The Haunting of Hill House

Some of the best writing that I've seen in a horror tv show maybe ever, and I think a lot of that has to do with the genius of horror that has become Mike Flanagan. What a talent for the genre. It's a fascinating character study more than it is a horror, but it's creepiness is not to be understated. It does a damn good job, even if sometimes the pacing and reveals feel underwhelming or overly bloated. It's not the greatest show to grace Netflix, but it's up there.

Come for the horror, stay for the obnoxious family drama.

Terrible writing, mediocre acting, definitely not scary.

A massively overrated show with too much melodrama and too little actual horror. Adding this one to the 'Netflix churns out too much (less than) mediocrity list'. Actually I prefer The Haunting by de Bont more than this. Teehee.

I said "That's fucking stupid" out loud three times during the first episode and almost quit right there, but I kept going and grew to like it considerably more as it progressed. There's some great stuff in here but there's plenty of bullshit too, and overall, the child acting is far better than most of the adult acting. That Mckenna Grace is something special, the way she uses body language to convey her character's disposition is far beyond her years.

Standard family drama peppered with hackneyed horror tropes.

The Haunting of Hill House is great in spite of its flaws. It's flaws are bad jump-scares and the fact that the story fumbles at the 2-yard line. Other than that it tells a layered and ambitious story about trauma, grief, and complicated family dynamics by establishing rich and flawed characters which hit close to home for me (I have three siblings) and had me thinking about it well past the end. Parts 5 & 6 might be the greatest back-to-back episodes in television history bar none.

There was a mountain of supernatural nonsense, heaping helpings of somber music, and a few jump-scares. But for me, what stands out are the precious few scenes of brilliant writing and exceptional acting. Amid the entire season, there were but 2 or 3 exceptional scenes, and much of the rest was boring, dull, and sometimes quite stupid. I liked how the writers played with time in the final episodes. Overall, it was worthwhile, but far from great and too absurd to be scary.

The show has soap opera dramatics, a first world problems "This Is Us" with ghosts. It's competently made but characters are insufferable;they keep on dwelling then dwell about their dwelling. Feels engineered as a resuIt. Makes me feel that this is horror tv show for people who don't watch horror or don't like it. Also don't like the "cattle prod cinema" aspect of it's scare construction: Lingering shots of creepy thing in the background, then a sharp sound and a flash of something spooky.