Rose Red Adapted Hill House Better than Flanagan

And its not even marketed as an adaptation. Change my mind.

May 21, 2025

I am a huge Flanafan1. He’s by far my favorite creator, and one of the best minds working in horror cinema right now. His television series, in particular, are a big part of why I am so devoted to the genre.

The Haunting of Hill House (HOHH) on Netflix is what made Flanagan famous. It put him on the map and led to subsequent projects, like The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Fall of the House of Usher. It’s an impeccable work of fiction. I’m currently rewatching the series along with the Flanagan’s Wake Podcast. It's my first focused rewatch since starting to take horror more seriously.

And, damn. It’s so good. I’m only on the second episode, but I’m picking up on so many things–particularly on the technical side–that I overlooked before. Flanagan moves through the parallel storylines seamlessly. Every frame, every detail, is placed with intention. He manages to have each episode focus on one character while still finding time to check in with the other characters and keeping them fresh in the mind of the viewer.

HOHH might not be my favorite Flanagan project (that distinction goes to Midnight Mass. HOHH is my second favorite), but it is at least tied for the most technically best (again, with Midnight Mass) in my book.

I say all that so that what I type next doesn’t come across as a criticism:

Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House is NOT an adaptation.

It’s just, like, not. Right? I can't be the only one who thinks this.

I get why they called it such: marketing. It's a gimmick, and it worked. The series was surely initially more popular than it would have been if it had not been marketed as an adaptation of the famous novel. I emphasize the initially because I think the series is so great that it would have become beloved no matter what. I’m sure the connection made Netflix feel more confident in investing money in its production.

I think this has flown under the radar because most people have not read Shirley Jackson’s book, which the mini series is supposedly based on. More people have probably watched the series than have read the book at this point. So when they hear that it’s an adaptation (albeit a loose one, as everyone is quick to say) of a famous but rarely read (at least relative to its fame) book, they take it at face value.

I am here to say, again, that it is NOT an adaptation, loose or otherwise.

It’s a travesty that this is used as a cover for the book. So misleading.

Let’s look at a short one-sentence description of each, shall we?

Novel description: At the behest of a paranormal researcher, four individuals stay in a reportedly haunted estate in order to document paranormal phenomena.

Miniseries description: Decades after their mother dies in Hill House, the so-called “most haunted building in America,” five siblings must deal with the trauma of the night she died in the aftermath of a second terrible tragedy.

Right there, you can see that there are almost no large-scale similarities between these two stories. The biggest connection is the titular house itself–but, come on. A scary, haunted mansion is literally the most common trope endemic to the horror genre.

So what has been taken from the book into the movie? Here’s a list of similarities:

The House. Both stories revolve around a house that may or may not prey on the people who reside there.

The Names. Several of the names are taken from the book. Eleanor, Theodora, and Luke are the most notable, with other names going to side characters. Note that it’s not the characters themselves who are being reused. These are completely different characters, with different backstories AND personalities, that happen to have the same names.

The Dudleys. Probably the most faithful thing lifted from the book is Mr. and Mrs. Dudley. In both, they are caretakers who “come with” the otherwise abandoned house, and they refuse to come near the house after dark. Still, their characterization is completely different. Both Mr. and Mrs. Dudley in the book are odious bumpkins played for laughs. In contrast, Flanagan portrays them as stiff, but relatable and well-meaning.

Allusions to various scenes and beats. Flanagan repurposes various small beats. In Open Casket, Shirley and Theo are in bed when they experience phantasmic banging on the walls, mimicking a similar scene from the novel. In Two Storms, and throughout the series, the children hear the barking of dogs that are never seen or shown on camera. This references Dr. Montague and Luke chasing after similar phantom dogs from the novel. There are many small references like this.

But you know what these things are? Not adaptations. They’re easter eggs. Homages. Something where if you know the lore, you can point and say, that happened in the book! Without an overarching story structure to connect them back to Shirley’s original work they’re nothing more than that.

I'm tempted to list the major ways in which the two properties differ, but there's just so many that it will test your patience and mine. The biggest difference is that in the book we never quite know if the phenomena experienced is real, or just in Eleanor’s head. This uncertainty is central to the story’s themes. In the Netflix series, there's absolutely no doubt that the place is haunted, though they still make Eleanor deal with unreliable perception.

I’m going to again bring up the point that the average person has not read The Haunting of Hill House. It undoubtedly has had major influence on the horror genre, but most people don’t actually know the story. Now, imagine if someone had claimed to adapt a more contemporarily beloved property–Harry Potter, say, or Lord of the Rings–and veered so far from the source material.

Fans would have revolted. Can you imagine the angry tweets? The Reddit threads? The TikTok discourse? It’s because of the book's strange combination of ubiquity of title but obscurity of content that calling the Netflix series an adaptation was able to fly in the first place.

The truth is that the miniseries is more of a collage than an adaptation. It’s as though Flanagan took Shirley Jackson’s book, cut it apart, then stitched its components back together into something completely new. He left out everything he didn’t like and added a whole bunch more that he did.

At what point does something cease to be an adaptation of something else and become something completely different in its own right? Because I’m starting to think I can take any old story I’m working on, change the names to those from a famous story, maybe change the setting to match and then call it an adaptation.

Something tells me fame and success a la Flanagan won’t follow, though 😂

A far more faithful adaptation–that is not even marketed as an adaptation–is the 2002 TV miniseries Rose Red. The series was written for television by none other than Stephen King, who has said that the series was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Jackson’s novel, but it didn't quite work out with the studio. So what does one do in that situation? If you're Stephen King you file off the serial numbers and produce the show anyway.

The story of Thornewood Castle, where Stephen King filmed the Rose Red ...

And it's uncanny. Psychic researchers? Check. A back story that includes unexplainable falling rocks? Check. A low-key sapphic relationship with a servant? Check. The house being built in a confusing manner on purpose? You got it.

The biggest difference between Rose Red and the book is that the “haunting” is real in the paranormal sense. In that sense it seems to straddle the line between the book and Flanagan’s series.

So, again, Flanagan’s HOHH is a masterpiece. There is no doubt about that. I think calling it an adaptation actually retracts from its greatness, because this is a series that can stand on its own and then some. I also think, due to the Netflix series’ popularity, it obscures and detracts from Jackson’s original work. People who read her book after watching the series will likely be disappointed, and many won’t read it at all but think they know the story.

And, if you want to see a miniseries that is fairly loyal to the source material but still takes liberties to amp things up, check out Rose Red. It doesn’t disappoint (and scared the crap out of me as a kid!)