The Haunting of Hill House is a classical literature novel by Shirley Jackson, and one of my favorite ghost stories. In the book there are four characters that enter a study to stay at a haunted house for the summer in order to determine if it really is haunted and if ghosts exist. The book later introduces two additional characters but the main four are the focus and the book is narrated through Eleanor Vance, one of the four beginning characters. Something I like is that through out the book ghosts are said too deeply saturate hill house but they are not visualized and do not take form. They are shown through the sense of unease the four characters feel while staying at the house, the things they feel, the things they only see in the corner of their eye. The book really crescendos but I won't say how it ends in case anyone wants to read it. The book was good but the show was amazing and I rewatch it pretty often. The show is based on the book but they switch quite a few things around. For one, the show follows a family of seven that move into hill house while the parents fix it up to sell it. Over the short time they stay the evil in the house grows around them like mold. You can see the ghosts in the show but they aren't just there for jump scares, the way they look and when they appear means something. After my second watch through I noticed that there were so many ghosts hiding in the background that I didn't notice the first time. This was a really interesting way to make it clear the house infects all that enter and die there, keeping them captive. I won't go any further to avoid spoilers but the show is a master piece in storytelling. It's more of a psychological horror but it's still great.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Welcome to the course blog. You'll be posting here as part of your work for this class. As explained on the syllabus and on Moodle, if y... -
Hi, my name is Emma Webb (She/her). I am from Arlington, Virginia. I decided to take this course because of my background in the Catholic fa...
-
One of my favorite pieces of media right now is an audiodrama called Malevolent, and within Malevolent there’s a unique interpretation of ...
I agree that everyone should watch! It's such a good show.
ReplyDeleteThe Haunting of Hill House is such a good read and a great show! I find it interesting that the show focuses much more on acknowledged beings like ghosts and spirits while the book is more of a psychological horror where more of the frightening elements come from doubting the mind, gaslighting, or being unable to perceive the world around the characters. It's also super fascinating to change the characters into siblings in the show! Especially considering the queer coding and romantic subtext behind some of the relationships in the book.
ReplyDeleteI've heard really good things about the show! A while back I listened with my sister to a podcast episode about it, and it sounded lovely. Something I've seen is a playthough of a game called "House on a Hill," likely inspired name-wise, but is an entertaining game with several endings about a, you guessed it, haunted house that happens to be on a hill.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of this show until I took this class, and this description makes me want to look into it more! The idea of rewatching a show and catching new things is prevalent across many genres, but with this show in particular, I think it is particularly interesting because catching new ghosts is a meaningful experience, as their appearance and behavior truly matter!
ReplyDelete