The Physiology of Thresholds in Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

Abstract

The present article focuses on Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, a ten-episode series released on Netflix in 2019 and which the writers claimed was partly inspired by Shirley Jackson’s acclaimed novel of the same name. Both narratives are articulated around the towering and bleak presence of Hill House and its crippling influence on a variety of characters. However, questions pertaining to the notion of adaptation or faithfulness will not be tackled here. Instead, we wish to examine the concept of adolescence through the study of boundaries, thresholds and, more generally, liminality. Our discussion will be informed by concepts aligning space and body with a view to shedding new light on the gothic paraphernalia of the show. It will first deal with the bleak and labyrinthine setting of Hill House as a porous and crumbling structure whose cinematic transcription challenges the traditional understanding of space. This contribution will then study the different members of the Crain family and how their characterisation borrows from gothic readings of the ailing and failing body. Finally, we wish to go beyond familiar (albeit fascinating) analyses of liminality (with, for instance, the heterotopic space and the liminal neophyte, our focal points in parts one and two respectively) and apprehend formal and stylistic playfulness through the study of thresholds and transitions in the very fabric of the television narrative.