Content warning for discussions of death and suicide.
Now that Halloween is over and the University of Connecticut finally (finally!) approaches the end of the fall semester, it’s easy to look back on old memories, old friends, old enemies, old experiences and the way things used to feel. As we creep closer and closer to that dark New England winter, these moments of the past persist like something beyond the grave.
Welcome back to The Modern Monster, a biweekly column about all things scary and suspect. This week, we’re turning to one of my favorite talking points: the humble ghost. Spoilers ahead for “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor”!
Photo courtesy of @acorpsegoingtoaball on Instagram
Ghosts are an interesting question. There are a lot of ways to interpret a ghost, but the standard definition is a simple one: something that used to be alive isn’t anymore, but that doesn’t mean it has lost the ability to affect our lives.
I’ve always enjoyed ghost stories. Some of my favorite media revolves around it, specifically “The Haunting of Hill House” and its spiritual sequel, “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” both by Mike Flannagan.
“The Haunting” duology — if that’s what you want to call it — has no connective tissue between it’s individual parts. The only similarities are the cast, with different characters played by the same actors, and the usage of a big house with a whole lot of ghosts inside.
“The Haunting of Hill House” primarily revolves around a family living in a large manor house that the adults, Hugh (Timothy Hutton and Henry Thomas, for old and young versions) and Olivia Crain (Carla Gugino) are working on flipping to re-sell. The ancient presence inside the house has begun to have a disastrous effect on Olivia, who is driven to suicide after the ghosts convince her it’s the only way to protect her family. Hugh, reasonably, flees the house with his five children.
Interestingly enough, Olivia appears to believe that death is a release of some kind. The ghosts convince her that, through death, she will be able to protect her kids. Both Hugh and Olivia are good, protective parents, but the house is able to manipulate them into putting the children in danger. Hugh is distracted by mold and other disasters that threaten the project and Olivia is plagued by migraines and psychosis. When Olivia commits suicide, she believes it will protect her children from future pain, unaware that her suicide is ultimately what dooms them.
The unfinished business left inside the house and the lingering sorrow follows the children throughout their lives, particularly the youngest, Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Julian Hilliard) and Eleanor, or Nell as she prefers to be called (Victoria Pedretti and Violet McGraw).
Luke and Nell are twins, and as the youngest in the family, it’s unsurprising that they’re the most affected. Luke is struggling with a heroin addiction, and Nell is seemingly struggling with some sort of unrelenting connection with the house. The show opens with the family gathering to mourn Nell’s death. It’s later revealed that the young Nell was haunted by visions of “The Bent-Neck Lady,” a ghost with a twisted neck snapped to the side. We later learn that this ghost is Nell’s future self, who dies by hanging in the manor as an adult.
While “The Haunting of Hill House” has plenty of real ghosts, there are also many metaphorical ones. The entire family still experiences a deep connection to the old manor house, and it’s no surprise as to why. Their mother died in that house, and so did much of their spirit. The family will never be the same.
The show also plays with the idea of the ghosts of former selves. While there’s no literal ghost of Luke walking around the manor, he’s still haunted by the experience. The young boy that Luke once was is gone, replaced by a depressed shadow of a man fighting his own internal demons.
“The Haunting of Bly Manor” also plays with a few different kinds of ghosts. The story ends up following a similar conclusion, as that show’s spooky manor house is haunted by The Lady of the Lake, whose status as the resident ghost is replaced by the main character Dani (Victoria Pedretti) at the end of the show.
Hill House and Bly Manor both play with the idea of inevitabilities. Nell has to become the Bent-Neck Lady and Dani has to become the Lady of the Lake, which is definitely an odd choice of typecasting for Victoria Pedretti. The shows raise an interesting question: are we haunted by the future just as much as the past? Dani is aware of her inevitable ending as The Lady of the Lake, and that knowledge follows her and her partner Jamie (Amelia Eve) throughout their entire relationship.
“Ghosts of the future,” if we’re willing to call them that, is an interesting way to look at hauntings. We can always be haunted by the past — decisions we made, people we lost and the experiences we’ve had — but it’s possible to be just as haunted by the future. Dani will become The Lady of the Lake and Nell will become the Bent-Neck Lady. This simple fact follows them for many, many years. There’s no forgetting that their entire world will eventually be lost.
There are also plenty of interesting ways to interpret ghosts as a whole. They can be religious in nature, purely spiritual or a misinterpretation of energy readings. Is that EMF meter going off because of a sudden ghostly presence, or is that old power line still giving off a strong enough charge to activate the device?
The way I’ve seen it, ghosts are interpreted. While the idea of literal walking and talking specters is up for debate, human emotions aren’t. Ghosts are undeniably real if we look at them as reflections of how humanity grieves. Letters left behind by long-gone ancestors can instill plenty of human emotion, along with old keepsakes and cherished memories. These are ghosts in their own right. Whether or not it’s “real,” we can still feel some sort of presence.
“The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of By Manor” present their stories as very literal, but at the same time, we can’t trust our narrators. Jamie, Dani’s partner, is the one to tell the story of Bly Manor, and oldest son Steven Crain (Michiel Huisman and Paxton Singleton) logs the tragedies of Hill House in a book. Are we seeing the actual events that happened, or are we seeing a manipulated version from the storytellers in charge of the tale?
Whether or not ghosts are real at the end of the day, one thing is for sure: Ghosts or not, it’s all up to whether we believe.