thirdpersonperspectiveuniverse

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A... Less Angry Review (Finale)

    For my final blog post, I would like to take a look at the 2018 remake of the Haunting of Hill House. Greenlit by the streaming service Netflix, Mike Flannegan took over writing and directing, in order to make this into a 10 episode miniseries. However, due to technical reasons that I won’t get into, I can’t analyze the actual product, but one other item I found interesting was done by the Walker Brothers, behind the Nostalgia Critic. While not making an official episode on this, the two brothers posted a vlog on the miniseries, in which they talked for an hour, and discussed their overall feelings on the miniseries. 

    So obviously, the concept of the miniseries carrying the same nameplate as the book but being completely different might seem like a bad sign. In fact, it’s one of the first things the brother’s bring up, with Doug saying “I showed it to [Rob, his brother], and said ‘Yeah, this looks good, but does this look like The Haunting to you?’” They were clearly concerned about it before going in, but their reservations were quickly dashed. True, they did regard the beginning as a bit clumsy, but both agreed that by episode 5 (“The Bent Neck Lady”), they were wrapped up into the series. In fact, Rob makes a great comparison with the series, using personal experience to point out the greatest strength of the miniseries. Rob explains that Mike Flannegan really captures the feeling of death, and the aftershock of losing a loved one. The miniseries really depicts the emptiness and loss of time that people feel when they lose a loved one, to the point where both brothers agreed that they needed a break from the show for a bit. They also agreed that this show was better than just cheap jump scares found commonly amongst horror movies, because of the buildup and lack of predictability in them, favoring the ones that were louder and in which you didn’t know what was the reason for them. However, their good faith for the series didn’t last long, with Rob summarizing that this miniseries “-snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.” Unfortunately, the two brothers really hated the ending, giving the viewer a recommendation to “Watch episode nine, and then make up your own ending, and pretend that’s the real ending… then watch episode 10 as an alternate ending.” When going into more detail, their complaints fall around the problems with the writing- saying it seemed very “Fanfiction-y,” especially with the ending, and the special effects, which seemed to be a huge downgrade from the previous shows, and even, at the worst times, reminisce the 1999 movie’s effects, a huge insult. Overall, while the brother’s still say they will rewatch the series, they state at the end that they will skip over episode 10 whenever the rewatch it.

    Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching the Walker Brothers for awhile now, but I pretty much agreed with everything they said about this miniseries. True, I don’t think the “Red Room Twist” was a bad thing; in fact, it did make sense within the show since that was the room in which all of the kids were slowly pulled into isolation from their family. However, I can’t say I was as angry about the ending as they were, just more so disappointed. I will still watch this series, but I will insert the Walker’s version of the ending.

    Shirley Jackson’s story has seen many different times and faces, all showcasing different scars and birthmarks. While some did well and some didn’t, they all have one thing in common, in that they display a testament to how innovative and groundbreaking the original novel was, in order for it to survive nearly 50 years now.

Work Cited:

“The Haunting of Hill House” Netflix. Mike Flannegan, Carla Gugino, Victoria Pedretti. 2018, Netflix.

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A Very Angry Review

Like stated previously, there were a lot of people who hated the remake of the haunting. However, I challenge anyone to say that they hated it more than one particular online reviewer. His name: Doug Walker, also known as The Nostalgia Critic. In season two of his review show, The Haunting remake was featured in one of the episodes, and he gets VERY heated, to say the least (It isn’t advisable for kids to watch). However, I like this review in particular because it follows the story of the movie and points out problems while following the plot of the movie, or strengths, if any. For this reason (and it was what got me into Shirley Jackson’s story in the first place), I’d like to take a look at it here.

    The Nostalgia Critic wastes no time in introducing the original 1963 movie, using the quote that I think most people familiar with this movie say: “Even if you don’t find it scary, it’s a brilliant character study and a gothic story.” When starting the review, the critic does point out one of the few positives of the film, with Lili Taylor being a pretty good pic for the Eleanor character. However, the positives don’t last long, as his first big complaint comes up: The critic believes that the plot point of Dr. Marrow tricking the subjects as to what the experiment is about is a time-waster, and the truthful reason in the 1963 film made it more interesting. The movie goes on to Eleanor reaching Hill House, with the critic pointing out his final positive for the movie, that the Dudley’s are handled okay in the remake, even if their lines are mostly just copy-pasted from the original movie. After briefly crushing on Theo’s replacement, Catherine Zeta-Jones, this leads the critic to another big problem with the remake: The original kept it subtle as to whether Theo was a lesbian or not, adding to the tension between the characters, whereas the remake’s Theo shows being a lesbian as her only character trait. It showcases the biggest problem with the movie, a giant case of unsubtly. With the movie slowly trudging on and the critic getting more and more annoyed with Owen Wilson as Luke, he reaches what I mentioned previously: The supernatural being played off as normal, but being a wasted idea since the supernatural is shown in bad CGI during the next scene. He then reaches one of the bigger differences between the movies: Eleanor being suppressed by the ghosts and falling in love with the house in the 1999 version is played off as comforting and charming, rather than creepy and subtle like in the original. The critic gets angrier, especially with the knockoff “Hand-holding” scene in the 1999 version, which doesn’t make any sense in the context when it’s played. This all culminates into the really bad ending, with the critic reacting to the revelation that Eleanor is the descendant of Hugh Crain and the Luke decapitation scene with a rant that I would try to quote here, but it was so incomprehensible that I couldn’t make out the words.  

    With the conclusion of the review, I, along with most viewers of the Nostalgia Critic agree that he nailed it on the head with what was wrong with this movie. While it was entertaining to see- his rage is part of his charm- he does explain the flaws and comparisons very well, helping the viewer follow along with him, and even go back to see the problems for yourself when watching it. 

    Overall, Doug Walker executed a review that was not only more entertaining to watch than the movie, but it is well written and follows a very good formula set to help the reader. However, this type of review isn’t the only type of review he does. One other type is called “Sibling Rivalry,” in which they looked at the most recent version of The Haunting.

Work Cited:

Walker, Doug. “The Haunting (1999)- Nostalgia Critic.” Channel Awesome, Originally posted 2004, reposted November 2018. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNAStfDbjxA

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The Disappointment

While the book and the movie can be seen as siblings to each other, the 1999 movie can be seen as the drug-addicted younger sibling who, despite still being acknowledged in the family lineup, everyone has slightly given up on ever getting better (if you’ve seen the miniseries, I hope you understood that reference). 

In 1997, Steven Spielberg and Stephen King partnered to help create a remake to the classic film, but both soon ran into problems with development. First, King left the project over creative differences with Spielberg, and later Spielberg himself was pushed to the producer’s role, with his replacement being Jan de Bont, who previously directed Twister and Cruise 2. It’s also worth mentioning that the project was burdened with reshoots and rewrites, seemingly like people couldn’t decide how to make the remake good yet different (Which brings up the question as to why you need to remake it if the original would still be better- we’ll get to that later). Finally, the film was released in the summer of 1999, staring Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, and Liam Neeson, to critical panning.

The plot mostly follows the same as the book, but has small yet noticeable changes all throughout it. Eleanor “Nell” Vance, an insomniac, is now rendered homeless after her invalid mother passes away when she is 32. Looking for refuge, she accepts an invitation to join a study on insomnia, along with Theo and Luke, under the researcher Dr. Marrow. Little do they know, that Dr. Marrow’s true intention is to study fear, as he picked Hill House as the perfect fear inducing location. Now with all four at the mansion- plus two research assistants- Dr. Marrow relays the backstory for Hill House. The house was built by Hugh Crain for his wife, in order to have a large family. However, Renee Crain, Hugh’s first wife, miscarried twice, and then died on the premises. Dr. Marrow concludes the story by saying that Hugh became a recluse, and died in the house as well. When one of the assistants speaks up, claiming that there’s more to the story, a freak accident occurs, injuring her. With that, both assistants are asked to leave, with only the main four remaining. That night the ghosts begin to make their presence known, with banging inside the walls of Theo and Nell’s bedroom, and the portrait of Hugh Crain being vandalized by blood, the writing spelling out “Welcome home Eleanor.” This leads to a shift in the group, with Theo and Luke blaming Eleanor for it, saying that she wanted attention. Nell, now looking to prove the house is haunted and clear her name, finds old records of Hugh Crain’s mills, which were full of child laborers. She discovers that he would kidnap children from there and kill them in his house, in order to have an “eternal family.” Dr. Marrow soon catches onto the hauntings after a statue tries to drown him, and orders everyone to leave the house. Hugh Crain’s ghost tries to prevent this, by sealing the house and decapitation Luke. Nell, now realizing that she is a descendant of Hugh Crain, sacrifices herself in order to free the children’s spirits and banish Hugh’s ghost. The movie wraps up with Nell being painted in a mural over the fireplace, surrounded by the children she saved, and Dr. Marrow and Theo being able to leave.

You know, it’s interesting how the first one was nominated for smaller film awards, and now this one would’ve been Jan de Bont’s third time on the Razzies’ chopping block, along with six other razzie nominations. Whether he earned it with the other two films or not, it’s safe to say that it’s hard to see why he didn’t finally take a Razzie home with this CGI piece of shit. Critics and audiences alike panned this movie, complaining of the god-awful special effects, the overdobe yet also underdone performances (what an accomplishment), and the clunky, unfocused script. I agree with all of these criticisms, in particular with the script, as I can in no way say that Shirley Jackson would’ve blessed this mess or even acknowledged it if she were still alive. From characters being shriveled down to one characteristic, to a plethora of plot holes (Like why was Dr. Marrow sleeping when he should’ve been studying the participants in HIS OWN study, and why did he not have any equipment or baseline for said study, and why am I supposed to be rooting for the kids when they viciously attacked Luke and Theo in one scene- okay I could go on for awhile), to one of the dumbest and corniest climaxes in all of “horror” movie history. In addition, it certainly doesn’t help that the really bad CGI keeps being emphasized, like the director is proud the the Haunted Mansion ghosts look better than his film. You see, this was during the time of the CGI boom in the 90’s, where, as the public became more and more accepting of this new technology, studios became lazier, believing that they didn’t have to throw as much money at it. In turn, the effects began to suffer, looking at best really fake and at worst downright creepy and sickly, and The Haunting fell into the same trap. It’s a shame that one of the greatest stories of the century was reduced to this endurance test of a movie, that ends up being so predictable and cliche`d  that, as soon as the badly rendered face pops up in the teaser trailer (seen below), you can tell exactly what kind of movie your getting.

Okay, so the movie sucked; I hope you got it. Now, I did mention the decade of CGI downgrades previously, but, other than that, this film didn’t do any smart parallels that I could see. In fact, any new idea that could have been good was either debunked immediately, or done so much better in the original. For example, after they are woken up by the banging, there is a scene that shows the characters trying to debunk the banging as water running through the pipes. Now, the idea of the characters trying to explain away the ghosts could have been an interesting idea; however, this idea is ruined by the previous assistant-freak-accident scene, which shows definitive proof of the ghosts, thereby ruining the possible tension that they could’ve added to this.

Overall, I really didn’t like this movie, and apparently a lot of people agree with me. In fact, two online reviewers went into an angry rant over this movie, and it’s fair to say that they hated it WAY more than I did.

Work Cited:

de Bont, Jan. The Haunting (1999). Dreamworks Pictures, 1999

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Before the Cameras Rolled

As previously stated, the 1963 movie garnered a great reputation as being just as big of a game changer in its field, similarly to how the book was praised years before. Many articles were published, analyzing the movie and it’s making, but one in particular, entitled “Elegant Chills,” really went in depth to the background of the movie, and how the people behind it came to know the book.

    The article starts by mentioning other directors active during the 60s, like Hitchcock, Ford, and Capra, building up the ability of Robert Wise and his work on The Haunting. We continue on to see how Robert Wise discovered the original story. After he read a Time Magazine article praising the book, he picked up a copy and begin to read it in his office. When his friend- who would eventually become the screenwriter for the adaptation- walked into Wise’s office unannounced, Wise “‘-jumped about three feet off that couch!’” Wise became enthralled with the book, hoping to accomplish what it had done to him on the big screen. After finally picking MGM studios to fund the project, filming began in England, whilst keeping the New England setting of the book. The article also notes that, while at this point most movies were beginning to be shot in color, Wise opted for a widescreen black and white film, in order to make the atmosphere more eerie. Another interesting fact about the movie was it contained a lot of actors stepping out of their normal typecaste roles, like with Dr. Markway’s actor, Richard Johnson. Before the filming, Johnson was the go-to actor for romance movies, making The Haunting the first movie in a while where he had to play a straight-faced serious character, but still add enough charisma to it to be likeable. The article concludes with a plot summary of the movie, wrapping up with some reviews of the time, that praised the film.

    One thing that really stuck with me from the article was how everyone seemed very passionate about the movie. The writer and director were enthralled with the book so much that they pushed the studio to fund the movie project, getting it moved to England so it could happen. In addition, the actors themselves were very on board with stepping outside of their comfort zone to make the movie happen. This movie had everything put into it to make the best story told on the big screen, and it came out showing all of the hard work put in. 

    Overall, after seeing the effort put in behind this movie, it really comes as no surprise that it came out as good as it did; Shirley Jackson’s book was treated with the respect and care that it required, and the filmmakers cared about every detail in the shots they took. With all of this, the end product was a work of art that has persisted to this day.

    Too bad we can’t say the same about the remake.

Work Cited:

Turner, George E. “Elegant Chills: The Haunting” American Cinematographer, November 13, 2018

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Behind The Typewriter

Shirley Jackson, in order to create a great story, channeled ideas that were affecting her in her home life. In fact, before The Haunting of Hill House was published, Jackson published three journals depicting her writing process and influences. The first journal, titled “Memory and Delusions,” was republished on The New Yorker, which is what I’ll be analyzing. 

Shirley Jackson takes the reader through her daily life of controlled chaos during the first part of the story, dealing with her children, husband, and household, while simultaneously trying to take care of herself and forward her career. How she manages is trying to find loopholes in her life in order to get a bit of quiet time to write. For example, she purposely annoys her children in order to get them out of the room, by reminding them about the chores they haven’t done. Once she is past her daily hurdles, Jackson goes on to describe her writing process, and how she perceives the concept as a writer as someone who simply “doesn’t stop writing once they put down the pen.” Jackson’s entire world keeps her enthralled in giving her ideas to write about, or metaphors for comparison, like the green bowl story. She finally caps off this essay with a short story of overcoming writer’s block, where she was sleep-walking and wrote down the number “140410.” At first, in the hustle of the early morning and getting her kids ready when they were a half hour late already, she couldn’t think much of it. Then, she remembers a night, a week prior to the current date, where she and her husband had gone out to a restaurant with a friend, who had a new Italian wife. Despite Jackson’s many objections to the telling of her story, the husband detailed the wife’s anti-fascist journey in Italy during WWII, where she had been trained to be tortured by disassociating from herself, seperating her mind from her body. While, during that dinner, Jackson hated hearing the story, at the current date while finding that number, broke her writer’s block, and she was able to finally write about her character’s arc and personality, wrapping up her first essay.

, Before I go into my bigger theory about this, I have a small notion that she had reached writer’s block on the original draft of the haunting book. Seeing as how her final thought on the character was disassociation from her physical body, I wonder if she had this in mind for an early stage of Eleanor or Theo, both of who tended to act reclusive.

Anyways, I theorize that Jackson wrote Eleanor Vance from The Haunting of Hill House to be molded after her own experience, how she felt being “...a writer who, due to a series of innocent and ignorant faults of judgment, finds herself with a family of four children and a husband, an eighteen-room house and no help.... [which means] that I have at most a few hours a day to spend at the typewriter.” Her sentiment is shared by anyone who feels like they are shunted into a corner, doing work constantly and not able to truly be at their own full potential, whether they know what that is or not. Seeing the year published, it can be reasonably assumed that this could be of a housewife’s viewpoint, even if now spreading to both genders and all ages, who are stuck in a life of tedious work with no way of self expression in any way that is valuable to them. This feeling can be felt in a mass majority of people, making it why Eleanor’s character is so relatable to a common reader. 

Jackson, Shirley. “Memories and Delusions.” Taken from Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings, originally published in 1948. Republished in The New Yorker, 2015

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The Adaptation

With the critical and financial success of the book, it’s not surprising that it was considered for the adaptation treatment not long after publishing.

    After choosing director Robert Wise, who was behind 1958’s I Want to Live, sent Jackson’s book to the writer for I Want to Live, Nelson Gidding. Gidding wrote the screenplay over six weeks, and together they hired Julie Harris, Russ Tamblyn, Claire Bloom, and Richard Johnson, with the house at Ettington Park (Seen Below) used for the Hill House character. The film was released on September 18, 1963 to critical acclaim

(Ettington Hall, the Actor for Hill House in the 1963 Adaptation)

Overall, the plot actually stays the same from book to movie, with only it being simplified to fit within an hour and a half. After an opening narration done by Dr. Markway about the history of Hill House- including Hugh Crain’s first wife dying in a carriage crash near the entrance to the property, and a nanny hanging herself in the spiral staircase tower- we are introduced to the three candidates in his experiment to prove the paranormal: Luke, the heir to the house, Theo, a psychic, and Eleanor, who believes she had poltergeist moments in her childhood. During the first night, Eleanor and Theo experience some spooks, but Eleanor doesn’t stay scared for long, growing slightly affectionate to the house. The next night, Eleanor and Theo fall asleep in the same bed, and Eleanor is awoken to a woman and man shouting outside of their room, and Eleanor begins to hold Theo’s hand in distress. In one of the more famous horror scenes of all time, Eleanor begins to scream as the yelling gets louder, and Theo flips on the lights, shutting up the screams, but revealing that Eleanor wasn’t even in the bed, and Theo had slept through the screams. She famously says in terror, “Who was holding my hand?” The movie concludes similarly enough to the book, with Eleanor being saved from being tricked into killing herself, Dr. Markway sending Eleanor away, fearing for her safety, which ends in vain as the car Eleanor is driving crashes into the tree that Mrs. Crain died on, killing her.

    While it may not have the deeper levels of the book (something that will be explored in the next blog post), the movie had the same praised success as the book, being a box office success and hailed by critics. In fact, this film was rated the 13th best horror movie made of all time. 

    Personally, I do admit that the movie isn’t perfect, but it isn’t hard to see why it is hailed as a masterpiece. Screenwriter Nelson Gibbing shifted the focus of the story from the supernatural scares, and towards the psychological fear of the situation. In fact, the director makes the decision to never once show any ghost or poltergeist activity beyond the aforementioned noise. This really helps push the idea that Eleanor is going crazy, since it is easy to make the argument that everything that she hears is a delusion, especially since the activity- in both stories- is especially targeted towards her. Between the not-yet-proven paranormal and the tension between the group members, I perceive a clear metaphor for the cold war. The tension of unseen forces surrounding and terrorizing you, but not having any conclusive proof or answer for them sounds extremely like the McCarthyisms of the 60’s, where our nation was involved in the Germany split with the Soviet union, and people feared communist spies coming to America, or “The Red Scare.” Whether the filmmaker intended this or not, I see this in the same way Rod Serling would portray it in his own hit anthology series, The Twilight Zone, with Eleanor’s fate being shown as the unwanted future, of what would happen if we had kept going down this path.

    I’ve heard people complain about this movie, rating it low because of the lack of scares; I, along with The Walker Brothers- online reviewers- are in consensus, and retaliate that “This isn’t a scary movie; it’s a tense character study” (Doug Walker). This movie does what The Blair Witch Project tried to do years later: it tried to frighten you with what wasn’t there. Because of this, I see this as a great accomplishment in film. Now, in the next blog, we will explore the debate on whether it is a good adaptation or not.

 https://www.framerated.co.uk/the-haunting-1963/

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luCK97aDOrE&t=1828s

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Looking at Origins

    “Certainly there are spots which inevitably attach to themselves an atmosphere of holiness and goodness; it might not then be too fanciful to say that some houses are born bad.”

- Shirley Jackson

    Since we’ll need to establish what the original story is, let’s first take a look at the original book, published in 1959. 

    Shirley Jackson, at the time before publishing her book, had already made fame publishing short stories and some occasional novels, including the famous short The Lottery. Her style was never really reflective of supernatural stories, instead being mostly in the dystopian or mystery themed. However, Jackson was inspired after reading about a nineteenth century study done where five supposed psychics had been locked in a supposed haunted house, and all had come out expressing different feelings about it. Jackson saw the study as less of a supernatural case, and more of a “‘story of several earnest, I believe misguided, certainly determined people, with their differing motivations and background.’” (Jackson Interview, Wikipedia). With this in mind, she energetically began to plan out her story, even channeling her grandfather (an architect) in designing a floor plan for the fictitious Hill House (seen below). In addition, while I cannot confirm nor deny this, one of the possible influences for Hill House was the Jennings Hall, in Bennington, Vermont (seen below). The book was released in 1959, to critical claim, being hailed as one of the next great stories to be remembered for decades.

The plot follows Eleanor Vance, a sheltered woman who hasn’t been able to leave her home and do things a normal adult would do, due to her ailing mother. Now, at 32, she receives a letter from Dr. Montague, who asks her to be one subject in an experiment dedicated to proving the existence of ghosts. Feeling like this is finally her chance to see the world, she drives to Hill House, in order to meet Dr. Montague and the only other two others to join the experiment: Theo, a psychic, and Luke Sanderson, the nephew of the descendant of Hugh Crain, builder of Hill House. After their first dinner in the house, Dr. Monague vaguely explains the history of the house, filled with suicides, fights, and people leaving before the lease is due. While mildly paranormal things begin to happen, Eleanor seems to be at peace in the house, even after the second night where the women are trapped in a room surrounded by loud banging, and the men are sent chasing after a child they here, which makes Dr. Montague begin to suspect that the house is trying to seperate them. Over time, the groups moods seem to improve, even when they simultaneously lose the concept of time and memory, with Eleanor noting that her time before Hill House seems foggy, and the group completely forgetting what day it is. It is from here that the group begins to split as more scary things begin to happen. Nearing the end, now Mrs. Montague and her Assistant, Arthur, start a hostile takeover of the investigation, portraying the Montague’s broken marriage and their differences in how to investigate. By now, Eleanor has fully turned herself to the houses control, and is now able to feel and hear everyone in the house, and grows more hostile. This culminates into the House deluding Eleanor into climbing the rickety spiral staircase in the library to the tower, where one of the previous owners had hung themselves. Luke luckily is able to stop her, and Dr. Montague demands her to head back home. Eleanor initially refuses, seeing Hill House as her home, but she eventually starts driving away. However, as she is about to leave the property, she seemingly loses control of the car and crashes into the same tree that Hugh Crain’s wife died at. The book ends with the remaining characters pondering whether or not she killed herself, or if the ghosts finally got her.

As said before, the book was released to critical acclaim, and it’s not hard to see why- the entire book has more levels in it than Hill House, leaving viewers so many things to theorize and speculate about. While it is a slow story being told, I think what helps with this book is that Jackson does keep you off balance, making the world seem real enough  to relate to it, yet odd in certain aspects. In fact, when Dr. Montague describes the house as having all of the halls and floors at the slightest of an angle, as if it wanted to disorient it’s occupants. I can’t help but feel like Tim Burton was inspired by this house. Also, what sets this apart from other stories is that the plot itself is not the main focus; like Jackson intended, this is a character study of five people stuck somewhere that is trying to make them lose their minds. Because of this, the characters do really pop off the page, being able to make an imprint on the reader’s mind, and in turn get emotions felt by the reader for them. That’s not even mentioning how many subtle details about the characters there are; I believe that one could write a book based on each character’s backstory, personality, and journey throughout the book. 

This story was an innovator for the time, and still revels in its subtle horror for decades to come. It actually does this so well that people have tried to recreate this story multiple times over. The question is, do these remakes live up to what Jackson imagined for the story? In fact, what did Jackson want to channel in this book other than an intriguing idea? Let’s find out.

Work Cited:

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House, Viking Publishers, 1959

Minutalgio, Ross. “This Creepy Vermont Building May Have Inspired Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House,” NBC5 News, 2018. https://www.mynbc5.com/article/this-creepy-vermont-building-may-have-inspired-netflixs-haunting-of-hill-house/2394633 (For Image Only)