Is there a haunted house – from literature, film, a video game, or real life – that has stuck with you?

One that, every now and then, for no apparent reason, will pop into your head, and you’ll shiver like the hyenas in The Lion King when Banzai says “Mufasa!”

For us, it’s the house in Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House.

“Seriously, Sara and Brittany?” you may be thinking. “Hill House? The one without witches or demons or really much of anything in it? The one that is weird because its architecture is wonky and Eleanor, the protagonist, scares herself to death?”

To which we say, “yup, uh huh, absolutely.”

Because you know what’s even scarier than actually seeing the monster?

NOT SEEING THE MONSTER. And knowing it can see you. That it’s lurking around somewhere, watching you, but you don’t know where it is or what it is.

Seriously, this is why the movie Jaws still holds up as well as it does, even though it’s almost 50 years old. You only see flashes and bits of the shark, instead of clear, full-body shots of the shark swimming right up to you in all its 1975 animatronic glory.

The Haunting of Hill House refuses to even confirm that there’s a shark. (The shark in this case being a ghost or something else presumably terrifying but un-aquatic.) Instead, it makes you wonder just what exactly is watching you from the shadows, and then never, ever lets you rest easy with an answer.

You’re left to wonder if the house is indeed super-duper alive, evil AF, and hungry for the humans foolish enough to wander in.

Or if everyone in the house is suffering from a collective hallucination, like a folie à deux, except with at least four people.

Or if Eleanor is actually the force of evil that’s causing the nightmare to happen!

Mufasa shiver!

If you’re shivering too, or if you just really like talking about haunted houses and want to hear more, you should definitely check out our talk on Friday!

This talk is our Halloween gift to you! It’s completely FREE, and if you register right here, you’ll also be entered to win a prize (a hardcopy of our series The Real History of Dracula and the matching guidebook!)

And if you want to be extra, extra awesome, we’d be so grateful if you’d share this link with a friend who also has no chill about Halloween. As a very small business, we’d love it if you’d spread the word!

See you on Friday!

P.S. Have you heard about Elizabeth Hand’s authorized sequel to The Haunting of Hill House, A Haunting on the Hill? It’s out TODAY, and we’re SO excited to read it!

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