Obviously, don’t read this article if you haven’t yet finished the series.
For a show that deals in death and horror, Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” has a decidedly hopeful ending, with the surviving Crain children being released from the prison that is Hill House and carrying on with their lives… presumably happier than ever before. In one final shot, the family is celebrating the 2 year anniversary of Luke’s sobriety, suggesting that he has finally overcome his demons in the way his sister wasn’t able to. It’s a happy moment, but Mike Flanagan almost made the moment anything but with a slight-but-massive twist.
The titular Hill House is home to a special room locked behind a red door that serves as something of a sanctuary for each of the family members, taking on different forms for each of them. For Luke, a tree house lies beyond the red door, while it serves as a personal dance studio for Theodora. The one thing that links each of those rooms together is a rectangular window on the far wall, a little visual cue from Flanagan that slyly hinted that the locations weren’t quite real, as the members of the Crain family thought, but rather a delusion.
Well, Flanagan explains to Thrillist, he toyed with the idea of adding that very same window to the background of the aforementioned shot wherein the family is celebrating Luke’s sobriety, which would’ve suggested that the family never truly did escape the house.
“One thing I can say is that we talked for a very, very long time about putting the Red Room window, that weird vertical window, in the background of this shot,” Flanagan told the site. “And I ultimately decided not to. It was too cruel. But there was a lot of talk that this peace might not be real.”
He added. “In the version we ended up going with, I think it absolutely is real. We committed to that course of action.”
Which ending do you prefer? Happy or horrifying?
