Mike Flanagan would have liked to adapt Hell House, by Richard Matheson, for Netflix
“If we had done a third season, I would have liked it to have been The Haunting of Hell House.”
With The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan draws a line on its partnership with Netflix : the director’s next projects will be done with the competition. More precisely on Prime Video, for whom it must adapt The Dark Towerby Stephen King.
The screenwriter, director and producer, however, reveals that he would have liked to film a third season of his anthology horror series The Haunting of Hill House. In a somewhat unusual setting: the Suntup publishing house asked him to write the preface to Hell House (The House of the Damnedin VF), by Richard Matheson, a haunted house story initially published in 1971. And it is within these few introductory paragraphs that he explains having tried to bring this novel that he loves to the screen .
“When I adapted The Haunting of Hill Houseby Shirley Jackson (Haunted housein French) into a series for Netflix, we talked a lot about how to present this universe in an anthology, says Flanagan, relayed by SlashFilm. We therefore continued with The Haunting of Bly Manor, which was inspired by several of Henry James’ ghost stories. If we had done a third season, I would have liked it to be The Haunting of Hell House. It’s actually the first title we mentioned when Hill House ended, but the rights to the book were already being negotiated and it didn’t seem possible to move forward.”
Jessie, Hill House, Usher… Welcome to the “Flanaverse”
The author of I’m a legend had enjoyed great critical success with this story following an elderly millionaire, seeking to prove that there is life after death. Hiring a parapsychologist, his wife and two mediums, he opens the door to the Belasco house, reputed to be the most haunted in the world.
Matheson himself wrote an adaptation of The House of the Damned for the cinema, in 1973. This fantastic film is carried by Pamela Franklin (Innocents) and Roddy McDowall (The Planet of the Apes).
“I don’t know if there’s a haunted house story as cinematic as Hell House, comments Mike Flanagan. It is written by an artist who thought visually, who had a sense of cinematography, knew how to construct a scene or play with audience expectations. Not to mention his talent for generating visceral thrills that eclipsed so many of his predecessors.”
In the absence of The Haunting of Hell House, The Fall of the House of Usher is viewable on Netflix. And the editorial team advises. Here is its trailer:
Have you seen all the hidden ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House?
