Horror buffs, you might want to tune in for this. By now, you should be very familiar with Netflix’s new terrifying series Haunting of Hill House. The show has already been making some serious waves with both American and international users, with audiences already going on Twitter rants to describe it as ‘too disturbing to finish’ and ‘nightmare-inducing’.

For those of you who have yet to watch the show but have friends that won’t stop talking about it –they’re on the right track. In a nutshell, Haunting of Hill House tells the story of an average American family who’s recently moved into an abandoned mansion looking to flip it and make serious bucks. Sounds like the plot line for any generic horror film right? Wrong!

What’s beautiful enough about the show is that the writers have crafted it in such a way that a lot of what happens is up for interpretation. It’s not something clear cut, but instead sticks with you for a long time as you come up with your own wild theories as to what in the world you just saw. Speaking of, here’s some wild fan theories that may or may not be true –but are interesting enough to make you wonder! There’s definitely spoilers ahead, so you might want to finish up watching the show first.

 

The Crain Children Are The 5 Stages of Grief

The Crain family

A lot of what happens in Haunting of Hill House aren’t regular spooks. Of course there’s jumps scares, but the entire show is littered mostly with underlying psychological themes and horrific depictions of loss, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse and death.

A viewer of the show recently suggested that this might have something to do with the Crain kids symbolising the 5 stages of grief. Steven represents denial that there is anything wrong with the house; Shirley has always been angry at both herself and her siblings for their mistakes; Theo is the bargaining stage as she always finding an explanation for why things happened; Luke is depression from his time abusing drugs and just constantly being in a dark place; and finally Nell was the only one who accepted that there was something wrong with the house and sealed her fate by going back.

Also, guess what? Director and writer of the show Mike Flanagan might have just confirmed this theory!

 

No, They Didn’t Forget Hugh’s Red Room

Hugh Crain trying to pry open the Red Room

At the end of the series, the mysterious purpose of the Red Room was finally revealed to audience’s as the ‘stomach of the house that digested you’. What this meant was that the Red Room was different for all of the Crain’s –symbolising a place that each of them would feel the safest in, so they would never have to leave the house.

It also seems that the series ended abruptly as although each of the Crain’s were shown having their own Red Room, Hugh’s version was never mentioned. On a Reddit post however, several users noticed that Hugh’s Red Room might have been hiding in plain sight this whole time. Hugh was always the ‘fixer’ when it came to his family, which means his Red Room might have been the basement where mold was forming. This stopped him from leaving the house until the problem was fixed, and keeping his family there longer than they needed to be with all that spooky stuff happening.

 

Nell’s Mysterious Disappearance

Nell Crain speaking to her dream therapy expert

Now this might not be as obvious as the others, but it’s still a pretty cool fan theory. Remember during the sixth episode when Nell mysteriously disappeared during a storm and no one could find her? One viewer suggests that her spirit might have actually been able to defy the constraints of time to leap forward in the future and warn her family in the funeral home as they mourned over her body.

Spooky right?

 

The True Purpose of the House

The Crain kids during the mysterious storm 

By now, everyone has been exposed to the ‘evil haunted house’ trope, which gets really boring at times. Even though Haunting of Hill House emphasises on the family house itself, many viewers seem to think that the house itself isn’t actually evil. They argue that the house is actually a prison, meant to safeguard evil entities from ever leaving.

Then again, some viewers also do argue that the mold growing in the basement is a representation of something more sinister –like a demon that has taken its place in the basement.