TV
Have You Been Finding the Hidden Ghosts in “Haunting of Hill House”? Here’s a Guide to Get You Started
To reduce Netflix and Mike Flanagan’s “The Haunting of Hill House” to merely a ghost story would be doing the series a disservice, as it’s actually way more focused on character drama than it is paranormal terror. Personally, I like to describe it as “the horror version of Six Feet Under,” and it’s because Flanagan and company make us care so deeply about the characters that the series has the power to genuinely send chills up the spine when it desires to.
Yes, “The Haunting of Hill House” is bone-chilling at times, but it’s the deep and complex character work that makes Flanagan’s new project a standout horror series.
An added bonus of awesomeness? As we revealed in a chat with Flanagan last week, he and the team have hidden ghosts in *almost all* episodes of “The Haunting of Hill House,” which serve as creepy Easter eggs for viewers. The characters themselves never actually see these ghosts, making their inclusion a fun “ghost hunting” adventure for us and us alone.
“The interior was designed so that it could hide ghosts,” Flanagan told Bloody-Disgusting. “That was one of the big things. 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. I’m giddy about when the show launches and people start to spot them. I think that’s going to be really fun. We had a blast just hiding them all over the set whenever we were shooting. It’s pretty cool.”
Supervising producer and frequent Flanagan screenwriter Jeff Howard added that some of the ghosts come from past Hill House adaptations, and even Flanagan’s own movies.
“Some of them are old friends too from past projects,” Howard said. “There’s a couple of fun little cameos with people from the movies. If you’re a fan of the movies, you’ll get a good little laugh from seeing them show up. I’m sure you saw a cameo from the original Hill House movie. There’s also a bunch from the Flanagan Cinematic Universe.”
So when/where can you actually spot these ghosts? They’re often very hard to notice unless you’re paying strict attention to what’s going on in the background, but we wanted to highlight a few of them for you here today. Of course, part of the fun here is finding these spooky Easter eggs for yourself, but we figured we’d help you get started on this ghost hunting adventure.
First up, here’s how many you should be looking for in each episode:
- Episode 1: 4 Ghosts
- Episode 2: 2 Ghosts
- Episode 3: 9 Ghosts
- Episode 4: 3 Ghosts
- Episode 5: 3 Ghosts
- Episode 6: 0 Ghosts
- Episode 7: 2 Ghosts
- Episode 8: 0 Ghosts
- Episode 9: 4 Ghosts
- Episode 10: ?
And here are some screen-grabs (and time stamps) of a select few of these ghosts:
EPISODE 1: 52 Seconds
EPISODE 3: 39 minutes, 40 seconds
EPISODE 5: 22 minutes, 1 second
EPISODE 7: 49 minutes, 45 seconds
EPISODE 9: 8 minutes, 12 seconds
You’re on your own from here. Happy (ghost) hunting!
After premiering last month, Netflix has cancelled supernatural mystery series “The Boroughs,” THR reports today.
The eight-episode show was created by showrunners Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews (“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”) and premiered on May 21.
The series logline reads, “In a seemingly picturesque retirement community in the New Mexico desert, a group of unlikely heroes must band together to stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have… time.”
Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, Bill Pullman, Carlos Miranda, Jena Malone, Seth Numrich, and Alice Kremelberg starred in the series.
The cast also featured Ed Begley Jr., Dee Wallace, Eric Edelstein, Rafael Casal, Mousa Hussein Kraish, Beth Bailey, Karan Soni, and Jane Kaczmarek.
Ben Taylor (“Sex Education”) directed the first two episodes, with Augustine Frizzell (“Euphoria”) and Kyle Patrick Alvarez (The Stanford Prison Experiment) also helming episodes.
Our own Daniel Kurland wrote in his season one review, “Outside of its heartfelt performances and brief flashes of inspiration, The Boroughs is unfortunately as forgettable as the very people who have been shipped off to its community.“
“The Boroughs” may not have seen the same level of success as “Stranger Things“, but it has remained a fixture in Netflix’s Top Ten ranking since its premiere.
The series’ cancellation after only one season is largely attributed to the series’ expensive sci-fi budget, and the fact that Executive Producers The Duffer Brothers (“Stranger Things”) are leaving Netflix for Paramount, where they’ll next tackle an untitled event film expected in 2028.
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