The Haunting of Hill House: Directing Fear
A behind-the-scenes look at director Mike Flanagan and the process of filming ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House.
“In 90 minutes, you can get away with scaring people three or four times. For something like this—over 10 hours—the rules are very different.”
Loosely based on the 1959 novel by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House is a supernatural horror drama TV miniseries created and directed by Mike Flanagan. Streaming on Netflix, it serves as the first entry in The Haunting anthology series.
The show’s plot alternates between two timelines, following five adult siblings whose paranormal experiences at Hill House continue to haunt them in the present day, and flashbacks depicting events leading up to the eventful night in 1992 when the family fled from the mansion.
The ensemble cast features Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kate Siegel, and Victoria Pedretti as the siblings in adulthood, with Carla Gugino and Henry Thomas as parents Olivia and Hugh Crain, and Timothy Hutton appearing as an older version of Hugh.
The series premiered on Netflix in 2018. The follow-up series The Haunting of Bly Manor, with a different story and characters, streamed in 2020.
About the original book
The 1959 gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House by author Shirley Jackson has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. A finalist for the National Book Award, and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, Shirley Jackson’s classic novel has been made into two feature films and a play, as well as serving as the basis of the Netflix series.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
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Synopsis of the 2018 TV show
In the summer of 1992, Hugh and Olivia Crain and their five children—Steven, Shirley, Theodora (Theo), Luke, and Eleanor (Nell)—move into Hill House to renovate the mansion in order to sell it and build their own house, designed by Olivia. However, due to unexpected repairs, they have to stay longer, and they begin to experience increasing paranormal phenomena, resulting in a tragic loss and the family fleeing from the house. Twenty-six years later, the Crain siblings and their estranged father reunite after another tragedy strikes them, and they are forced to confront how their time in Hill House has affected each of them.
Find The Haunting of Hill House TV show on Amazon
Find the original novel The Haunting of Hill House on Amazon
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The video below offers a behind-the-scenes look at director Mike Flanagan and the process of filming ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House.
The Haunting of Hill House | Featurette: Directing Fear [HD] | Netflix
In the video below, cast members Henry Thomas, Victoria Pedretti and Kate Siegel talk about working with director Flanagan, how much they knew about the arc of the season before filming began, how the show is a family drama wrapped in the horror genre, and a lot more.
