The Haunting of Hill House at its core tells the story of a fractured family and how each member of that family deals with their own problems differently. The show likes to be sort of ambiguous and leave you think if it was all literal or metaphorical in the ghost stories it tells. I’d like to think it has a balance leaning more on the metaphorical side for a family dealing with trauma and grief. I have to applaud the show for its casting. Especially for the younger versions of our characters. It almost felt like I was actually watching these characters when they were younger. It made the story feel so much more real and grounded in its non linear storytelling. It didn’t take me out of it in that aspect. The only knock I have on that is the way they handled the father’s character when he was younger. He just felt so odd and didn’t feel like a person. I think the show exceeds in its chilling atmosphere and its nature of displaying heavy themes and topics throughout ghost stories. I felt the series can be quite chilling and freighting at certain parts but in most cases quite cheap and lazy with its scares. The characters themselves are okay, some feel underdeveloped and I couldn’t really gel with them at all. I feel most of these characters fall under overused tropes and that’s not completely a bad thing but it seems like the trope for some is the entire character. The acting in this show is quite good in captivating the audience. My biggest gripe I have with this show is the repetitive structure and its unwarranted amount of exposition that just screws with the pacing. Some of these episodes feel perfectly plotted and some feel like absolute slogs to get through. I just don’t like how almost every episode is the same thing just with a different character. It feels so predictable and tedious. They’re trying to flesh out the character as much as they can and I still think they fail in some cases. They definitely could’ve evenly split time with different characters in each episode. Instead of reiterating the same structure with each and every character. The show isn’t a nightmare, there’s definitely competence but I just found it to be incredibly average television outside of a few things. I do like the framing of different scenes in how it captures the little horrors in the background adding to a chilling experience. It feels overstuffed and over saturated. The show goes for a very bleak and melancholy tone which I like but I feel the way it tries to incorporate horror at times, creates a tonal imbalance. The show fails in connecting you with its core beliefs and characters. There’s too much tell and not show. The drama if effective but yet feels flat because of its overstuffed character development. Overall, a series that I’m disappointed in and I find it to be quite overrated. I applaud for sticking to its core and delivering within its really but I feel like that’s all it does taking very few risks. Staying mostly stagnant and still throughout it’s telling of the story.