Hill House survivors keep making their way to The Haunting Of Bly Manor
Aux Features The Haunting Of Hill House
Despite assuming they had all learned their lesson about not going back to creepy old haunted gothic manors, it looks like the survivors of Hill House (and a few non-survivors) just can’t stay away from crumbling architecture that wants to murder them. First, it was reported that Victoria Pedretti and Oliver Jackson-Cohen would be returning for season two of Netflix’s now-anthology series adapting classic novels of horror. And today comes word that Henry Thomas is getting out of those blood-stained clothes and joining his fictional family members for the new story.
The Haunting Of Hill House writer-director Mike Flanagan announced on social media yesterday that Thomas, a.k.a. Hugh Crain, patriarch of the family with some of the worst luck in the world when it comes to flipping houses, was joining the cast of The Haunting Of Bly Manor, reportedly an adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn Of The Screw. We’re not suggesting that Flanagan cast the actor because he liked the idea of having someone named Henry in a story by someone named Henry, but we’re also not rejecting the thesis, depending on how weird Flanagan might be about such parallels. This makes three former Crains thus far—the ball is in your courts, Carla Gugino/Michael Huisman/Elizabeth Reaser/Kate Siegel/Timothy Hutton (as well as all the kid versions of these actors).
I’m beyond thrilled to announce that the inestimable, irreplaceable, invaluable Henry Thomas has joined the cast of THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR.
— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) August 28, 2019
31 Comments
I truly hope they don’t blow the ending again, going against their own rules and logic. I can’t think of another series that I loved so much in the beginning and hated so much by the end.
Yeah, they really fucked it up to an absurd degree.
They did, which was a predictable consequence of trying to turn the story into an uplifting family drama.
The whole series leaned real heavily on horror cliches, but the direction was so stylish that it worked. And the early episodes seemed like they were circling around a genuinely interesting story about the late effects of childhood trauma. And then they literally tried to reverse course in the last episode. I spent a lot of that last episode gobsmacked that this show, of all shows, was trying to yank my heartstrings.
I would say the nine and a half episodes that preceeded the horrific ending are still worth the watch. That last half hour though, fuckin’ WOOF.
I find it a much more satisfying ending if you assume it’s a fakeout and they never actually left the red room.
Even then, they’ve already sabotaged their own setups multiple times over. Apparently the fakeout was the original ending and the showrunner changed his mind at the 11th hour. But again, it really wouldn’t have changed the bizarre course changes of the last couple of episodes.
Even if they had attempted a last-minute rug-yank, the filmmaking itself in that last episode was so goopy and mawkish that it doesn’t support an ironic interpretation. It doesn’t help that the novel they adapted was cold-blooded, and the first few episodes get a lot of emotion from the idea that these cute little kids are going to end up as disturbed, addicted, suicidal adults. But in that last episode, the ghosts basically say that multi-generational suicide is no big thing, and the survivors just need to move on with their lives. What the everliving fuck?
Right? “Ghosts come in many forms, and haunted has many different definitions…But really, this house isn’t so bad, because you get to hang out with the people you love forever. It’s kind of heaven, in a way! Also, spirits can’t leave anymore and Nell is no longer the Bent-Neck Lady for some reason. The End.”
“Remember how the house drove our mother to suicide, which basically undermined the structure of our family and ruined all our lives? And how our sister was tormented for decades by visions of (spoiler alert) her own death until it finally happened? Well that all happened to assist with our personal growth! And tormenting the caretakers with the specter of their dead child was just a reminder for them to die in the house – not in a scary way, though, in a happy way! It’s a happy ending!” – The worst people in the universe
Can someone PLEASE tell me what the difference is between “The House on Haunted Hill” and “The Haunting of Hill House?”
The first one is just a house on a haunted hill. The second one is a house that’s being haunted
One had Chris Kattan in it.
I can’t remember the name of that production company – was it Spookhouse? Anyway, I go back and forth about their greatest work. It was probably Ghost Ship, but their remake of Thirteen Ghosts was pretty stupendous. Those movies were the ideal of a terrible, mid-budget horror movie: inexplicable casts (Matthew Lillard, F Murray Abraham, and Shannon Elizabeth? Why not?), lavish yet ridiculous production design, dated music cues, setpieces that took great pains to announce themselves. House on Haunted Hill was my least favorite, although the inkblot-monster or whatever it is was a genuinely striking visual effect.
It was Dark Castle Entertainment. I thought Jeffrey Rush was a great fill-in for Vincent Price from the original but other than that, yeah, it was a unique kind of awful.I loved that glass, mechanical house from 13 Ghosts.
That’s right. Is Spookhouse the one that makes the tense, violent, cheap looking ones with adjectives for titles, or is it a name I made up by mixing Blumhouse and cough syrup?
works for me.
One is a movie, the other is a TV show, and they have nothing to do with one another?
This:
One was from William Castle, and used the gimmick of “Emergo”, a skeleton that would hang above the audience while a similar skeleton appeared onscreen. The other is a novel by Shirley Jackson which was adapted into a Robert Wise film simply titled “The Haunting” (to avoid confusion with the William Castle film).
The other is a novel by Shirley Jackson which was adapted into a Robert Wise film simply titled “The Haunting” I’d like to add that The Haunting is one of the most terrifying movies ever made. I think there’s one brief special effect, and if the MPAA had been around it would be rated G, but it is scary as hell. Oh, likewise The Innocents (based on Turn of the Screw) – frightening, haunting and … you know, black and white and stagy. But trust me.Oh, and Shirley Jackson was a brilliant writer – check her out. I suppose Henry James was fine but I haven’t read him.
I saw The Haunting when I was 13 or 14 — it came out in ‘63, but I saw it on tv on the late movie. It is still the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
I’ve never found the Shirley Jackson novel or the movie straight-up terrifying, but “whose hand was I holding” is probably the best horror setpiece ever written/filmed. And the ending of the novel (I don’t remember how well it’s pulled off in the movie) is upsetting in a way that most horror stories can’t manage. That’s one of the reasons the TV show drove me nuts – not only was that last episode incoherent in the context of the show, it pretty much reversed the theme of the source material. Making changes to characters and plot points is part of adapting a novel, but once they inverted the whole point of the novel (Nell’s search for connection leads her to an absolutely and unnatural form of isolation) it invites the question of why they bothered having source material.
The House on Haunted Hill is a delightful old William Castle joint starring Vincent Price. If you know William Castle I don’t need to describe it further.The Haunting of Hill House is Shirley Jackson’s very best story—which is saying a hell of a lot—and an unnerving, excellent film from the mid-60s starring Julie Harris.Both of these movies have remakes which suck so much ass.The Netflix series of THoHH had me riveted right up to the finale, which was senseless, loaded with jarringly tone-deaf sentimentality, plot non-sequiturs and loose ends, and which completely upended the Jackson story’s whole theme by reversing one of her most famous quotes. Yes, I’m still mad about it.
I didn’t expect any legitimate responses to my half-serious comment (simply pointing out the oddly similar title/word jumble situation). Thank you for taking me seriously (you shouldn’t!) because now I have two films to watch.
YES. One of the best things about the novel is that “whatever walked there, walked alone” at the beginning of the novel is eerie but not exactly meaningful; when she repeats the same line at the end it ties up the whole novel in a creepy, mean-spirited bow. She even ends the novel on the word “alone” just to drive it home.Doing literally the opposite of that is just baffling. What the fuck kind of story were they telling?
Honestly it would be pretty neat if they just used the exact same cast every season
Eh. American Horror Story is not that great.
I recall the creator saying he planned to do just that. I’m honestly surprised sites report this not-really-news every time a returning actor is officially set to appear in the upcoming season.
Turns out the tonal whiplash of the first season’s ending was the ultimate horror.
Carla Gugino please!