Legit terrifying.

If you haven't started watching Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House yet, please go home and start watching Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House.  It's been out for a whole four days at this stage - you've no excuse. Let's be honest, in the lead up to Halloween, Netflix don't generally provide audiences with a whole lot more than questionable sequels to popular films, body horror movies that very few people can stomach, or another season of American Horror Story.  Essentially, the scary season selection hasn't been all that breathtaking for the past few years - until The Haunting of Hill House came along. Based on the 1953 Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, the series kicks off with a family living in a spooky house where some serious shit clearly went down. It's nighttime and the kids are experiencing some happenings while their parents insistently tell them that they're imagining things, there's nothing under your bed, the blood on the wall is just ketchup, etc. And yeah, while the above may sound like the generic and uninspired opening of any piece of media about a haunted house ever, Hill House isn't your average haunted house, and this isn't your average piece of media. First off, it manages to be both sleep-with-the-light-on scary and incredibly well executed. Horror fans will know all too well the trials and tribulations of struggling to find a film or a series that will make you never want to sleep again... while also having a plot that isn't a total joke. And The Haunting of Hill House's plot is far from a joke. If anything, it's got more depth, intelligence, and raw emotion than a lot of popular series' out there at the moment. The show jumps between present day and the past effortlessly, managing to present the least-linear timeline in the entire world without becoming confusing and inaccessible. The twists in the first five episodes alone are enough to make you need to take a few days out just to chill out and consider what in God's name you just watched while also being pleasantly surprised by the casting director's ability to find child actors who look so like their adult counterparts. The scares are also expertly placed, not cheap, and they compliment the story rather than impeding it. They're also absolutely terrifying. Just go watch it. Now.