This is not a review as such of Haunting of Hill House, but rather a Twitter thread – or a ghost stor(if)y – that attempts to tease out a recurring (and transforming) theme, summarisable in a single but polysemic word, that runs through the structure of Mike Flanagan’s series.
Have you ever watched a film or a TV series, and become so convinced that it should have been called something else that you wonder if that ‘something else’ might even have been its working title?
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
Exhibit A: Mike Flanagan’s HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, which I’ve just finished binge-watching (yeah, I know – I’m an aeon behind everyone else).
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
I really enjoyed its sophisticated shifting of character POV and chronology, and the way it so insidiously collapsed spatiotemporal norms. I liked its mix of psychology, spookiness and pathos.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
Here’s the thing, though: while I get that its title immediately annexes it to an old, established (narrative) property,…
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
and while the show itself is indeed set in a place called Hill House that is, you know, haunted…,
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
and while, in a straightforward way, its reappropriated title advertises the series’ genre affiliations to the viewer with great economy,…
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
despite all of this, HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE just never seemed the best title for the series.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
I’m not talking about its deviations from Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel (which I haven’t read), but rather about its other, hidden title, buried like a secret between the bricks and mortar of the series’ deep structure.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
HoHH features a paterfamilias, Hugh Crain (Henry Thomas/Timothy Hutton), whose (express, vaunted) talent is his ability to ‘fix’ broken properties for flipping.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
“I can fix that,” is the catchphrase of Hugh, like a more subdued Bob the Builder – and later he will also try to ‘fix’ the cracks in his broken family.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
One of Hugh’s daughters, Shirley (Lulu Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser), is so taken by the restorative work that a funeral attendant has performed on her mother’s battered and broken corpse…
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
…that Shirley herself grows up to become a funeral attendant, priding herself on the way that she can ‘fix’ both the appearance of a cadaver, and the grief, denial and horror of loved ones left behind.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
Meanwhile, Shirley’s youngest brother Luke (Julian Hilliard, Oliver Jackson-Cohen) grows up to be a heroin addict, driven by his endless quest for the next ‘fix’.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
And Hill House, the mansion where they spent a fateful summer as children, seeks to trap the Crains forever in its prison-house of guilt, fear and trauma, ‘waking’ them up into a ghostly eternity that is also a timeless fixity.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
So while I have no idea if it would have drawn as many viewers to the series as ‘HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE’, for me ‘FIX’ remains the title that haunts this series’ halls.
— (@AntBit) March 13, 2019
© Anton Bitel
