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Hardsplitting YMMV.The Haunting Of Hill House 2018
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[[folder: The Series]]
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** The House. Is it [[spoiler:a genuine haunted entity that wishes to feed or is it just a deposit for spirits (both good or bad) who die within its grounds? The latter lingers due to most of the spirits of Hill House not being violent, if not just ''scaring'' the characters; the most evil character seems to be Poppy, and it's worth noting that fellow ghost Hazel even gives a seemingly well-intentioned warning to Olivia about her being a liar. Given that Poppy and later Olivia are the primary spreaders of the harm, Olivia has some level of psychic ability, and the Red Room doesn't do much to the children during their younger years beyond shape shifting, it's left ambiguous how much of the room's more insidious visions and illusions are due to the house's nature or due to the minds and intentions of the people and ghosts inhabiting it. Like Olivia and Poppy, once Nell becomes a ghost she eventually gains some control over the visions the living cast experience within the house--enabling her to not only appear as she wishes within its halls (instead of as a corpse with a broken neck), but to remove her siblings from other illusions. The same is true of Hugh, who seemingly wills an illusion of what really happened the night Olivia died into existence for the sake of showing Steven. The ghosts' abilities to create and alter illusions within the house means it's entirely possible within the scenario presented that it's the ghostly inhabitants who are the source of the malicious intent, not the house.]]
** Did Joey [[spoiler:abandon Luke simply because she cared more about getting high despite his attempts to help her? Or did she notice that Luke was exhibiting a bunch of symptoms of withdrawal and think that perhaps he had used too and felt betrayed? Notably, the last thing she does before suddenly thanking him and kissing him (allowing her to steal the money from his back pocket) is notice that Luke was sweating a lot, right after he was complaining about how cold he was despite wearing a heavy coat.]]
** The "ghost" stalking Adult Luke: really William Hill, the Bowler Hat Man, or actually just a less psychologically damaging substitute for [[spoiler:Olivia, who tried to poison six-year-old Luke and Nell, and killed his friend Abigail in front of them]]?
*** And speaking of William Hill, did he really [[spoiler:kill himself by bricking himself up in the basement? The police chief suggests he had second thoughts, as the claw marks on the rubble suggest he tried to get back out. But that alcove is overgrown with black mold, which we later find out also covers the Red Room, Poppy's base of operations and which Poppy is able to weaponize against Hugh. Both William and Poppy were clinically insane...do the claw marks suggest, perhaps, that ''Poppy'' bricked him up and he tried to fight his way out?]]
*** But [[spoiler:the tools were *inside the wall with him*. Perhaps he realized too late that there was nowhere to hide?]]
** Is Olivia [[spoiler:staring at Steve at the end of episode 10 because she still wants the rest of the children to join the house? Or is it simply a nonverbal goodbye and acknowledgement that her son now knows the truth about her?]]
** Most if not all of the ghosts, except Poppy, seem to be [[spoiler:just neutrally watching the events proceeding through the House - the one entertainment left to them - rather than intentionally scaring or attacking the family. Note that William Hill, for example, is shown in photos benignly indulging his niece in a tea party - and doesn't appear to have done any physical harm to Luke.]]
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The soundtrack composed by the Newton Brothers is ''breathtaking'', giving a sense of sadness and horror, combining the show's traits of being a horror story but also a heartbreaking tale of trauma. Examples include...:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygqHaCT7erA "The Haunting of Hill House - Theme"]] adding to the show's atmosphere.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDadB6R2qs "12:00 AM"]], which plays around the growing horror of [[spoiler: Nell's suicide at the exact same time in the first episode]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfYzhlEgNdk "Feel Nothing"]], which adds to the heartbreak of [[spoiler: Theo's terrified rant about feeling TheNothingAfterDeath after touching Nell's body]] and [[spoiler: making Shirley realize that she never tried to start an affair with her husband]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeP2j9LWEAs I Want To Wake up So Badly]] is both terrifying and heartbreaking, perfectly encapsulating the tragedy of [[spoiler: Olivia's [[SanitySlippage spiral into madness]] and eventual [[DrivenToSuicide death]]]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3ft8ncwWI "Go Tomorrow"]] and by an extent [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_GNL3d-RA "The End"]], which play during [[spoiler: Nell's ghost comforting her siblings]] and [[spoiler: Steve watching Hugh's ghost reunite with Nell and Olivia in the Red Room]].
** The closing theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgxWKezvDw "If I Go, I'm Goin'"]] by Gregory Alan Isakov, it is a ''perfect'' way to close out the series.
* BrokenBase: The show's [[spoiler:ending]] tends to bother a huge selection of people, mainly due to [[spoiler: how optimistic it is compared to the rest of show's tone. Some think it's a deserving EarnYourHappyEnding for the Crain family while some feel it's just Flanagan trolling the audience into not seeing it's a secret DownerEnding]].
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Another member of Luke’s drug therapy group tells an utterly horrific story of how he blinded himself to never again be reminded of a little girl’s corpse he saw in the army, but now it’s the only thing he sees. Luke is asked to go next, and can only laugh at being expected to follow that.
** Episode 8 features a rather brash fight between Theo and Shirley...which leads to Shirley accidentally punching Theo in the chest. Cue Theo then asking "Did you just punch my boob?".
* DelusionConclusion: Despite the overwhelming evidence for the supernatural by the end of the series, some viewers still claim that the ghosts and other supernatural activity within the house are just hallucinations after all. However, rather than insisting on a diagnosis of mental illness as Steve does, many propose that the visions were actually brought about by exposure to the black mold infesting the house.
* DiagnosedByTheAudience: As a child, Luke Crain speaks with an odd affect and has a mantra of counting to 7 to feel safe—a habit he carries into adulthood. As an adult, his speech is more normalized, but he is rather withdrawn and stutters a lot, though it's hard to know how much of that is related to his drug use. Or, come to that, how much his drug abuse was due to the traumatic circumstances of his mother's death and how much was simply self-medication for his pre-existing mental issues.
* EpilepticTrees: Debates have ranged about [[spoiler: the show's ending, on whether or not the Crains escaped the Red Room or if they're in a mirage like the Red Room had done before]], following [[WordOfGod Mike Flanagan revealing the original ending to the series]]. This was also not helped with Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Adult Luke) pointing out in an interview that there is always some element which is red when characters are in the Red Room - [[spoiler:and in the last scene Luke's sobriety cake is red.]]
* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Hill House in a sense wins and continues to exist after it has collected so many souls to keep in its grounds and now has taken Hugh Crain alongside Nell and Olivia. And yet we're suppose to be okay that Steve cannot breathe a word of this? While the Crains have reunited and are a family again by the end of it, the House still lingers within the forests, waiting for more victims to take. Poor Nell also presumably has to spend eternity without her husband or her beloved siblings.]]
* FanficFuel: The facts of the back story behind this new version of Hill House and its past, alongside the Red Room, gives a lot of writers plenty to go mad with.
* FridgeHorror: Poppy's descriptions of her dreams of her children (Jacqueline and Eugene) dying is this, once you read the supplementary material and realize it's a pretty accurate description of [[spoiler:how Hazel allegedly murdered them]].
-->'''On Jacqueline's death:''' I dreamed I lost my little girl once. I dreamed that she was choking on her own body for no reason. Just trying for air like the room was underwater, and shaking like she was in the hot squat[[note]]slang for the electric chair[[/note]]. And I dreamed I held her little hand and sat at her side. And days, it took days, weeks, it took weeks for her to quit gulping in that watery air, quit gaping at me like a fish on the beach, but finally, she did. She breathed, ragged and hard, and she went stiff and one of her eyes turned red as blood. And she would shake. She’d shake so bad the bed would shake. And when she started shaking, it went fast. She dangled. She died. [[spoiler:Hazel shoved her headfirst into wet cement and she drowned/suffocated. The builders were traumatized after chiseling her body out, describing it as "a crude statue".]]
-->'''On Eugene's death:''' And my boy... I once dreamed his little legs stopped working. They just... stopped one day. And... he couldn’t walk, and he couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t speak, and then he couldn’t do anything but cry. Cry and bang on the walls. Bang on the walls for help and bang on the walls for Momma and just bang, bang, bang. And he couldn’t even see. In the end, he couldn’t see me there with him. And then he stopped banging, he stopped crying... he stopped it all once he died. I held him so long, he went cold in my arms. [[spoiler:Hazel slowly poisoned him to death over a period of time.]]
* IronWoobie:
** Theo. [[spoiler: Having the ability to sense people's emotions must suck and her rant about how she felt complete emptiness upon touching Nell's dead body makes you realize how broken she is.]].
** Hugh Crain. [[spoiler: He starts off as a kindhearted man with a loving wife, but the House destroys it all and despite keeping to his story that the House killed his wife, he's made a laughingstock and his family grows to hate him for it, especially Steve]].
* JerkassWoobie:
** Shirley is often hypocritical and self-righteous, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her considering [[spoiler:how much Hill House left her mentally ruined]] and the amount of hell she's struggled with since then.
** Steven is rude, snippy, arrogant, and a borderline asshole, [[spoiler:but he also is in such denial that the House wasn't haunted and seeing ghosts (to the point of ''refusing to have children'' because he thinks they would inherit the supposed mental disease that he believes is behind it all)]] that it's hard not to feel some pity for him.
* {{Narm}}:
** The first episode has a horribly contrived JumpScare as the sound of Hugh getting into bed is amplified to a clearly unnatural level. Luckily, the show never cheats like this again.
** Episode 3 begins with an unsettling scene of someone crawling into a young Theo's bed and snuggling up to her. She thinks it's Nellie, but when she turns, no one is there. The music goes eerie, and the camera creeps in to Theo...who then asks aloud, to no one, "Whose hand was I holding?" As though the audience needed to be told ''why'' the scene was scary. [[note]] The line is in reference to an extremely famous scene and line from the original novel, in which Eleanor and Theo cling to each other in terror at the sound of a mysterious ''something'' approaching them, only for Theo to realize that Eleanor has been across the room from her the whole time and was not in fact holding her hand. This line was not added for the audience's sake, but because an adaptation of ''Hill House'' would be incomplete without it. [[/note]]
** NarmCharm: The [[spoiler: JumpScare with Nell]] in Episode 8. It comes off as way too over the top when you think of the context that [[spoiler: Nell was essentially telling her sisters to stop fighting]], but it's ''so well executed'' in terms of how the scenes draws you into [[spoiler: Theo and Shirley's argument]] that it can be forgiven. It does help that it afterwards leads to [[spoiler: Theo's heartbreaking speech]] about [[spoiler: feeling TheNothingAfterDeath when touching Nell's body]].
* ParanoiaFuel:
** [[spoiler: Considering the Red Room's LotusEaterMachine powers, you'll be looking for your room just having one window too]].
** [[spoiler: Olivia's DeathGlare in the end of Episode 10 give some vibes that the family ''isn't'' safe yet...]]
* SignatureScene:
** In the final episode, [[spoiler:Nell's speech about love and time]] is the most well known scene of the show.
** [[spoiler:Nell abruptly screaming in the middle of Theo and Shirley's argument]] is often declared by fans as one of the greatest {{Jump Scare}}s ever made, due to being both absolutely terrifying in the moment but also having a purpose beyond that momentary shock which is entirely rooted in the characters.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trish, the girl that Theo slept with and wants a relationship with her. While the attachment is somewhat understandable, she keeps trying to push herself into Theo's life despite only having had sex once, which comes off as stalker-y and creepy, rather than romantic, and makes Theo seem like she is being a reasonable person that is bothered by someone with little understanding of boundaries. [[spoiler:Coming uninvited to Theo's sister's funeral was particularly uncalled for, though she said she read about the obituary, thus suggesting that Nell's funeral wasn't a private ceremony]].
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Luke is considered the family BlackSheep for his addiction and how many times he's fucked over his loved ones while in its grasp. Off-screen, he is one of the most sympathetic people because he's trying to change his life.
* TheWoobie:
** Olivia Crain. [[spoiler: The House drives her mad to the point where she doesn't want her children to leave, ''ever'', and it pushes her into almost killing her twin children, succeeding in only killing Abigail Dudley]].
** Nell Crain is probably the biggest Woobie due to [[spoiler:being the most traumatized by the House, her husband is killed by herself as the Bent-Neck Lady, and she herself becomes a ghoul of the House after she's tricked into killing herself]].
** Luke Crain nearly tops his twin sister for how fucked his life is after Hill House, what with his drug problems and the trauma of his experiences of said house manifesting as [[spoiler: William Hill and by an extent, his own mother]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Series]]
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** The House. Is it [[spoiler:a genuine haunted entity that wishes to feed or is it just a deposit for spirits (both good or bad) who die within its grounds? The latter lingers due to most of the spirits of Hill House not being violent, if not just ''scaring'' the characters; the most evil character seems to be Poppy, and it's worth noting that fellow ghost Hazel even gives a seemingly well-intentioned warning to Olivia about her being a liar. Given that Poppy and later Olivia are the primary spreaders of the harm, Olivia has some level of psychic ability, and the Red Room doesn't do much to the children during their younger years beyond shape shifting, it's left ambiguous how much of the room's more insidious visions and illusions are due to the house's nature or due to the minds and intentions of the people and ghosts inhabiting it. Like Olivia and Poppy, once Nell becomes a ghost she eventually gains some control over the visions the living cast experience within the house--enabling her to not only appear as she wishes within its halls (instead of as a corpse with a broken neck), but to remove her siblings from other illusions. The same is true of Hugh, who seemingly wills an illusion of what really happened the night Olivia died into existence for the sake of showing Steven. The ghosts' abilities to create and alter illusions within the house means it's entirely possible within the scenario presented that it's the ghostly inhabitants who are the source of the malicious intent, not the house.]]
** Did Joey [[spoiler:abandon Luke simply because she cared more about getting high despite his attempts to help her? Or did she notice that Luke was exhibiting a bunch of symptoms of withdrawal and think that perhaps he had used too and felt betrayed? Notably, the last thing she does before suddenly thanking him and kissing him (allowing her to steal the money from his back pocket) is notice that Luke was sweating a lot, right after he was complaining about how cold he was despite wearing a heavy coat.]]
** The "ghost" stalking Adult Luke: really William Hill, the Bowler Hat Man, or actually just a less psychologically damaging substitute for [[spoiler:Olivia, who tried to poison six-year-old Luke and Nell, and killed his friend Abigail in front of them]]?
*** And speaking of William Hill, did he really [[spoiler:kill himself by bricking himself up in the basement? The police chief suggests he had second thoughts, as the claw marks on the rubble suggest he tried to get back out. But that alcove is overgrown with black mold, which we later find out also covers the Red Room, Poppy's base of operations and which Poppy is able to weaponize against Hugh. Both William and Poppy were clinically insane...do the claw marks suggest, perhaps, that ''Poppy'' bricked him up and he tried to fight his way out?]]
*** But [[spoiler:the tools were *inside the wall with him*. Perhaps he realized too late that there was nowhere to hide?]]
** Is Olivia [[spoiler:staring at Steve at the end of episode 10 because she still wants the rest of the children to join the house? Or is it simply a nonverbal goodbye and acknowledgement that her son now knows the truth about her?]]
** Most if not all of the ghosts, except Poppy, seem to be [[spoiler:just neutrally watching the events proceeding through the House - the one entertainment left to them - rather than intentionally scaring or attacking the family. Note that William Hill, for example, is shown in photos benignly indulging his niece in a tea party - and doesn't appear to have done any physical harm to Luke.]]
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The soundtrack composed by the Newton Brothers is ''breathtaking'', giving a sense of sadness and horror, combining the show's traits of being a horror story but also a heartbreaking tale of trauma. Examples include...:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygqHaCT7erA "The Haunting of Hill House - Theme"]] adding to the show's atmosphere.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDadB6R2qs "12:00 AM"]], which plays around the growing horror of [[spoiler: Nell's suicide at the exact same time in the first episode]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfYzhlEgNdk "Feel Nothing"]], which adds to the heartbreak of [[spoiler: Theo's terrified rant about feeling TheNothingAfterDeath after touching Nell's body]] and [[spoiler: making Shirley realize that she never tried to start an affair with her husband]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeP2j9LWEAs I Want To Wake up So Badly]] is both terrifying and heartbreaking, perfectly encapsulating the tragedy of [[spoiler: Olivia's [[SanitySlippage spiral into madness]] and eventual [[DrivenToSuicide death]]]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3ft8ncwWI "Go Tomorrow"]] and by an extent [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_GNL3d-RA "The End"]], which play during [[spoiler: Nell's ghost comforting her siblings]] and [[spoiler: Steve watching Hugh's ghost reunite with Nell and Olivia in the Red Room]].
** The closing theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgxWKezvDw "If I Go, I'm Goin'"]] by Gregory Alan Isakov, it is a ''perfect'' way to close out the series.
* BrokenBase: The show's [[spoiler:ending]] tends to bother a huge selection of people, mainly due to [[spoiler: how optimistic it is compared to the rest of show's tone. Some think it's a deserving EarnYourHappyEnding for the Crain family while some feel it's just Flanagan trolling the audience into not seeing it's a secret DownerEnding]].
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Another member of Luke’s drug therapy group tells an utterly horrific story of how he blinded himself to never again be reminded of a little girl’s corpse he saw in the army, but now it’s the only thing he sees. Luke is asked to go next, and can only laugh at being expected to follow that.
** Episode 8 features a rather brash fight between Theo and Shirley...which leads to Shirley accidentally punching Theo in the chest. Cue Theo then asking "Did you just punch my boob?".
* DelusionConclusion: Despite the overwhelming evidence for the supernatural by the end of the series, some viewers still claim that the ghosts and other supernatural activity within the house are just hallucinations after all. However, rather than insisting on a diagnosis of mental illness as Steve does, many propose that the visions were actually brought about by exposure to the black mold infesting the house.
* DiagnosedByTheAudience: As a child, Luke Crain speaks with an odd affect and has a mantra of counting to 7 to feel safe—a habit he carries into adulthood. As an adult, his speech is more normalized, but he is rather withdrawn and stutters a lot, though it's hard to know how much of that is related to his drug use. Or, come to that, how much his drug abuse was due to the traumatic circumstances of his mother's death and how much was simply self-medication for his pre-existing mental issues.
* EpilepticTrees: Debates have ranged about [[spoiler: the show's ending, on whether or not the Crains escaped the Red Room or if they're in a mirage like the Red Room had done before]], following [[WordOfGod Mike Flanagan revealing the original ending to the series]]. This was also not helped with Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Adult Luke) pointing out in an interview that there is always some element which is red when characters are in the Red Room - [[spoiler:and in the last scene Luke's sobriety cake is red.]]
* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Hill House in a sense wins and continues to exist after it has collected so many souls to keep in its grounds and now has taken Hugh Crain alongside Nell and Olivia. And yet we're suppose to be okay that Steve cannot breathe a word of this? While the Crains have reunited and are a family again by the end of it, the House still lingers within the forests, waiting for more victims to take. Poor Nell also presumably has to spend eternity without her husband or her beloved siblings.]]
* FanficFuel: The facts of the back story behind this new version of Hill House and its past, alongside the Red Room, gives a lot of writers plenty to go mad with.
* FridgeHorror: Poppy's descriptions of her dreams of her children (Jacqueline and Eugene) dying is this, once you read the supplementary material and realize it's a pretty accurate description of [[spoiler:how Hazel allegedly murdered them]].
-->'''On Jacqueline's death:''' I dreamed I lost my little girl once. I dreamed that she was choking on her own body for no reason. Just trying for air like the room was underwater, and shaking like she was in the hot squat[[note]]slang for the electric chair[[/note]]. And I dreamed I held her little hand and sat at her side. And days, it took days, weeks, it took weeks for her to quit gulping in that watery air, quit gaping at me like a fish on the beach, but finally, she did. She breathed, ragged and hard, and she went stiff and one of her eyes turned red as blood. And she would shake. She’d shake so bad the bed would shake. And when she started shaking, it went fast. She dangled. She died. [[spoiler:Hazel shoved her headfirst into wet cement and she drowned/suffocated. The builders were traumatized after chiseling her body out, describing it as "a crude statue".]]
-->'''On Eugene's death:''' And my boy... I once dreamed his little legs stopped working. They just... stopped one day. And... he couldn’t walk, and he couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t speak, and then he couldn’t do anything but cry. Cry and bang on the walls. Bang on the walls for help and bang on the walls for Momma and just bang, bang, bang. And he couldn’t even see. In the end, he couldn’t see me there with him. And then he stopped banging, he stopped crying... he stopped it all once he died. I held him so long, he went cold in my arms. [[spoiler:Hazel slowly poisoned him to death over a period of time.]]
* IronWoobie:
** Theo. [[spoiler: Having the ability to sense people's emotions must suck and her rant about how she felt complete emptiness upon touching Nell's dead body makes you realize how broken she is.]].
** Hugh Crain. [[spoiler: He starts off as a kindhearted man with a loving wife, but the House destroys it all and despite keeping to his story that the House killed his wife, he's made a laughingstock and his family grows to hate him for it, especially Steve]].
* JerkassWoobie:
** Shirley is often hypocritical and self-righteous, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her considering [[spoiler:how much Hill House left her mentally ruined]] and the amount of hell she's struggled with since then.
** Steven is rude, snippy, arrogant, and a borderline asshole, [[spoiler:but he also is in such denial that the House wasn't haunted and seeing ghosts (to the point of ''refusing to have children'' because he thinks they would inherit the supposed mental disease that he believes is behind it all)]] that it's hard not to feel some pity for him.
* {{Narm}}:
** The first episode has a horribly contrived JumpScare as the sound of Hugh getting into bed is amplified to a clearly unnatural level. Luckily, the show never cheats like this again.
** Episode 3 begins with an unsettling scene of someone crawling into a young Theo's bed and snuggling up to her. She thinks it's Nellie, but when she turns, no one is there. The music goes eerie, and the camera creeps in to Theo...who then asks aloud, to no one, "Whose hand was I holding?" As though the audience needed to be told ''why'' the scene was scary. [[note]] The line is in reference to an extremely famous scene and line from the original novel, in which Eleanor and Theo cling to each other in terror at the sound of a mysterious ''something'' approaching them, only for Theo to realize that Eleanor has been across the room from her the whole time and was not in fact holding her hand. This line was not added for the audience's sake, but because an adaptation of ''Hill House'' would be incomplete without it. [[/note]]
** NarmCharm: The [[spoiler: JumpScare with Nell]] in Episode 8. It comes off as way too over the top when you think of the context that [[spoiler: Nell was essentially telling her sisters to stop fighting]], but it's ''so well executed'' in terms of how the scenes draws you into [[spoiler: Theo and Shirley's argument]] that it can be forgiven. It does help that it afterwards leads to [[spoiler: Theo's heartbreaking speech]] about [[spoiler: feeling TheNothingAfterDeath when touching Nell's body]].
* ParanoiaFuel:
** [[spoiler: Considering the Red Room's LotusEaterMachine powers, you'll be looking for your room just having one window too]].
** [[spoiler: Olivia's DeathGlare in the end of Episode 10 give some vibes that the family ''isn't'' safe yet...]]
* SignatureScene:
** In the final episode, [[spoiler:Nell's speech about love and time]] is the most well known scene of the show.
** [[spoiler:Nell abruptly screaming in the middle of Theo and Shirley's argument]] is often declared by fans as one of the greatest {{Jump Scare}}s ever made, due to being both absolutely terrifying in the moment but also having a purpose beyond that momentary shock which is entirely rooted in the characters.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trish, the girl that Theo slept with and wants a relationship with her. While the attachment is somewhat understandable, she keeps trying to push herself into Theo's life despite only having had sex once, which comes off as stalker-y and creepy, rather than romantic, and makes Theo seem like she is being a reasonable person that is bothered by someone with little understanding of boundaries. [[spoiler:Coming uninvited to Theo's sister's funeral was particularly uncalled for, though she said she read about the obituary, thus suggesting that Nell's funeral wasn't a private ceremony]].
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Luke is considered the family BlackSheep for his addiction and how many times he's fucked over his loved ones while in its grasp. Off-screen, he is one of the most sympathetic people because he's trying to change his life.
* TheWoobie:
** Olivia Crain. [[spoiler: The House drives her mad to the point where she doesn't want her children to leave, ''ever'', and it pushes her into almost killing her twin children, succeeding in only killing Abigail Dudley]].
** Nell Crain is probably the biggest Woobie due to [[spoiler:being the most traumatized by the House, her husband is killed by herself as the Bent-Neck Lady, and she herself becomes a ghoul of the House after she's tricked into killing herself]].
** Luke Crain nearly tops his twin sister for how fucked his life is after Hill House, what with his drug problems and the trauma of his experiences of said house manifesting as [[spoiler: William Hill and by an extent, his own mother]].
[[/folder]]
to:
[[folder: The Series]]
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** The House. Is it [[spoiler:a genuine haunted entity that wishes to feed or is it just a deposit for spirits (both good or bad) who die within its grounds? The latter lingers due to most of the spirits of Hill House not being violent, if not just ''scaring'' the characters; the most evil character seems to be Poppy, and it's worth noting that fellow ghost Hazel even gives a seemingly well-intentioned warning to Olivia about her being a liar. Given that Poppy and later Olivia are the primary spreaders of the harm, Olivia has some level of psychic ability, and the Red Room doesn't do much to the children during their younger years beyond shape shifting, it's left ambiguous how much of the room's more insidious visions and illusions are due to the house's nature or due to the minds and intentions of the people and ghosts inhabiting it. Like Olivia and Poppy, once Nell becomes a ghost she eventually gains some control over the visions the living cast experience within the house--enabling her to not only appear as she wishes within its halls (instead of as a corpse with a broken neck), but to remove her siblings from other illusions. The same is true of Hugh, who seemingly wills an illusion of what really happened the night Olivia died into existence for the sake of showing Steven. The ghosts' abilities to create and alter illusions within the house means it's entirely possible within the scenario presented that it's the ghostly inhabitants who are the source of the malicious intent, not the house.]]
** Did Joey [[spoiler:abandon Luke simply because she cared more about getting high despite his attempts to help her? Or did she notice that Luke was exhibiting a bunch of symptoms of withdrawal and think that perhaps he had used too and felt betrayed? Notably, the last thing she does before suddenly thanking him and kissing him (allowing her to steal the money from his back pocket) is notice that Luke was sweating a lot, right after he was complaining about how cold he was despite wearing a heavy coat.]]
** The "ghost" stalking Adult Luke: really William Hill, the Bowler Hat Man, or actually just a less psychologically damaging substitute for [[spoiler:Olivia, who tried to poison six-year-old Luke and Nell, and killed his friend Abigail in front of them]]?
*** And speaking of William Hill, did he really [[spoiler:kill himself by bricking himself up in the basement? The police chief suggests he had second thoughts, as the claw marks on the rubble suggest he tried to get back out. But that alcove is overgrown with black mold, which we later find out also covers the Red Room, Poppy's base of operations and which Poppy is able to weaponize against Hugh. Both William and Poppy were clinically insane...do the claw marks suggest, perhaps, that ''Poppy'' bricked him up and he tried to fight his way out?]]
*** But [[spoiler:the tools were *inside the wall with him*. Perhaps he realized too late that there was nowhere to hide?]]
** Is Olivia [[spoiler:staring at Steve at the end of episode 10 because she still wants the rest of the children to join the house? Or is it simply a nonverbal goodbye and acknowledgement that her son now knows the truth about her?]]
** Most if not all of the ghosts, except Poppy, seem to be [[spoiler:just neutrally watching the events proceeding through the House - the one entertainment left to them - rather than intentionally scaring or attacking the family. Note that William Hill, for example, is shown in photos benignly indulging his niece in a tea party - and doesn't appear to have done any physical harm to Luke.]]
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The soundtrack composed by the Newton Brothers is ''breathtaking'', giving a sense of sadness and horror, combining the show's traits of being a horror story but also a heartbreaking tale of trauma. Examples include...:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygqHaCT7erA "The Haunting of Hill House - Theme"]] adding to the show's atmosphere.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDadB6R2qs "12:00 AM"]], which plays around the growing horror of [[spoiler: Nell's suicide at the exact same time in the first episode]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfYzhlEgNdk "Feel Nothing"]], which adds to the heartbreak of [[spoiler: Theo's terrified rant about feeling TheNothingAfterDeath after touching Nell's body]] and [[spoiler: making Shirley realize that she never tried to start an affair with her husband]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeP2j9LWEAs I Want To Wake up So Badly]] is both terrifying and heartbreaking, perfectly encapsulating the tragedy of [[spoiler: Olivia's [[SanitySlippage spiral into madness]] and eventual [[DrivenToSuicide death]]]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3ft8ncwWI "Go Tomorrow"]] and by an extent [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_GNL3d-RA "The End"]], which play during [[spoiler: Nell's ghost comforting her siblings]] and [[spoiler: Steve watching Hugh's ghost reunite with Nell and Olivia in the Red Room]].
** The closing theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgxWKezvDw "If I Go, I'm Goin'"]] by Gregory Alan Isakov, it is a ''perfect'' way to close out the series.
* BrokenBase: The show's [[spoiler:ending]] tends to bother a huge selection of people, mainly due to [[spoiler: how optimistic it is compared to the rest of show's tone. Some think it's a deserving EarnYourHappyEnding for the Crain family while some feel it's just Flanagan trolling the audience into not seeing it's a secret DownerEnding]].
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Another member of Luke’s drug therapy group tells an utterly horrific story of how he blinded himself to never again be reminded of a little girl’s corpse he saw in the army, but now it’s the only thing he sees. Luke is asked to go next, and can only laugh at being expected to follow that.
** Episode 8 features a rather brash fight between Theo and Shirley...which leads to Shirley accidentally punching Theo in the chest. Cue Theo then asking "Did you just punch my boob?".
* DelusionConclusion: Despite the overwhelming evidence for the supernatural by the end of the series, some viewers still claim that the ghosts and other supernatural activity within the house are just hallucinations after all. However, rather than insisting on a diagnosis of mental illness as Steve does, many propose that the visions were actually brought about by exposure to the black mold infesting the house.
* DiagnosedByTheAudience: As a child, Luke Crain speaks with an odd affect and has a mantra of counting to 7 to feel safe—a habit he carries into adulthood. As an adult, his speech is more normalized, but he is rather withdrawn and stutters a lot, though it's hard to know how much of that is related to his drug use. Or, come to that, how much his drug abuse was due to the traumatic circumstances of his mother's death and how much was simply self-medication for his pre-existing mental issues.
* EpilepticTrees: Debates have ranged about [[spoiler: the show's ending, on whether or not the Crains escaped the Red Room or if they're in a mirage like the Red Room had done before]], following [[WordOfGod Mike Flanagan revealing the original ending to the series]]. This was also not helped with Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Adult Luke) pointing out in an interview that there is always some element which is red when characters are in the Red Room - [[spoiler:and in the last scene Luke's sobriety cake is red.]]
* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Hill House in a sense wins and continues to exist after it has collected so many souls to keep in its grounds and now has taken Hugh Crain alongside Nell and Olivia. And yet we're suppose to be okay that Steve cannot breathe a word of this? While the Crains have reunited and are a family again by the end of it, the House still lingers within the forests, waiting for more victims to take. Poor Nell also presumably has to spend eternity without her husband or her beloved siblings.]]
* FanficFuel: The facts of the back story behind this new version of Hill House and its past, alongside the Red Room, gives a lot of writers plenty to go mad with.
* FridgeHorror: Poppy's descriptions of her dreams of her children (Jacqueline and Eugene) dying is this, once you read the supplementary material and realize it's a pretty accurate description of [[spoiler:how Hazel allegedly murdered them]].
-->'''On Jacqueline's death:''' I dreamed I lost my little girl once. I dreamed that she was choking on her own body for no reason. Just trying for air like the room was underwater, and shaking like she was in the hot squat[[note]]slang for the electric chair[[/note]]. And I dreamed I held her little hand and sat at her side. And days, it took days, weeks, it took weeks for her to quit gulping in that watery air, quit gaping at me like a fish on the beach, but finally, she did. She breathed, ragged and hard, and she went stiff and one of her eyes turned red as blood. And she would shake. She’d shake so bad the bed would shake. And when she started shaking, it went fast. She dangled. She died. [[spoiler:Hazel shoved her headfirst into wet cement and she drowned/suffocated. The builders were traumatized after chiseling her body out, describing it as "a crude statue".]]
-->'''On Eugene's death:''' And my boy... I once dreamed his little legs stopped working. They just... stopped one day. And... he couldn’t walk, and he couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t speak, and then he couldn’t do anything but cry. Cry and bang on the walls. Bang on the walls for help and bang on the walls for Momma and just bang, bang, bang. And he couldn’t even see. In the end, he couldn’t see me there with him. And then he stopped banging, he stopped crying... he stopped it all once he died. I held him so long, he went cold in my arms. [[spoiler:Hazel slowly poisoned him to death over a period of time.]]
* IronWoobie:
** Theo. [[spoiler: Having the ability to sense people's emotions must suck and her rant about how she felt complete emptiness upon touching Nell's dead body makes you realize how broken she is.]].
** Hugh Crain. [[spoiler: He starts off as a kindhearted man with a loving wife, but the House destroys it all and despite keeping to his story that the House killed his wife, he's made a laughingstock and his family grows to hate him for it, especially Steve]].
* JerkassWoobie:
** Shirley is often hypocritical and self-righteous, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her considering [[spoiler:how much Hill House left her mentally ruined]] and the amount of hell she's struggled with since then.
** Steven is rude, snippy, arrogant, and a borderline asshole, [[spoiler:but he also is in such denial that the House wasn't haunted and seeing ghosts (to the point of ''refusing to have children'' because he thinks they would inherit the supposed mental disease that he believes is behind it all)]] that it's hard not to feel some pity for him.
* {{Narm}}:
** The first episode has a horribly contrived JumpScare as the sound of Hugh getting into bed is amplified to a clearly unnatural level. Luckily, the show never cheats like this again.
** Episode 3 begins with an unsettling scene of someone crawling into a young Theo's bed and snuggling up to her. She thinks it's Nellie, but when she turns, no one is there. The music goes eerie, and the camera creeps in to Theo...who then asks aloud, to no one, "Whose hand was I holding?" As though the audience needed to be told ''why'' the scene was scary. [[note]] The line is in reference to an extremely famous scene and line from the original novel, in which Eleanor and Theo cling to each other in terror at the sound of a mysterious ''something'' approaching them, only for Theo to realize that Eleanor has been across the room from her the whole time and was not in fact holding her hand. This line was not added for the audience's sake, but because an adaptation of ''Hill House'' would be incomplete without it. [[/note]]
** NarmCharm: The [[spoiler: JumpScare with Nell]] in Episode 8. It comes off as way too over the top when you think of the context that [[spoiler: Nell was essentially telling her sisters to stop fighting]], but it's ''so well executed'' in terms of how the scenes draws you into [[spoiler: Theo and Shirley's argument]] that it can be forgiven. It does help that it afterwards leads to [[spoiler: Theo's heartbreaking speech]] about [[spoiler: feeling TheNothingAfterDeath when touching Nell's body]].
* ParanoiaFuel:
** [[spoiler: Considering the Red Room's LotusEaterMachine powers, you'll be looking for your room just having one window too]].
** [[spoiler: Olivia's DeathGlare in the end of Episode 10 give some vibes that the family ''isn't'' safe yet...]]
* SignatureScene:
** In the final episode, [[spoiler:Nell's speech about love and time]] is the most well known scene of the show.
** [[spoiler:Nell abruptly screaming in the middle of Theo and Shirley's argument]] is often declared by fans as one of the greatest {{Jump Scare}}s ever made, due to being both absolutely terrifying in the moment but also having a purpose beyond that momentary shock which is entirely rooted in the characters.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trish, the girl that Theo slept with and wants a relationship with her. While the attachment is somewhat understandable, she keeps trying to push herself into Theo's life despite only having had sex once, which comes off as stalker-y and creepy, rather than romantic, and makes Theo seem like she is being a reasonable person that is bothered by someone with little understanding of boundaries. [[spoiler:Coming uninvited to Theo's sister's funeral was particularly uncalled for, though she said she read about the obituary, thus suggesting that Nell's funeral wasn't a private ceremony]].
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Luke is considered the family BlackSheep for his addiction and how many times he's fucked over his loved ones while in its grasp. Off-screen, he is one of the most sympathetic people because he's trying to change his life.
* TheWoobie:
** Olivia Crain. [[spoiler: The House drives her mad to the point where she doesn't want her children to leave, ''ever'', and it pushes her into almost killing her twin children, succeeding in only killing Abigail Dudley]].
** Nell Crain is probably the biggest Woobie due to [[spoiler:being the most traumatized by the House, her husband is killed by herself as the Bent-Neck Lady, and she herself becomes a ghoul of the House after she's tricked into killing herself]].
** Luke Crain nearly tops his twin sister for how fucked his life is after Hill House, what with his drug problems and the trauma of his experiences of said house manifesting as [[spoiler: William Hill and by an extent, his own mother]].
[[/folder]]
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** Most if not all of the ghosts, except Poppy, seem to be [[spoiler:just neutrally watching the events proceeding through the House - the one entertainment left to them - rather than intentionally scaring or attacking the family. Note that William Hill, for example, is shown in photos benignly indulging his neice in a tea party - and doesn't appear to have done any physical harm to Luke.]]
to:
** Most if not all of the ghosts, except Poppy, seem to be [[spoiler:just neutrally watching the events proceeding through the House - the one entertainment left to them - rather than intentionally scaring or attacking the family. Note that William Hill, for example, is shown in photos benignly indulging his neice niece in a tea party - and doesn't appear to have done any physical harm to Luke.]]
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** The soundtrack composed by the Newton Brothers is ''breath taking'', giving a sense of sadness and horror, combining the show's traits of being a horror story but also a heartbreaking tale of trauma. Examples include...:
to:
** The soundtrack composed by the Newton Brothers is ''breath taking'', ''breathtaking'', giving a sense of sadness and horror, combining the show's traits of being a horror story but also a heartbreaking tale of trauma. Examples include...:
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* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trish, the girl that Theo slept with and wants a relationship with her. While the attachment is somewhat understandable, she keeps trying to push herself into Theo's life despite only having had sex once, which comes off as stalker-y and creepy, rather than romantic, and makes Theo seem like she is being a reasonable person that is bothered by someone with little understanding of boundaries. [[spoiler:Coming uninvited to Theo's sister's funeral was particularly uncalled for]].
to:
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trish, the girl that Theo slept with and wants a relationship with her. While the attachment is somewhat understandable, she keeps trying to push herself into Theo's life despite only having had sex once, which comes off as stalker-y and creepy, rather than romantic, and makes Theo seem like she is being a reasonable person that is bothered by someone with little understanding of boundaries. [[spoiler:Coming uninvited to Theo's sister's funeral was particularly uncalled for]].for, though she said she read about the obituary, thus suggesting that Nell's funeral wasn't a private ceremony]].
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* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: As dark and depressing as the show can get, it has its moments.
** While Luke is treated as the BlackSheep by almost all of his siblings (which, admittedly, isn't entirely uncalled for, considering he himself has admitted he screwed them over numerous times), his twin sister Nell is the only one that doesn't give up on him even when he has her purchase drugs for him one last time ''while they are on their way to an addiction treatment center''. He shows similar care to his friend in rehab, Joey, and sacrifices his own attempts at recovery to help her when she flees the center.
** Steve and Nell finding out Theo is gay and their only response is to affectionately hug her.
** Steve and Nell dancing at her wedding, which is one of the only times the audience sees him act like a proper older brother.
** [[spoiler: Ghost Nell telling her siblings that she will always love them no matter what]].
** [[spoiler: The remaining Crain siblings finally being able to fix their lives after escaping Hill House. Shirley reconciles with her husband and tells him about the affair she had, Steve fixes things with Leigh and is able to let go of his fears of fatherhood, Luke becomes clean and sober, and Theo finally moves out of Shirley's guesthouse and presumably in with Trish, even finally taking her gloves off]].
** [[spoiler: [[SoProudOfYou "I was so lucky to be your dad..."]], said by Hugh to Steve as he leaves into the Red Room]]. Also counts as a TearJerker.
** While Luke is treated as the BlackSheep by almost all of his siblings (which, admittedly, isn't entirely uncalled for, considering he himself has admitted he screwed them over numerous times), his twin sister Nell is the only one that doesn't give up on him even when he has her purchase drugs for him one last time ''while they are on their way to an addiction treatment center''. He shows similar care to his friend in rehab, Joey, and sacrifices his own attempts at recovery to help her when she flees the center.
** Steve and Nell finding out Theo is gay and their only response is to affectionately hug her.
** Steve and Nell dancing at her wedding, which is one of the only times the audience sees him act like a proper older brother.
** [[spoiler: Ghost Nell telling her siblings that she will always love them no matter what]].
** [[spoiler: The remaining Crain siblings finally being able to fix their lives after escaping Hill House. Shirley reconciles with her husband and tells him about the affair she had, Steve fixes things with Leigh and is able to let go of his fears of fatherhood, Luke becomes clean and sober, and Theo finally moves out of Shirley's guesthouse and presumably in with Trish, even finally taking her gloves off]].
** [[spoiler: [[SoProudOfYou "I was so lucky to be your dad..."]], said by Hugh to Steve as he leaves into the Red Room]]. Also counts as a TearJerker.
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** Episode 3 begins with an unsettling scene of someone crawling into a young Theo's bed and snuggling up to her. She thinks it's Nellie, but when she turns, no one is there. The music goes eerie, and the camera creeps in to Theo...who then asks aloud, to no one, "Who's hand was I holding?" As though the audience needed to be told ''why'' the scene was scary.
to:
** Episode 3 begins with an unsettling scene of someone crawling into a young Theo's bed and snuggling up to her. She thinks it's Nellie, but when she turns, no one is there. The music goes eerie, and the camera creeps in to Theo...who then asks aloud, to no one, "Who's "Whose hand was I holding?" As though the audience needed to be told ''why'' the scene was scary.scary. [[note]] The line is in reference to an extremely famous scene and line from the original novel, in which Eleanor and Theo cling to each other in terror at the sound of a mysterious ''something'' approaching them, only for Theo to realize that Eleanor has been across the room from her the whole time and was not in fact holding her hand. This line was not added for the audience's sake, but because an adaptation of ''Hill House'' would be incomplete without it. [[/note]]
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** The siblings as the 'Five Stages of Grief': while the popular interpretation is to see Theo as 'Bargaining' and Luke as 'Depression', in this Troper's opinion the opposite makes more sense. Theo's breakdown after touching Nell's body seems more reminiscent of how clinical depression is experienced (being unable to feel anything); Luke's consistent struggle with addiction and usage of coping strategies seem more consistent with the theme of bargaining. This is also reflected in their encounters with the spirits of Hill House. Theo's childhood visions of violence correlate with having depressive episodes, and the gloves her mother gives her are akin to medication used to make them manageable. Luke's 'counting to seven' strategy is classic bargaining - if he says the chant, the monsters won't get him - and his eventual encounter with the Tall Man aka William Hill works similarly: if he just stays quiet and lets Hill get his hat back, Hill might leave him alone.
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* DiagnosedByTheAudience: As a child, Luke Crain speaks with an odd affect and has a mantra of counting to 7 to feel safe—a habit he carries into adulthood. As an adult, his speech is more normalized, but he is rather withdrawn and stutters a lot, though it's hard to know how much of that is related to his drug use. Or, come to that, how much his drug abuse was due to the traumatic circumstances of his mother's death and how much was simply self-medication for his pre-existing mental issues.
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I have no concept of how a trope like Our Ghosts are Different ever ended up in the YMMV section.
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* OurGhostsAreDifferent: While most of the characters and indeed all of Montague's team experience the supernatural at Hill House, it is heavily implied that none of the events have any physical reality but are all akin to collective hallucinations drawn in part from the traumatic history of the house (a la ''Film/TheStoneTape'') and in part from their own troubled psyches. The final chapter makes this close to explicit by revisiting the most dramatically gruesome event: the vandalising of Theodora's bedroom and wardrobe with blood or red paint, witnessed by all of the team. However, when the enthusiastic but ironically spiritually-insensitive Mrs Montague investigates the room, it turns out to be completely clean, save for a few day's dust due to their having sealed it off.
