5 reasons why the Haunting of Hill House sequel is a terrible idea
It's just been announed that The Haunting of Hill House is getting a second series that's loosely based on Henry James's short story The Turn of the Screw. Here's why that's a terrible idea.
Hill House creator Mike Flanagan has revealed that The Haunting is set to become an anthology series – with its second outing focus on a different gothic pile with unwelcome supernatural visitors.
While the decision to move away from the Crain family was a wise one, The Turn of the Screw is a regrettable choice of source material. Here's why.
1) The Turn of the Screw is not very good
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is a lyrical, poetically suggestive novel painting a delicate portrait of loneliness and mental fragility.
Flanagan carefully crafted the book's strange and touching imagery into the series – from Nelly's cup of stars to Ruth's raining pebbles.
While Jackson's novel was popular but not ubiquitous, everyone has a vague idea of the plot of The Turning of the Screw. Governess thinks the children she's charged to look after are being menaced by ghosts – are they or is she crazy?
The short story feels like an unfeeling exercise in cranking up narrative tension, and it lacks the memorable characters of Jaskson's novel.
The short story feels like an unfeeling exercise in cranking up narrative tension, and it lacks the memorable characters of Jaskson's novel.
Unlike Hill House, it's a story that cannot easily be expanded into ten episodes. And that's not the only problem...
2) We all know the ghosts are real
The point of The Turn of the Screw is that the ghosts may just be the invention of the delusional Governess. In fact, the story works a lot better if we think she's nuts.
Yet after seeing the first series of The Haunting, we can be 99% sure that any ghosts in the second series will be very real – no matter how much Steven Crain may argue otherwise.
Instantly the central appeal of the story is gone. Without this ambiguity, The Turn of the Screw is indistinguishable from any other haunted house tale.
3) The Governess is a horrible person
We had our moments with the Crain family. Steven was a certified arsehole. Shirley seemed ready to explode in your face at any given moment. We all felt very sorry for Theo's girlfriend.
Yet they were all broadly likeable, and the same can't be said for Henry James's Governess.
She's a snob with an ingrained sense of superiority. Her main concern regarding the ghosts is that their 'low birth' and lack of character is a corrupting influence on the two aristocratic children.
She spends most of the tale manipulating the trusting Mrs Grose into believing what seem to be crackpot fantasies.
I don't know about you, but I don't fancy spending ten episode with her.
4) They won't be able to modernise the story
One of the best part of Hill House was that it updates the novel for a (mostly) present day setting.
Luke's alcohol abuse in the book is translated to heroine addiction, while Theo's lesbian vibes are made more explicit onscreen.
The Turn of the Screw is going to be much trickier to reimagine in the present. For a start, governesses are no longer a thing, unless the main character is now set to become some kind of private tutor.
James's story was all about the class anxieties of the time. We can't claim his uncomfortable snobbery has entirely gone away, but at least it's not expressed in quite the same form.
Flanagan and co. are going to have to completely overhaul the plot if they want to avoid making a stuffy period piece.
5) Can it be as original as the first series?
The first series of The Haunting had a bold and individual aesthetic.
There were the characters' long monologues, the jumping back and forth between different timelines, hidden ghosts, episodes focusing on each Crain and the haunting as a metaphor for trauma.
Is series 2 just going to repeat all of this again? If The Haunting of Bly Manor sets off in a completely different direction, then it risks scrapping everything we loved about the first season. If it sticks too closely to the formula, then it risks seeming repetitive.
For us, The Haunting worked best as a standalone series. But, of course, we'd love to be proved wrong...
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I think something like The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons would have been really interesting to see for an follow up in an anthology series, rather than The Turn of the Screw. It sticks more with the theme of "the bad place". But they made such a good job of Haunting of Hill House maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.
ReplyDeletejust finished The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix and though the first episode didn't have me hooked right away like The Haunting of Hill House did, the next night (last night) I started episode 2 and then it got me... I kept telling myself "one more episode" before I'd realized, I was starting episode 7. Turned it off woke up this morning and finished the whole damn thing already...🤷♀️... It was very good , got better with each episode kind of like the first season did... Anyways whoever wrote this article obviously thought they were intelligent enough to know the brilliantly, creative, imaginative minds of the creator's, writers, directors, and amazing cast that made this story another one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI wrote this last year when Netflix first announced the Hill House follow-up would be adapting Turn of the Screw. Now I've seen it I did really enjoy it (though not as much as Hill House) - I was just a bit nervous since I am not the biggest Turn of the Screw fan and it has been done to death with film and TV adaptations, but as with Hill House it was a very loose adaptation.
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