"Hello, we are the Spooky Socialists! We [Ben & I] call ourselves that not only because it is Spooky Season, but because we like Horror & are Socialists!"
-Me at the intro of every video for this 3 part series
I am once again here to stroke my own ego, but this time Ben is here! This 3 part Haunting Saga was brought about because it was both halloween & because Ben & I needed an excuse to info-dump our reviews (& further ranking) of Mike Flanagan's work on not only the Haunting Saga on Netflix, but his own films. In this 1st part we review Netflix's the Haunting of Hill House, where my first real love for horror began! I'm a babe in the spooky things, but as you read on, you'll see me grow!
One of the things that really stuck with me from this show was the color that each sibling was given. Each child had not only their own episode to introduce & flesh them out & see how they responded in their own way to the trauma of Hill House, but they all had their own color (I'll only be talking about Theo & Luke since their's were the most prominent). Theo had blue, which I described as sort of mental black & blue bruising (ie: fighting those inner ghosts & demons that then become physical manifestations) a color that is almost always a sad one and that can become dark enough to fall into black, signifying the unknown: hence Theo's soothsayer ability. As for Luke, his was more a green or yellow, definitely a sickly, sour, ill sort of color which made sense for his character.
From then on we talked about the single shot episode (Episode 6), & how that was an episode full of hindsight for the father (Henry Thomas). It's an episode on how the actions that you choose to take or not can truly affect you later in life & your surrounding relationships because of those choices (or lack thereof). As Ben puts it: "With just enough melodrama & horror to stay afloat, Mike Flanagan takes what could be a normal episode & goes above & beyond, creating the best hour of television that I have ever seen."
This is a truly tragic show filled to the brim with amazing characters, so of course we did something a ranking:
Olivia YES CRUSHED VELVET NIGHTGOWN Crain (Carla Gugino)
Theo "Clenched Fist With Hair" Crain (Kate Siegal)
Luke POOR BABY BOY Crain (Oliver Jackson-Cohen)
Shirley GUILT Crain (Elizabeth Reaser)
Nell I Miss You Baby Girl Crain (Victoria Pendretti)
Hugh "Blue Eyes" Crain (Hey, is that the kid from E.T.? Henry Thomas)
Ghost 1
Ghost 2
Ghost 3
Ghost 4
Ghost 5
Steve "You Dick" Crain (Michiel Huisman)