Mike Flanagan Would Have Adapted Hell House If His Netflix Haunting Series Had A Season 3
The Mike Flanagan Netflix era has come to an end, as Flanagan and his partner Trevor Macy are leaving the streaming service behind for a new deal with Amazon. That means we likely won't ever get a third season of Flanagan's "Haunting" series, which kicked off with the excellent "The Haunting of Hill House" and continued with "The Haunting of Bly Manor." "Hill House" was a (loose) adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, while "Bly Manor" took inspiration from "The Turn of the Screw" and several other ghost stories penned by Henry James. But what tale of terror would Flanagan and company have relied on if the show had returned for a third season?
We now know the answer, thanks to Flanagan himself. The filmmaker has written an introduction for the new Suntup Editions release of Richard Matheson's "Hell House," and in said introduction, Flanagan reveals that if a third season of "The Haunting" series had happened, it would've drawn inspiration from "Hell House." "When I adapted Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House' as a Netflix series, there was much talk about how to continue the Haunting anthology," Flanagan writes (via Bloody Disgusting). "We followed 'Hill House' with 'The Haunting of Bly Manor,' based on numerous ghost stories by Henry James. Had there been a third season, I wanted that season to be 'The Haunting of Hell House.' It was actually the first title we explored when Hill House was over, but the rights were spoken for and there did not seem to be a path forward."
The Legend of Hell House
Published in 1971, Richard Matheson's "Hell House" focuses on the Belasco House, an infamous mansion in Maine that was said to be home to unspeakable, blasphemous happenings. As a result of its sordid past, the house is thought to be haunted. Four people — a skeptic physicist who dabbles in the paranormal, his wife, and two psychic mediums — are hired by a dying millionaire to investigate the house. The dying man wants proof that there's something after death and figures the Belasco House, or Hell House as some people call it, is the perfect place to find answers. As you can probably guess, things go very wrong once the four guests have arrived in the house, and all manner of scary stuff happens. The book was previously adapted into the film "The Legend of Hell House," released in 1973.
As Flanagan puts it, "I don't know that there has ever been a haunted house story as downright cinematic as 'Hell House.' It is written by a man who thought visually, who had a flair for cinematic set pieces, audience expectations, and visceral thrills that eluded many of his literary predecessors."
Mike Flanagan's Hell House
All of this raises the question: what would Mike Flanagan's "Hell House" look like? It's impossible to say since we'll never get to see it (although there's a good bet that Carla Gugino would show up at some point). When he adapted Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep," Flanagan managed to both stick very close to the source material while also changing things up here and there. But "The Haunting of Hill House" takes a lot of liberties with Shirley Jackson's source material, which suggests that Flanagan could've just used the rough outline of "Hell House" — a team goes in to investigate a haunted house — and run wild from there. No matter how it would've turned out, I'm just sad that we won't ever get to see it. I have no doubt Flanagan would've brought something special to the material.