Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
I’m never going to be over how Midnight Mass literally portrayed the death of an entire community that was already slowly dying, and the moment we finally felt relief and knew it was all over, was when the disabled girl couldn’t feel her legs anymore
Mike Flanagan will make a series about a haunted house, childhood trauma, add in some long ass monologues and a couple of lesbians for good measure, cast his wife in a main role, and I will go crazy Every. Single. Time.
You said it was a ghost story. It isn’t. No? It’s a love story. Same thing, really. TJ MIKELOGAN’s HALLOWEEN 2024 EVENT day thirteen ↬ horror television template
Happy Birthday @flanaganfilm! Thank you for all the incredible gifts you've given us fans throughout your career!
when i feel a slight crisp breeze and suddenly the voices are telling me it’s time for a full flanaverse rewatch
the most devastating trope in my opinion is when characters spend the whole story haunted by a ghost or entity only to realize at the end that it was themselves the whole time
only kind of bingo i play
house of usher comes out next week so it feels like the right time to break out the old mike flanagan bingo board.
filled out to the best of my memory. love when a dude is obsessed with themes and imagery <3
watching the last episode of midnight mass right before church on a sunday was perhaps not my smartest idea…
If i had a nickel for every time i cried my way through the last episode of a mike flannigan series, i would have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened two times
Mike Flannigan you’ve done it again (i’ve been sobbing violently for the last hour with no signs of stopping soon)
This series was just amazing. The plot, characters, relationships, metaphors, overall impression ... despite the fear I had to overcome while watching, I must admit that it is probably one of my favorite series ever. I recommend to everyone who doesn't mind a bit of horror, humor, and full of sadness.
It starts the quote “whatever walked there, walked alone”. This quote somehow seems to explain the whole story, right? The book wasn’t something I had expected. It deals with mental horror more than it deals with the ghostly horror which was not something I had expected though I knew there would be something psychological to it.
It starts with Eleanor going to the Hill House by getting an invitation from Dr. Montague. The descriptions added about the town downstream the Hill house were like something we expect from a typical haunted house story. However, I too enjoyed the journey of Eleanor going to the Hill House, the writing was very effective in that part. The atmosphere inside the Hill house which has been described made me feel suffocated. The Hill house was described to consist of different rooms with different colours of the rainbow but still very dark and deep, just to think about this it feels like nature is against lighting the house. All through the book, Hill house did not only spread horror, it also had spread hatred, loathing, jealousy and suspicion. But at some points, I felt that though Hill house was disastrous, Hill house was also their comfort zone to an extent. One very disagreeable thing about the book is that it’s very draggy. You’ll have already gone through almost 2/3 of the book but you’d feel nothing major is happening actually. I would have liked it better if it did contain a bit more things going on.
Now, talking about “The Haunting of Hill House” means talking about the characters of the book. The protagonist is of course Eleanor and everything is about her. Her life seems really boring which needed excitement and hence the decision of going to the Hill house has arisen and she was genuinely happy to go there. She is very imaginative and keeps imagining a lot of stuff at the time of the journey. She is actually very insecure and an overthinker. She always keeps thinking about what her mother says or how she would have reacted in all of the situations. I felt like she had been controlled by her mother for the whole time. She troubles herself in every small matter. She is very pathetic and desperate which is very normal for her as she was brought up very strictly. And then comes Theodora. She is a chill kinda person who also seems to like excitement. One of the lines from the book is very appropriate as it has described the characteristics of both Eleanor and Theodora, “Theodora’s face was stiff and sulky, she likes attention, Eleanor without thinking, moved and sat on the floor beside Theodora.” Dr. Montague was the most adventurous among them. The only thing I want to say about Luke is that he is a flirt.
Jackson’s writing style is very simple and easy to understand. She added many small details to make the hill house appear scarier and darker. But I did not like the style of her writing in case of conversations. It was messy with a disturbing flow which lacked smoothness.
This was all about the book. I enjoyed it though my expectation was a bit higher.
“I like writing fiction better than anything, because just being a writer of fiction gives you an absolutely unassailable protection against reality; nothing is ever seen clearly or starkly, but always through a thin veil of words.” -Shirley Jackson
adding to this as a Nell 4lifer !!!
* ending of episode 5, from when Nell enters the house to the end of the episode (i’ve seriously never cried so hard while watching a show i couldn’t breathe after xx)
* after Nell dies and Luke starts saying he’s cold and his arms and legs are stiff (it’s a twin thing)(i cant take this anymore)
* that shot in episode 6 where Hugh walks up to Nell’s body and it’s young Nell
* that other shot in episode 6 where it’s facing Hugh and all the siblings are in the back, but Nell is there too as the bent-neck-lady (she literally just wanted to be with her family im GONE)
* Theo telling Shirl why she tried to get with her husband
I love Nellie Crain she deserves nothing but love
spoilers
literally all of episode 4 (especially the end of the episode somebody hug luke pls)
the young twins basically explaining how theyre gonna die to olivia that shit HURTS
the end of episode 6 luke needs some love
nell crying over her dead husband
luke waking up in the red room dead with olivia, nell and abigail
young luke in the dumbwaiter
theos reaction to luke in the dumbwaiter
when luke sees nell and olivia at nells funeral
luke makes me very emotional
Parallels / Luke Crain vs Father Paul / Pacing The Haunting of Hill House / Midnight Mass (both in episode 4) Luke Crain is counting to the number 7 and Father Paul is praying. for @daincrediblegg
quickly: a young woman is consumed by an old haunted house awakened by a professor studying the paranormal (a thirty-something going through the emotional crises of thirty-somethings / an eccentric outcast college professor / dank old mansions hidden in the woods / stoic caretakers who are almost as old as hill house / open doors closing, closed doors opening / the mind wandering to dark and strange places).
this is a short and quick gothic horror tale with a 60’s emotional sensibility. that said, it had the feeling that what shirley jackson really wanted to write about hill house had been censored or underwritten so as to not offend ‘the general public’. maybe it is almost 30 years of horror movie watching under my belt, but i just couldn’t find the thrill and suspense in this novel. i could see this being a nice sunday after church mystery read. but… i don’t go to church, and i was intrigued but not thrilled.
★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Some personal context… I just finished The Vanishing Half, a drama about a set of twins. As always, I was eager to get back into the mystery/thriller/horror genre. I’m venturing out, looking for new writers who can write with the heart and soul that real horror requires. So far, Andy Davidson’s The Boatman’s Daughter has been my favorite horror-thriller writer I’ve read this year. The Hollow Kind was good as well.
Shirley Jackson was on several ‘must read’ horror lists. This was my first Shirley Jackson book, and I’ve wanted to read it ever since seeing The Haunting of Hill House series produced by Netflix. Now… I had prepared myself for the book to be different from the movie… but sheesh! It is two pages and a plot twist away from being night and day.
The story begins with Eleanor, and she is the spotlight we follow through the dark tale of Hill House. We meet her as she is having some kind of ‘life moment’… stealing a car half owned by her sister and running off to participate in some supernatural experiment in a secluded house by an unknown doctor. She is desperate to get away and be a part of somewhere other than where she has been.
Eleanor arrives first at the multi-leveled, multi-roomed, multi-gardened Hill House, greeted by the old caretakers, The Dudleys, who make it clear that they go nowhere near the house after sundown. The other members of this adventurous gang arrive shortly after: Dr. Montague, the paranormal expert; Theodore, who like Eleanor, was selected because of their past history of psychic/supernatural occurrences; and Luke, heir to Hill House.
Everyone is affected by Hill House’s impressively dark aura, and the disturbances begin immediately. Doors acting in their own accordance, strange nightmares and daydreams, and doors knocking at night. Eleanor is the most affected by Hill House, sometimes seeming to be totally entranced.
Amidst the nightly disturbances, a strange love triangle develops between Eleanor, Theo, and Luke. Eleanor is whom we have the most background information about, and it is clear that her subconscious, Hill House, or whatever other dark force, is playing on the years worth of guilt and trauma of taking care of a dying mother. Any home away from home, including Hill House, will do.
The disturbances increase after Dr. Montegue’s wife, Mrs. Montegue, arrives with her sidekick Arthur. Their 19th-century style calls to the spirit realm, result in messages from the beyond, seemingly directed toward Eleanor, sending her psyche further into the depths of Hill House’s shadows.
After Eleanor sleepwalks up the rickety railing of the library in the tower, putting herself in danger, Dr. Montague sends Eleanor home. But… as foreshadowed at the beginning of the story, Hill House never lets its prey leave. In a state, not herself at the time, Elanore puts the pedal to the metal and floors it into a tree on her way off the property. It’s only at the last moment that she realizes she had not been herself at that something else had been acting for her.
I hoped to like this story much more than I did. I’ve heard so much about her writing, and seen so many of my other favorite horror writers cite her. It’s also obvious to see how Shirley Jackson’s story of Hill House has created many tropes that we see in horror today. I don't even have to list them... (though Rose Red is one that comes to mind immediately).
I understand the time period and style of writing, and that wasn’t what I disliked. I think it was just a level of detail and poetry that I had expected and did not receive. The writing has the feeling that Kid’s Bop has to regular music. Still catchy, and has a groove, but the voice is for a general audience, and the true spirit of the lyrics have been censored.
I CRIED watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. I wish I had received even a quarter of that much emotion from this book. I’ll have to do some research on Shirley Jackson. I want to know more about the context of her work and its cultural impact. After, I also have “We Have Always Lived In The Castle”, which I am going to read soon.
A three for me for now, but I appreciate what it’s done for the culture of horror. I’m open to changing my mind on this one later though.
“I was right here. I didn’t go anywhere. I was right here. I was right here the whole time. None of you could see me. Nobody could see me.”
Victoria Pedretti as Eleanor Crain THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018) dir. Mike Flanagan