Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House is still in fans’ memories. At the time, Mike Flanagan had already gained a decent following for his low-budget yet appreciated horror films like Oculus and Gerard’s Game. In 2018, however, Flanagan turned to episodic storytelling and created a miniseries that utilized horror, drama, and supernatural elements. Based on Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House featured a distinct type of horror story and attracted massive critical acclaim and an unprecedented fan following.
The series became famous for its two-fold, generational storytelling and for making fright and scare a part of the series’ characters and their emotional fragility. It was never about jump scares with The Haunting of Hill House, which makes it unique.
Turns out, it still has the same impact on the audience it had almost half a decade earlier.
A Reddit thread has recently attracted massive traction with more than three hundred comments, in which users talked about the show and praised the performance and other aspects. The original poster commended the show’s supernatural elements and marked it as #1 on the list of top horror productions.
The praise continues in the comments, with people sharing their experiences with the show.
From calling the show a masterpiece to praising the show’s character designs and direction, people were all in awe of the show.
There were equally appreciative comments for Mike Flanagan’s direction, which they feel he knocked out of the park.
And, of course, people couldn’t help but revisit Flanagan’s other work, especially Oculus, and even the spiritual follow-ups to The Haunting of Hill House, such as Midnight Mass.
The show’s credibility is such that it still rates among the top horror shows on Netflix. A prominent fan of the show’s creative genius was that Stephen King, who is against the revisioning of horror novels; he went on to call it a “work of genius.” His comment was:
“I don’t usually care for this kind of revisionism, but this is great. Close to a work of genius, really. I think Shirley Jackson would approve, but who knows for sure?”
While the series was snubbed at major award ceremonies, it scored a rightful nomination at the Writers’ Guild of America Awards for New Series that year.
Since the show’s success, Flanagan has invested a lot in creating more horror miniseries, starting with adapting the novel The Turn of the Screw into The Haunting of Bly Manor. It was followed by far more acclaimed Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club. While each show tells a different story with a new set of characters, Flanagan has often united with the old cast, with many playing different roles in his Netflix productions.
The Haunting of Hill House not only turned Flanagan’s career around but also significantly impacted the horror and supernatural-thriller genres. Several shows can be traced back to Hill House as they all share a similar vibe, and several characters’ emotional states resemble that from the first show. While the stories aren’t connected, there is an evident flair for Flanagan’s storytelling style in each.
Comprising of ten episodes, The Haunting of Hill House is available on Netflix. And Flanagan is almost ready with another mini-series titled The Fall of the House of Usher to bring us into his supernatural universe again.
Meanwhile, The Haunting of Hill House is fantastic, and available to watch on Netflix now.
