Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House Offers a More Nuanced Take on Horror Than Carrie

Mike Flanagan knows how to make horror and serialized TV. His latest show brings together many of his strengths: his connection to Stephen King, his skill as an adapter, his eye for casting, and his ability to create emotional depth. One thing is missing, though: fear.

Carrie came out in October of this year and sparked plenty of discussion. Many praised the way it brought King’s 1970s novel into 2026. One major criticism is that the series isn’t scary, especially by the standards of a filmmaker known for spooky work. The Haunting of Hill House is a case in point.

Ghosts in plain sight

Released on Netflix in 2018, The Haunting of Hill House was Flanagan’s first TV show. Based on Shirley Jackson’s landmark novel of the same name, the series reimagines Jackson’s characters, sometimes changing their identities completely. Jackson brought a group of strangers together in a haunted house to explore their deepest traumas. Flanagan turned them into siblings and made Hill House their childhood home.

Many devoted Jackson fans haven’t forgiven that adaptation choice. But Flanagan commits fully to the haunted-house premise, making the psychological fear in the novel literal. Hill House becomes a true house of horrors.

The series relies on dread rather than jump scares. It makes viewers scan every part of the screen, looking for anything out of place. “If you go back and watch the series again, in every episode there’s probably somewhere between eight and 10 ghosts that are just hidden in plain sight that we called no attention to but they’re there,” Flanagan told Bloody Disgusting.

Some of the ghosts had personal origins. The tall man in the bowler hat, for example, was added because one of the writers is afraid of tall people. “People on stilts freak her out,” Flanagan said. “It’s one of the most specific and weird phobias I’ve heard. We all thought it was so funny that we decided to make the tall man.”

The ghosts add atmosphere and unease, but some also drive the story. Flanagan splits Jackson’s Eleanor into two characters. He gives her instability to the Crain siblings’ mother, Olivia (Carla Gugino), and her frailty and imagination to Nell (Victoria Pedretti). Nell becomes a clear example of a house consuming its most vulnerable resident.

The series’ standout episode, “The Bent-Neck Lady,” turns on a twist: the ghost that has haunted Nell all her life is Nell herself, driven mad and killed by the house. Hill House makes its horror intimate. Carrie’s twist does the opposite, separating Carrie from the horror.

Prom in 2026

Warning: Spoilers follow for the final episodes of Carrie.

Flanagan’s Carrie stays close to the book in its mythology, sequence of events, and character identities. But it veers away at the one moment where it shouldn’t: the prom. The season builds toward one of horror’s most famous scenes, then complicates it unnecessarily. Instead of Carrie breaking and taking revenge, her friend Emaline (Thalia Dudek) bears most of the blame, taking over Carrie’s body for much of the massacre.

In an interview with Polygon, Flanagan discussed the prom scene and explained what happened. He said he and the writers wanted Carrie to be “100% solely responsible for” the deaths of key characters, whether innocent or guilty. Those characters include Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette), Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), and Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton).

But the writers drew a line at the prom massacre. “None of us believed the Carrie White we created would consciously choose to kill Principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard), would choose to kill Ms. D (Amber Midthunder), and would choose to ignite innocent people around her,” Flanagan said.

Carrie has always been about more than a girl setting her prom on fire. It’s also about high schoolers who bully their weaker peers to feel better about themselves. Flanagan’s series captures that cruelty. As in Hill House, he makes viewers care about the characters. But the prom is where that cruelty overtakes Carrie, turning her into a horror icon. The show flinches at that moment. There’s no Bent-Neck Lady-style reveal, only a massacre with no clear person to blame. Is the show called Emaline?

The Haunting of Hill House is streaming on Netflix.

Source: Polygon