018 24 Scary Movies And Shows To Watch On Netflix This Halloween 2018 The Bent-Neck Lady episode leans on so many different emotional touch points, including grief, anxiety, and shock. The unexpected dread you feel watching Nell fall through to different moments of her life is so unusual and jarring, even in a series full of unusual and jarring moments. People have clearly reacted strongly to this particular episode, as well as director Mike Flanagan's ability to deliver this pitch perfect horror story. We're torn between wanting more Bent-Neck Lady-esque twists in a potential season 2 and not wanting to think about her for a very long time.<doc-sep>'The Haunting of Hill House' almost had a very dark and different ending Picture: Netflix By Nicky Idika 'The Haunting of Hill House' had a ending that divided audiences, but it was almost quite dark and different, according to director Mike Flanagan. Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House had plenty of hidden ghosts, utterly devastating twists, and moments that made it one of the most compelling new shows on the platform this year. You probably have your own thoughts on the episode 10 ending, but the show's prolific director, Mike Flanagan, revealed that The Haunting of Hill House almost had a completely different finale. Spoilers ahead, folks. In the final episode of the season, the characters get an uncharacteristically hopeful ending. Leigh is finally pregnant and Luke is celebrating two years of sobriety. Picture: Netflix/Screenshot In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mike Flanagan revealed that the Crain family almost didn't get quite such a hopeful ending. "We toyed with the idea for a little while that over that monologue, over the image of the family together, we would put the Red Room window in the background. For a while, that was the plan. Maybe they never really got out of that room. " Flanagan says that the night before they were gonna shoot, he had a last minute change of heart. "I felt like it was cruel. That surprised me. I'd come to love the characters so much that I wanted them to be happy. I came in to work and said, "I don't want to put the window up. I think it’s mean and unfair." "Once that gear had kicked in, I wanted to lean as far in that direction as possible. We've been on this journey for 10 hours; a few minutes of hope was important to me. " Picture: Netflix It sounds like Mike Flanagan wanted to protect the characters as much as fans did! Showing the window in the Red Room would have signaled to fans that the house had ultimately won, trapping one or all of them in a warped dream state similar to visions at the beginning of the episode. That might have been a sufficiently horrifying way to end the season, but it would have felt incredibly dark. What do you guys think? Do you love the ending as is or would you have actually liked the darker alternate ending?<doc-sep>
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, all 10 episodes. Proceed with caution. It's safe to assume these days that a supernatural TV drama isn't going to end with us, the viewers, getting every answer or solving all the mysteries we faced over the season. So it was with Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, which after 10 episodes of family secrets and unexpected zombie torsos, left us wondering what exactly we'd seen. That's not to say that Hill House's ending wasn't satisfying, but it may feel that way at first. It's certainly a game-changer and doesn't explain half the specters haunting the Crains (and us!) all season, but it merits a second viewing to solidify the journey we just went on and what it all means. By this time, nine episodes into Hill House, we've dealt with some major shocks and twists, such as that Nell is the "bent-neck lady" she's been seeing for years or that Luke's imaginary friend Abigail was real and killed by Olivia when the house consumed her mind. That primed us to expect equally painful discoveries in the finale, beginning with a shocking reveal about the Red Room: We've been inside it before. We revisit a scene from episode 1 in which young Nellie and Shirley try a skeleton key on the door but to no avail. It's cut together with another scene; Theo in her dance studio, experiencing disturbance when someone tries the door. At first the simultaneous occurrences barely compute – is this a flashback? A comparison? Will something emerge to tie the events together? But no, this is what happened, what always happened. Theo unknowingly accessed the Red Room, which always appeared to her as her dance studio, and when she locked the door it turned back into that ominous red door that no one else could get through. It was Nellie's toy room, Olivia's reading room, Steve's game room, and Luke's tree house. Image: Steve Dietl/Netflix In those times, when they weren't afraid of or fighting the house, the Crains opened themselves up to it. They revealed their inner, individual lives to the Red Room, which gave them what they wanted as it fed off their vulnerability, learned their behavior and fears. Back in the present, Hill House is after the Crain siblings, but its old horrors have a recent acquisition they didn't bargain for: Nell. Despite its thirst to acquire her, the House can't contend with the youngest sister's kindness and consideration. It couldn't corrupt her the way it corrupted her mother, lonely Liv whose ghost just pushed her daughter to death. As the house pulls each sibling under, it confronts them, not with their greatest fear, but with their biggest source of guilt. "Fear and guilt are sisters," Theo's lover tells her in a nightmare. Fear is what made the Crains, as children, susceptible to Hill House; guilt is what brought them back. Nell pulls them out, because all of them feel guilt about not believing or helping her more – and they're all running from the guilt about her death. You deserve better, sweet Nellie. Image: Tina Rowden/Netflix Once they're all conscious (it was touch-and-go with Luke there), Nell appears to them clearly and explains the nature of the Red Room. She also touches upon something the show plays with a little throughout its 10 episodes: Time. It isn't linear, but random and ongoing. "Our moments fall around us like rain," she says. That's the only explanation we get for Nell visiting her younger self throughout her tragically short life, or for the writing on Hill House's walls or Olivia having nightmares about her dead adult child. With what little time they all have left together, the siblings apologize to Nell, who assuages their guilt and tells them she loves them. She disappears, this time we know, for good. Locked out of the room, Hugh faces the ghost of Olivia, no longer herself after years of Hill House eating away at her mind and soul. Seeing her husband sparks enough of her old self for her to remember their love for each other and the children. He manages to reason with her, to negotiate the kids' release in exchange for his own life. When the siblings leave, the house doesn't stop them, on their mother's command. It's done with them now.