The Haunting of Hill House Season 1 Review

The Haunting of Hill House follows a family across multiple timelines in which they are dealing with the chilling effects of a house they used to reside in. The present time is the main focus where we see this broken family years later as adults. The past moments are when everyone is a child and first arriving at their new short term home. They're basically at Hill House to fix and then flip to build their dream home. It's an interesting setup and one that works beautifully with the past showing a moment, with the future mirroring that to show the long term effect it has had.

This is one haunted house and it stays that way coming back in the present time to once again feed upon this family. This is a different sort of horror series, one that doesn't rely on jump scares. This is one of pure terror and it provides chills by being on the next level of psychologically messing with you. It's both subtle and really in your face, keeping you guessing at all times. They really did put together a beautiful series here and one that truly terrified me. I'm not usually bothered by horror, but this one certainly had lasting effects on my sleep when I'd watch a few episodes late at night. It's safe to say, it certainly did its proposed goal.

Aside from there being an overall narrative and a constant switch between what time it was, each episode focuses on a character. A lot of this series focused on ensemble moments of which it excelled, while also giving us good segments of clear individual character building. It was a nice mix having these varying age gaps within the cast as you got to see how this house twisted people depending on their interactions and situation within the building.

The youngest certainly knew something was up, as did the father as he desperately wanted to keep them together. What they ended up with was one messed family and it takes a tragic moment to get them all back together in the Hill House's neck of the woods. This is when things really start rolling and it was an excellent series that tied perfectly together. I felt the last couple episodes trailed a bit in terms of terror, but they mostly served as a wrap-up and explanation to get all loose ends concluded. The acting was great, the family had excellent chemistry and the environments had a good chill to them in general. The house was terrifying and the subtle ways the horror was introduced was great.

The Conclusion

The Haunting of Hill House delivers one terrifying experience as possibly the best horror series Netflix has to offer. It's just unsettling at almost all times and does so while providing an excellent narrative. It was great to see something that doesn't rely on warn out jump scares to provide the fear. It can hit you at any moment and with this cast they helped bring it to life properly. There was a great selection here with the mix of present and past characters.

You could really look at almost any scene and notice something haunting. It all tied together beautifully and each moment was used at another point. It's best to watch this all close together as so many moments are mentioned and then expanded upon as we see additional perspectives of the situation. I thought this was great, well shot and perfectly executed.

The Haunting of Hill House Season 1 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 9.2