What I Learned Reading The Haunting of Hill House Script
I remember the show was an instant hit as soon as it dropped on Netflix. I saw the writers, directors, and actors I follow on social media talking about it with high praise. So, I started watching it and quickly realized that it is an actually a damn good show. Everything about it is so good, I don’t even know how to start.
It’s based on a book by Shirley Jackson, first published in 1959. The book is considered the greatest haunted house story ever written by many people.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers — and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
The show is different. It is about a family who happens to be staying at the Hill House for a short time period. But the house slowly eats them starting with the mom, Olivia (Carla Gugino). The changes added so much depth into this already rich story. And after that, they started the build the story brick by brick like building a house. The atmosphere and the scares connect to something. They all have a background in the story which we don’t see very often in the horror genre. And because of the scares connect deeply to the story and the characters, it starts to shake us to our cores. I think that’s why the show is so damn good. It catches us vulnerable…
I have read the script for the first episode called “Steven Sees a Ghost”. What did I learn from it? It opens with Steven’s monologue and the Hill House, and quickly it establishes the family’s connection to the house. It shows us the times the family was living there all together and where the rest of the family is years later. And switches from one to the other constantly drawing us deeper and deeper into the story without us noticing that we’re vulnerable to anything that’s about to come at the end of the episode. The last scene catches us off-guard. And as fast as it came, it ends. The whole episode flies by in seconds. Even reading it was very absorbing. I didn’t even notice how the time went fast so quickly.
The first scene is about young Steven waking up to the sound of his sister Nellie’s crying. He goes to his sister to help, and another sister, young Theo follows him too. She asks whether if they should wake their parent up or not. But Steven very responsibly says that he’s got it under control. Their dad, Hugh Crane comes too and they all support Nell against her fears. They care for each other, and we sense that they are really a perfect family by seeing how Hugh deal with the situation. And we care for them. From the very first scene, we start to root for the family. We come back to these moments all throughout the episode and the rest of the show constantly.
Then, in the next scenes, we start to see where they are years later. They are a part from and in conflict with each other. And each time they go further away from each other and each time they fight, the scares and ironically the house draw them together.
One of the other things that I really like about the script is that each scare is a setup. They didn’t just bang on the walls, knock the doors, created the Bent-Neck Lady just for the atmosphere. They all represent something deep about the characters, about the house, and about the story.
And it’s interesting to see that the episodes are character driven. The first episode is about Steven. We see what he does for his work, in his spare time and we see how he deals with his own demons and his past. We see how his mind works. Each episode we see other character’s motives, fears, desires and they all prepare us for the end of the show.
Once again, the show is pretty damn good. I strongly recommend you watch it if you haven’t already. And if you already watched it and want to learn how they created the show on page, I recommend reading the script for the first episode called “Steven Sees a Ghost”.
The Haunting of Hill House Script [PDF], S01E01 “Steven Sees a Ghost” by Mike Flanagan based on the book by Shirley Jackson — For educational and research purposes only.
