"The Haunting of Hill House" and the Neverending Anxiety of Choosing to Live
Eleanor Crain, YOU are my tethered!!
TW: mentions of Suicide and Depression
“Hill House, not sane, stands against its hills holding darkness from within”.
Mike Flanagan’s hit series The Haunting of Hill House follows the Crain siblings as they attempt to live their adult lives and forget the summer they spent in Hill House. The summer they lost their mother and supernatural forces relentlessly attacked their family. Interspersed between the summer at Hill House and each of their present lives, the Crain siblings are brought together again by the sudden disappearance of the youngest, Nell.
The Haunting of Hill House is very loosely based on the infamous Shirley Jackson novel of the same name. Jackson’s novel was met with critical acclaim not only because of her sharp literary talent but because she introduced a relationship between psychology and horror. Flanagan takes this and raises it to the third power by exploring multigenerational trauma. The ensemble cast that enters the haunted house for a psychological experiment is changed to the Crains, a loving household that leaves Hill House the traumatized remnants of a family unit. Father Hugh and mother Olivia renovate Hill House as their last hurrah before using this money to build their '“Forever House”. Hugh, twins Nell and Luke and, begrudgingly, the psychic Theodora, believe that Hill House is haunted. Shirley and Steven, the eldest, believe that the family is suffering from mania.
This combination of the trauma the children experienced individually at Hill House and the way their father deals with it leads them to their own extraordinarily different coping mechanisms that only intensifies their trauma in lieu of facing it. Shirley and Theodora take up helping careers to redirect their trauma, Luke becomes an addict, and Steven decides to profit off his, and his siblings’, trauma. Nell has always been the most afflicted by her time in Hill House, she alone was haunted by the faceless Bent-Neck Lady and is the most affected by Olivia’s death. Her mother encouraged Nell’s creativity, built her confidence by telling her to “always insist on your cup of stars”. Her, completely normal, behavior after their mother died leaves her with the label of ‘the crazy sibling’. Nell is simply the sibling that opens herself up to the range of emotions that are inevitable after a traumatic event. She realizes early on that without Olivia, childhood is over. Her fractured family is on path of isolation and ruin.
She goes to therapy, acknowledges the supernatural and familial trauma that has shaped her life and gets married; finds a new sense of comfort with her husband. But that damn ghost won’t leave her alone. Her husband dies, and a downward spiral of events begins. She confronts these feelings alone and succumbs to the house. It seems the fault of her siblings for their lack of support but there was never a way for Nell to escape because she is the Bent Neck Lady. This revelation of her fate is profoundly horrifying.
Eleanor Crain has been haunting herself her entire life. A haunting is the closest thing that can explain the otherworldly unrest that exists in the depressed psyche. I always wonder if perhaps I was meant to die, that life feels wrong because I have broken the laws of nature and tested the fates by not killing myself. I try to do everything right, just like Nell, but it’s never enough. In part because depression is an unexplainable phenomenon, just like ghosts, but also because only so much can be done to heal in isolation. It’s hard to pull yourself out of a well without a rope, or someone holding the other end too. Nell does attempt to reach out but ultimately enters Hill House alone. I was angry at her siblings, and they were angry at themselves. But Nell knows everything that has led her here and she accepts it. Nell comes to her siblings, as she dances through the halls with their mother; they express their regret over their treatment of her and she reassures them that.
“I loved you me, you loved me, and the rest was confetti”
The series has been preparing the viewer for this moment by spotlighting each of the siblings’ good moments with Nell. Being a sibling is special because it makes you a shapeshifter. Siblings are sucked into the cracks of hurt that your parent cannot heal. Sometimes unwittingly but I would never regret molding to what my sister needs in the moment. It’s a brief transformation that we will not always have the privilege of doing. We’ll grow up like the Crains and suppress any feelings or declarations of love through service. This realization that they need each other has come too late.
The first time I watched the series I was too angry to even think of doing what Nell did, angry for her and myself. Now, with a little hope, I recognize Nell’s maturity. It’s rubbed off on me. Even if I was supposed to kill myself, I miraculously did not. I am still alive. I am free to create a path without any limitations because I am creating it in real time.
The sibling’s reconciliation creates strong reactions because it happens in the heart of their trauma, Hill House’s Red Room. The Red Room is a mysterious red door that manifests itself differently to members of the Crain family. It is one of the many traditional haunted house tropes that Hill House contains: the antiquated wallpaper, the mysterious room and ghosts that prey on the weak. That being said, the horror is not the house itself but the recesses of the house where secrets hide. This is when we find out about Hugh’s desperation to fix things, Shirley’s avoidant tendencies and Olivia’s migraine attacks. Flanagan uses this not only to the advantage of building character but also for connecting his script and direction. The camera hides like it’s an apparition floating through the house, with no regard for past or present as it sweeps through the Crain’s entire lives. The brilliance of this technique really sinks in at the catalyst event for the sibling’s reunion, Nell’s funeral.
This is the first time they have been altogether in several years. Nellie’s funeral is just one long shot, that shifts from the different members of the Crain family. From the night their mother died to Nell’s wake — Another link between Eleanor and Olivia, of their strong bond, of the way time only heightens the pain of traumatic events. It’s stupidly all consuming. It all feels so familiar to be at the funeral of your sister, who was so like your mother. Am I 12 or 32? —The scene is tense, highlighted by the usual muted colors and a raging storm outside, representative of the darkness that follows them. There is even more insight of how the Crains avoid their trauma. Theodora drinks endlessly, Shirley stresses furiously, Luke folds back into himself and Steven is selfish as always. The Crains leave Nell’s funeral angry at each other; they are till unwilling to talk anything out in earnest. Then, Luke steals Theodora's car and Shirley's credit card to return to Hill House. Only there can they really confront their trauma.
Mike Flanagan does not let up on creating cathartic moments like this as he continued to release The Haunting of Bly Manor two years later. Flanagan sees mental illness and traumatic responses as a petrifying uncanny, but ultimately explainable, phenomenon. It’s hard to disagree, as I certainly do not have an explanation (I am not in that understanding stage of my healing process). So stories like the Crains make me feel optimistic.