What was so terrible about Hill House?
Dr. Markway gives its history at the beginning of the movie:
And it had a few accidents or suspicious deaths in or near the house. And Hugh Crain, the builder, left Hill House and went to England, where he drowned in an accident thousands of miles away and who knows how long after leaving Hill House.
But Abigail Crain moved into the house as a little girl and lived there all her life, until she was old and bedridden. So she lived there for many years, and Dr. Markway couldn't think of anything bad which had happened to her during that lifetime except that when she was old and dying of apparently natural causes such as a heart attack, her companion didn't answer her call, and who knows if the companion could have done something to save her anyway.
As far as I can see, Abigale's life in Hill House was a a lot happier than, for example, Titus Groan's life in Gormenghast. Certainly she lived there several times as long without becoming motivated to leave it in disgust or fear.
Dr. Markway claims that Hill House "has stood for 90 years", and that it was built "90 odd, very odd, years" earlier. Acording to IMDB the filming period included 1 October 1962.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/locations?ref_=ttrel_sa_4
So the script should have been written with about 1962 as the film's fictional date. Thus in the movie Hill House should have been built sometime during the period of about 1862 to 1872.
The mansion used for exterior shots of Hill House, Ettington Park, was actully built between 1858 and 1862, so its style agrees with the fictional building date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettington_Park_Hotel
Thee is a scene where they read an inscription in a book from Hugh Crain to Abigale:
Hill House 21st Ocotober, 1873.
But that's today No tomorrow and 90 years later."
So the date of that scene should be 20 October 1963, indicating that Hill House was rather new in 1873.
Acording to the full cast list in IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm Amy Dalby played Abigale Crain age 80, and Janet Mansell played Abigale Crain age 6. This implies that Abigale lived at Hill House for 74 years, and thus should have died about 1947. And the companion of Abigale lived there for "many years" after Abigale died, according to Dr. Markway.
And except for the five deaths connected with the house during a period of 90 years, or about 1 every 22.5 years on average, the only other bad thing reported about the house was that "No one who rented Hill House ever stayed more than a few days." Possibly because they listened to all the local talk about Hill House.
[10-14-2024 three family members died in the house where my family lived from 1968 to 215, and one in the barn on the property. So that make an average of 15.666 years per death for the house and 11.75 years per death for the property. So guess that makes that property even more sinister than Hill House!]
So apparently Dr. Markway doesn't believe in "innocent until proven guilty' but is willing to slander Hill House by repeating all the local gossip and rumors about it. And of course everything which happens after his group arrives at Hill House might be the hallucinaitons of group members.
Hill House should sue Dr. Markway, except that buildings have no legal standing to sue.
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