Apologies for missing a post last week, but I spent most of last week battling the worst toothache I’ve ever had in my life.

I got an emergency dental appointment, where it turned out that I’d cracked one of my back molars pretty much all the way through the crown. So, out it came.

So, I’ve had a week of mostly guzzling painkillers, and watching TV. I binged on The Haunting of Hill House.

I’ve loved the Hill House mythos ever since watching the ’63 movie of The Haunting (I always thought the ’73 film, The Legend of Hell House was based on the same novel, but it turns out it was a separate novel, by Richard Matheson).

The Netflix series is beyond excellent. It’s incredibly spooky. The device of having multiple ghosts hidden away in the shadows and backgrounds of every episode is particularly effective: once you realise, you end up carefully watching every scene, with the effect of keeping you constantly on edge.

Episode 6, with its use of extended takes (up to 15 minutes long), was particularly impressive.

One spoiler below:

The final episode sucked.

Seriously. The series had been uniformly excellent for nine episodes, and then they had to blow it all on a cornball, happily-ever-after finale?