‘The Haunting Of Hill House’ flips the horror genre on it’s head with a compelling tale of family, trauma and memories
Based on the novel of the same name, Netflix’s ‘The Haunting Of Hill House’ is a stunningly fascinating story about a family that is torn apart and tormented by evil spirits in their creepy new home. What is different about this story, however, is that half of the show is seen through flashbacks and the other is in present day exploring how a terrible tragedy still haunts these characters in their current lives. Sure, the show is certainly terrifying, however, at it’s core, it’s a show about a family that has chosen to deal with their past traumas in different ways.
At the Los Angeles premiere, MEAWW got to speak with the show’s cast and executive producer who expanded on the family dynamic and how it gave the show a heart that people will truly connect to. We first spoke to newcomer Victoria Pedretti whose standout performance as Nell Crain will blow audiences away. Shockingly, this is Pedretti’s first professional job, which no one would ever have guessed given her superb performance.
“I had an amazing experience on the show, it was my first professional job actually, and I couldn’t imagine a more incredible experience to learn and grow. The psychological bit was in a way the creepiest part of being a part of the show. We are dealing with childhood trauma, we are dealing with very serious issues and that was frightening. But ultimately it was worth it, it was challenging and that’s what made it so rewarding in the end.”
The astute and mature thirteen-year-old Lulu Wilson is no stranger to the horror genre as she has been in some of Hollywood’s scariest films of the past few years like ‘Annabelle: Creation’ and ‘Ouija: Origin Of Evil.’ In ‘The Haunting Of Hill House’, Wilson plays the young version of one of the Crain children, Shirley. Her older counterpart is Elizabeth Reaser who, in the present day, has kept in tone with her creepy childhood and is a mortician. This project has been different for Wilson as the horror aspect is only a part of this dynamic story.
“This role and project has been different for me because of the family-drama aspect to the series. It’s about emotions and not all about the scares, which I really liked because you get attached to the characters and really care for them.”
Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who plays Luke Crain, expanded on Wilson’s sentiment in that the ever present aspect of family is what makes this show truly great. Cohen spoke on creator Mike Flannigan’s storytelling and gave us a deeper understanding of how the series itself is laid out.
“What Mike has done here is very clever. He has taken an old horror formula we have all seen before, a family that moves into a house that is haunted, awful things happen and they get out. And then he went on with the story and said, ‘Well, what would happen to those people twenty years later? How would that have affected their lives?’ We all have complicated childhoods, it’s a universal thing. And I think the show concentrates on how those childhoods effect you as an adult and I think that’s a very interesting concept.”
Kate Siegel, who plays Theodora Crain, also spoke on the aspect of childhood trauma and how the act of suppressing horrible events from your past is never really that effective.
“I think we all have wounds. All of us can look back at our childhood to the moment that really affected us or where things went wrong that we hold onto. And it’s not always something that is on the forefront of your mind. Sometimes you are making lunch, picking up the mail and aren’t really thinking about the horrible things that happened to you. However, after some time, they will come back to haunt you.”
Lastly, we spoke with executive producer and co-showrunner Meredith Averill, who spoke on the vast amount of time they spent working on these characters and focusing on the family dynamic. It’s no surprise that this aspect of family and character development was such a standout part of the series, as this is something they worked on in the writers room extensively.
“The first five episodes are each dedicated to a different sibling, so you get to spend a lot of time with them in a really nice way. In the writers room we spent the first three weeks really diving into those backstories before we even started breaking a single episode. I think those experiences we spent in the room were really key to be able to get inside their heads because the whole show is about how their time at Hill House affected them.”
‘The Haunting Of Hill House’ is sure to capture audiences in it’s terrifying yet visceral re-telling of the legendary novel. The series will premiere Friday, October 12 on Netflix.
