The Haunting of Hill House ep. 8 - Death Drive

This review series was requested by Carson Rebel. Many thanks to Carson for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon.

Other Reviews in This Series --- Assume Spoilers

Witness Marks

Hugh tells Steve about witness marks-- the evidence that repairs have been done to the inner machinations of a clock. They are "the story of the piece." If you can read the scars, you can understand the entire history of that clock. If you can't, it just looks like damage.

Steve of all people needs to hear this the most, since his defense mechanism is to take everything at face value. His avoidance impulses are titanic. He even got a secret vasectomy! Of course this torpedoed his relationship, how could it have gone any other way? But he prefers a torpedo to vulnerability. He clenches up to avoid passing on his family's sickness. "There's something wrong with our goddamn brains." He wants his blood line to die but he isn't strong enough to admit it.

This rich metaphor is tied together by the clock-repair flashback ghost with the bushy moustache. Hugh tries to convince Steve that the repairman he wrote about was a witness mark, one that Steve never even conceived might be out of place.

That's a lot to process, and a liminal episode is the perfect time for processing. The family, split between three cars, are all making their merry way back to Hill House. They drive willfully towards Death: past, present, and future. It is family that has compelled them once again. A whole episode of driving sounds boring, but Flanagan's team introduces just enough visual flair to keep it fresh, like the orange light of a tunnel inflaming the gloomy scenario at the moment of a breakthrough between Hugh and Steve. I like Timothy Hutton's version of Hugh Crain much better in this episode. He pecks and pokes and wheedles in a way that felt a bit artificial before, but as he (literally) takes the driver's seat we see how it all issues from a deep well of anxiety.

The sequestered intimate moments continue as Shirley and Theo, invigorated by some spooky banging on the walls, pursue the rest of the family down murky roadways. Shirley's denial is strong (and obnoxious), but it withers after the ghoulish face of their dead sister interrupts an argument.

This most startling beat of the episode offers a good opportunity to talk about how "Hill House"... isn't really that scary. Both times I've watched the show I keep expecting the horror to ramp up, and here we are at episode 8 and it's mostly people talking in cars. This is not a criticism! The handful of jump scare moments scattered throughout the series are effective, but the real meat and potatoes of "Hill House" is dread. Hidden subliminal specters, tightening nooses, inherited trauma. The scariest aspect of this show is seeing people build up to confronting things that they never could before. Even the jump scares are tied to this, like Nelly in the car. That rupture breaks Shirley open so she can listen to Theo, really hear her pain.

With Nell dead, Luke feels there is nobody left to hear his pain. So he instead chooses to inflict pain on the entity that deserves it most. Are gallons of gasoline and wreaths of flame enough to blast a traumatic past from existence?

House said nah.

8 / 10