Go watch The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. That’s it, that’s the article. You can click away now. If you’re still here, then allow me to tell you why this is one of my favourite shows on Netflix, next to greats like Mindhunter and Real Rob (one of those I write is a joke, I’ll let you decide which). 

Loosely based on the 1959 novel by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House follows the Crain family. In 1992, Hugh and Olivia Crain, alongside their five kids, moved into “Hill House,” looking to spend the summer renovating the old mansion in order to sell it and hopefully make a handsome return. As the days go by, each of the family members experiences odd paranormal phenomena, with the children, in particular, seeing less than pleasant images during their stay. Again, never move into a house built before the Clinton administration—it’s gonna have ghosts in it.

The show flip-flops between two timelines. One that sees the family’s time at Hill House, and the other in the present day, with the kids all grown up. Most of the show revolves around each of the siblings, how their time at Hill House—specifically one fateful and tragic night—has affected their relationships with one another, their now estranged father, and most interestingly, their psyches. While Steven, the eldest sibling, has made a career of novelizing his family’s story of Hill House through a pragmatic lens where all of his answers to the supernatural are turned to simple logic, the twins Nell and Luke continue to struggle, emotionally, with those same stories from their past. This is where this show, to me, becomes something more than just another horror jaunt about a creepy house and its ghosts. 

Mike Flanagan wonderfully weaves a character-driven narrative about trauma and letting go that’s shot and directed to perfection. The stories and themes that are explored here are incredibly human and grounded. The actors do a terrific job in bringing these characters to life, and the horror elements are executed in ways that are not simply cheap jump scares, but which linger unnervingly.  

Be sure to check out the video version of this series on TikTok and Instagram!