It's a fantastic TV show, so I'm inspired to do this quick mini review on it. I am a fan of Mike Flanagan's films such as Oculus and Before I Wake but for some reason I was dragging my feet when it comes to his many TV series that were currently available on Netflix. Finally this year, I took the first big step and watched the show, which is loosely adapted from the 1959 novel with the same name by Shirley Jackson. The show follows the Crain family, the husband and wife with their 5 children, and their experiences with paranormal activities after living at the Hill House. The show alternates between the time when the five children were still kids staying at the Hill House, and when they were adults still grappling with the tragedy that happened when they were kids.
I love how the way the show tells the story of the family; it took its time and slowly building up the tense and mysteries to finally revealed everything at the end. It's as much of a family drama as it is a horror story. The two elements blended beautifully. The first 5 episodes focused on each of the five children characters respectively (both when they were kids and adults), and I find that really helpful for me to get to know each of them and their struggles. There's also an episode each that focused more on the parents in the second half of the show.
There are a lot of twists and turns as more secrets are revealed near the end of the show but there are parts that I find to be quite dialogues-heavy. I don't mind when characters are giving long speech but there's this one monologue about the past from one of the parents that got me a little bit confused. Maybe it's the lack of my understanding of the context but I don't really understand how that story connects (or the significance of it) to the character. I enjoy the speech and the performance is great, I just don't understand the connection. Regardless, I still love the scene and the whole episode. Talking about episodes, my favourite is episode 5, The Bent-Neck Lady, which focused on one of the two youngest members of the family. There's also an episode with multiple long-shots that were quite spectacular (I think it was episode 6?). I don't study films so I'm not even sure if that's what its called but from an audience perspective, I'm really quite impressed.
It's a great watch and I thoroughly enjoy it. If you haven't watch it yet and you love horror, then I'm definitely recommending you to watch this. It's high quality, sophisticated story-telling with a great cast which I'm sure you will enjoy.
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