Unless you're completely off social media I'm sure you've heard of this year's surprise Halloween hit, the amazing 10 part series The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. Hitting the streaming giant two weeks ago the series blew up this past weekend, I suppose word started to get around, whatever it was it seemed like EVERYONE was binging the Crain family's terrifying story. Obviously, three seconds later we all scream for season 2. No spoilers, but if you've seen the series you know that things were wrapped up nicely, and that family has been through more then enough...it would almost be sadistic to want to see those folks forced back into those walls. Well, the nice thing about Hollywood is that the employ the most talented writers in the world, and have no problem being as sadistic as your garden variety serial killer (I'm looking at you writers of This is Us). Season 2 is all but guaranteed at this point, that's not the question. Nope, the story is what we all want to know, will a new family move in? Will something force the Crain's back under that roof? At this point we don't know but depending on how you interpret Mike Flanagan's interview with EW it's possible Hill House won't even be featured which, if nothing else, will make the title slightly misleading. From the EW article:
I don’t want to speculate too much about season two until Netflix and Amblin let us know if they want one. What I will say, though, is that as far as I’ve ever been concerned with this, the story of the Crain family is told. It’s done. I think that there are all sorts of different directions we could go in, with the house or with something completely different. I love the idea of an anthology as well. But to me, I felt like the Crains have been through enough, and we left them exactly as we all wanted to remember them, those of us who worked on it.
So, no more Crain Family then? That makes sense, and given the way the series ended there's an opening for a new family to star with the Crain's as background or even cameo characters to keep the connective tissue. The part that worries me is the anthology bit. It works great for American Horror Story, but the central theme isn't a place in that one. Sure Murder House is a place, but it's not titled Murder House. Is it a big deal? No, and people much smarter then I will be coming up with it...but it just seems odd to me.
Here's the bottom line, The Haunting of Hill House was some of the best looking, directed, acted, written horror in the last 20 years AND it was genuinely scary, unlike most critically acclaimed horror (The Witch, seriously who thought that was scary?) recently. My point is if the same people make season 2 they could call it Silly Sammy's Spooky's Spectacles and it would still be awesome. Time will tell but I would guess you can count on seeing season 2, I just hope that they hold it until October 2019...why release it any other time?
