anthony-d-kelly Review of The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

Bad acting and cheesy scripts ruin a decently entertaining show

[6/10 · 21 October 2018]

Sure, it's a relatively good looking show (if you can get past the ugly Netflix-quality of the cameras used for shooting); Mike Flanagan is good at creating a mood. The temporally shifting narrative is actually used to good effect as well, creating forward momentum and interest for the viewer, eager to find out exactly what happened with each of the characters. But my god is the acting amateurish; even worse, these god awful actors are giving LONG monologues which they are absolutely not able to rise to. The child actors are given far too much screen time as well, and are universally irritating. Oculus, my favorite Mike Flanagan project, does a lot of what Hill House did, but in a significantly smarter way, with a lead actor in Karen Gillan who could actually carry the film.