If there's one thing you should know about me and this time of year, it's that I have a love/hate relationship with getting scared. I love the rush of adrenaline that comes with screaming my head off, but I did not love it when I was screaming and crying at a haunted house last year when Pennywise the Dancing Clown tried to grab my ankle and shouted at me. This past summer, I spent half of The Conjuring hiding under a blanket because I couldn't handle the scares, yet I made the conscious decision to watch it anyway.
So at this point, you're probably asking, "Then why are you watching 'Haunting of Hill House,' Bailey?" Well, that's an excellent question. My brother told me it was like if "Stranger Things" became a horror movie, and that alone was enough to get me to watch it. "Stranger Things" is one of my favorite shows of all time, and if there was another show out there that had the same nearly perfect writing style, highly likable characters, and nail-biting suspense, I was definitely going to watch it.
Well, I found excellent writing and characters whom I really care about (Not as much as "Stranger Things," but still really good.). There's a legitimately good mystery behind the show, and the writers do a great job of revealing just enough of the history of the Crain family every episode but still leave the viewers wanting more. Each episode focuses on a different child in the Crain family, who grew up in what one person in the show calls "the most haunted house in America."
The family originally moved into the house to remodel it and then sell it, but the children quickly realize the house is not what it seems. They spend their entire childhoods haunted by floating spirits, zombies in the basement, and ghosts that stand at the foot of their bed. The show does an excellent job of diving into how the terror followed them as adults and how it affects their lives in the present day. Some of the children choose to repress it and avoid their family, while others let the fear consume them, thus affecting their relationships with everyone around them. I find myself completely immersed in the story and genuinely wanting to know what happens next.
But another thing the writers do really well is scare the pants off of anyone who dares to watch the show. I've come incredibly close to nearly throwing my phone across the room out of sheer terror. I sometimes find myself jumping and trembling after a perfectly executed jump scare, and yes, I am terrified of my own shadow in broad daylight. Once I turn the lights out in my room, it's almost impossible for me to stop my imagination from jumping to the extreme that the Bent-Neck Lady is going to find me in my sleep.
Any time there's the slightest noise in my room, I jump. Any time someone unexpectedly taps me on the shoulder, I jump. Even though I'm only halfway through The Haunted of Hill House, the psychological side of the show is really working on me and is definitely causing me to take a second look over my shoulder.
Congratulations, Netflix. It's really easy to scare me, but somehow you've done so in the biggest, and greatest, way possible.
