15 Horror Movies To Watch If You Love The Haunting Of Hill House

In 2018, Netflix released its original series The Haunting of Hill House, based on the 1959 haunted house novel by Shirley Jackson. The Netflix series changes things up by taking the original characters from the story and making them a family that lived in the house, which destroyed their lives in the past.

The Netflix series also flips from the present-day to the past, showing how the horrors inflicted on the children continued as they all became broken adults, still haunted by this evil house. For fans who loved The Haunting of Hill House, here are 15 movies you need to watch.

Updated on December 7th, 2020 by Mark Birrell: The Haunting of Hill House quickly became one of Netflix’s most acclaimed and beloved series, promptly spawning followup The Haunting of Bly Manor and continuing to amass more and more fans thanks to its binge-worthy nature. With this in mind, we’ve added another 5 examples to our list of similar horror movies for any fans who are done with the show and looking to fill the void left by the series’ absence.

15 The Haunting (1963)

The first movie to see if you loved The Haunting of Hill House should be the first movie based on Shirley Jackson’s novel. Don’t bother with the remake from 1999, which was less than impressive, but the original might be the scariest haunted house movie of all time.

Directed by Robert Wise, The Haunting was a close adaptation of the novel and was scary because it didn’t show the ghosts, simply letting the tension build to an unbearable level.

14 Hush (2016)

Mike Flanagan did a great job when he adapted The Haunting of Hill House. However, what he has proven outside of that is that he has become one of Netflix’s top horror directors. One of his best horror movies on Netflix is the 2016 film, Hush.

In this movie, a woman lives in isolation when a home intruder shows up to kill her. However, when he sees that his target is deaf and mute, he decides to play with his prey, and things don’t work out as he hoped.

13 The Innocents (1961)

Adapted from William Archibald’s original play–which was itself an adaptation of Henry James’ iconic ghost story The Turn of the Screw–by Archibald and Truman Capote, The Innocents was a groundbreaking haunted house movie that’s still soaked in a deeply eerie atmosphere even today.

The classic story sees the archetypal repressed governess take residence at a large, lonely, country manor and the psychological aspects of her paranormal experiences laid the groundwork for Robert Wise’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House and everything that followed.

12 The Woman in Black (2012)

Another adaptation of a novel that had also been turned into a hugely successful stage play, The Woman in Black stars Daniel Radcliffe as a grieving young lawyer sent to put affairs in order at a secluded creepy old house only to become terrorized by the spirits that still reside there, chiefly the titular Woman in Black, who preys on the local children.

Like Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, the movie takes inspiration from the greats but never forgets to keep the jumps and frights entertainingly plentiful.

11 A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

Kim Jee-woon’s modern classic became a quick favorite amongst horror movie fans for its distinct take on one of South Korea’s own quintessential ghost stories.

A Tale of Two Sisters possesses all of the most terrifying qualities of supernatural horror hits coming from Asia in that time period, with that added eye for detail in the impeccably elegant style which would become so prevalent in the works of contemporary South Korean directors like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.

10 The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Though very similar to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House in many respects, Hell House was adapted by famed genre author Richard Matheson from his 1971 novel of the same name.

Similarly to the plot of The Haunting, the story follows a group of academics and mediums staying at the titular haunted home in the hope of capturing evidence of paranormal occurrences. The horror of the events, however, is much more playful in tone yet still mostly left to the audience’s imagination, making it an interesting stepping stone in the road to Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Jackson’s novel.

9 The Awakening (2011)

Set in 1920’s England, with the specter of the First World War still looming over everything and everyone, The Awakening follows Rebecca Hall’s supernatural debunker as she’s called to unravel the mystery concerning a haunting at a school for boys.

The movie certainly hits all of the hallmarks of the genre in terms of setting and plot but fans of The Haunting of Hill House will appreciate the focus on the characters’ own inner emotional turmoils.

8 The Shining (1980)

Horror author Stephen King has called Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House the best haunted house novel of all-time. He then set out and wrote his haunted house novel in The Shining.

While the Stanley Kubrick movie based on the book is not very faithful and took the attention away from the haunted hotel and put it on a broken father, it is still one of the best horror movies of all-time, whether in a haunted house setting or not.

7 Doctor Sleep (2019)

While The Shining was not a loyal adaptation of the Stephen King novel, the sequel that came decades later, Doctor Sleep was a sequel that somehow was able to connect King’s story of a haunted house with Kubrick’s story of a broken man. The kicker is that the director is Mike Flanagan.

In this movie, little Danny is an adult, and he followed his dad’s footsteps into alcoholism. However, now recovering, he finds a little girl with the Shine and helps her when monsters come to take her. This all ends up back in the Overlook Hotel, where everything comes to a close.

6 Gerald’s Game (2017)

Two years before Mike Flanagan directed Doctor Sleep, he directed another Stephen King novel adaptation in Gerald’s Game. This was another Netflix movie and starred The Haunting of Hill House’s mother, Carla Gugino, as a woman who goes on a vacation with her husband to a secluded cabin in the woods.

However, during a kinky sex game, he dies, and she ends up handcuffed to the bed with something outside waiting.

5 Oculus (2013)

The movie that made Mike Flanagan one of the hottest young horror directors in Hollywood was Oculus. It might come as a surprise to know that this horror movie was one of the rare success stories of WWE Studios, although they did team up with Blumhouse.

This movie is about a haunted mirror that takes place over two timelines, 11 years apart, and a brother and sister, and the effect the mirror has on them.

4 The Others (2001)

TheOthers is a similar movie to The Haunting of Hill House, but one that is a lot more subtle and haunting. In the film, Nicole Kidman is a mother named Grace, who lives in a remote country home with her two children in the aftermath of World War II.

The two kids have a disease that does not allow them to go into bright light, including outdoors during the day, and Grace hires three servents to help keep their house. However, when she believes there are other presences in the house, she will do anything she can to protect her family.

3 The Conjuring (2013)

One of the most successful movies for Blumhouse came in 2013 with The Conjuring. The movie was so successful that it spawned its own cinematic universe with sequels, prequels, and spinoffs. However, that first movie is still a fantastic horror movie.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and in this movie, they head into a haunted house for one of their scariest cases.

2 The Dark Half (1993)

In The Haunting of Hill House, veteran actor Timothy Hutton starred in the series as patriarch Hugh Crain in the present-day era of the story. For another horror appearance for the actor, head back to 1993 and see him star in the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half.

In this movie, directed by horror maestro George Romero, Hutton plays Thad Beaumont, an author who discovers that his pseudonym, George Stark, has come to life and is trying to kill him when he tries to retire the pen name.

1 Crimson Peak (2015)

Mike Flanagan took a very gothic slant when designing the way The Haunting of Hill House looks and if there is any filmmaker that has perfected the art of gothic horror, it’s Guillermo del Toro.

In 2015, the Oscar-winning writer and director showed his love for the gothic horror genre once again  with Crimson Peak, starring Mia Wasikowska as Edith Cushing, an aspiring author, who goes to a remote Gothic mansion and tries to understand the ghostly visions in this new home.

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