Although they mostly are undead, outside of Hill House ghosts can be the embodiment of someone's guilt, regrets, or trauma. So the man in the bar who keeps appearing to Shirley reminds her of when she slept with him at her mortuary conference (ew) yet he isn't dead, instead being a representation of her guilt.
The show even makes this theme a bit too clear by having Steven voice over the metaphor at the end: "Ghosts are guilt. Ghosts are secrets. Ghosts are regrets and failings."
"The Haunting of Hill House" is a classic example of psychological horror. It explores the fragile state of the human mind and the ways in which fear and paranoia can affect one's perception of reality. The house itself is depicted as a force that preys on the characters' psyches, leading to psychological unraveling.
What was wrong with Nell in Haunting of Hill House?
Through this, it's learned that the sightings of the Bent-Neck Lady go hand in hand with a vicious form of sleep paralysis for Nell and that during one of her episodes, her husband Arthur suffers a fatal aneurysm.
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE Ending & Ghosts Explained!
Why did Theo scream when she touched Nell?
Theo has the gift of empathy that allows her to feel another person's emotions by touching them. When she touched Nell's corpse, she felt utter emptiness and it swallowed her whole.
First off, the one we see the most is Poppy Hill, husband to William Hill, a flapper who was clinically insane and brainwashed Olivia Crain by terrifying her that her children would be eaten up by the outside world (the solution to which is, obviously, killing them and therefore keeping them safe in Hill House forever.
While in Hill House, Olivia is shown to suffer greatly, much like her children. At first, Olivia's symptoms manifest as intense migraines that sometimes lead her to lash out at her children. These migraines stem from an inherited "sensitivity" that allowed Olivia to have supernatural and spiritual phenomena.
She also taught Nell that all men were "evil doers" and that all men would hurt her if they got the chance, which causes Nell to be very afraid and distrustful of Jerry at first in the movie.
Hugh Crain is shown as a tragic villain and somewhat of a womanizer. He had several affairs; his first wife died when she set foot on the House's grounds. His second wife died when she was returning home and her carriage hit a tree.
The Bent-Neck Lady haunts Nell her whole life. This leads Nell to eventually go back to confront the house, in turn becoming the ghost herself and starting the entire cycle. The moment Nell set foot in Hill House her fate was sealed, she was destined to become the Bent-Neck Lady.
However, by piecing one and one together, it becomes apparent that the five Crain siblings actually represent the famous 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
In the past, Theo touches her mother, Olivia, and has a premonition of Olivia's death—half of her face bloodied and disfigured, as if she has been shot in the head.
Who do you think put the button's on Nell's eyes in the funeral home? CG: That also is Olivia because Olivia knows how much Nell loved her buttons and it's her way of sort of making Nell at peace.
She wears gloves to protect her from seeing too much of other people's lives through touch, which involuntarily triggers her psychic abilities. Her interactions with her family are standoffish and brutally honest, and we see how a fear of emotional intimacy defines much of her existence.
Summary. The Red Room in Hill House is a deceptive entity that mimics different rooms based on each family member's desires and lures them in to feed off them. Nellie's Red Room is a toy room, Luke's is a treehouse, Theo's is a dance studio, Steven's is a game room, and Shirley's is a family room.
He surmises from a newspaper clipping found in the cabin that Nell's mother was raped; from Nell's fear of going out in day time that she's been taught to stay out of sight & from her description of "e'al do'ers" (evildoers) that the reason for this is to avoid being raped as her mother was.
Theo was bombarded with images when her father grabbed hold of her— a little ghostly girl on the spiral staircase, a rotting skeleton, an eerie pale face, the Red Door, and him pushing her mother forcefully. Many secrets existed, and continue to exist in the Crain family.
He admired and looked up to his brother Steven and enjoyed the few times they played together in the family's "tree house". Despite being the twin of Nellie he often played alone and found solace in his imagination, drawing pictures of his encounters with the ghosts in the house and his friend Abigail.
Olivia had poisoned the tea served to the children. In attempt to have them "wake up" and remain inside Hill House with her forever, Olivia attempts to murder her two youngest children. The poisoned tea is also served to Abigail, who dies upon drinking it.
In Episode 9, she takes on a far more active role, and is revealed to be the overarching antagonist of the story. She is depicted as the "evil personification" of Hill House due to her clinical insanity, and nature as a restless ghost.
While Nell, Olivia, and Hugh all died at the house (thus haunting it in their afterlives), and the Dudleys also made it their final resting place, our final look at the surviving Crains seems happy: they're together, celebrating Luke's second year anniversary of his sobriety.
