The Haunting of Hill House – “Open Casket”

The Haunting of Hill House poster

Original Air Date: October 12, 2018
Starring: Lulu Wilson, Carla Gugino
Directed by: Mike Flanagan

Cat Out of the Bag Alert!  This review contains spoilers for this episode!

Synopsis: Facing a family tragedy, Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) reflects on her first encounter with death.

Kitty Cameos: In a flashback sequence we see Shirley as a girl (Lulu Wilson) as she discovers a litter of newborn kittens in a shed. She is startled when she takes a flash Polaroid picture of the kittens and sees what appears to be a face behind them.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - newborn kittens on burlap sack in shed

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - newborn kittens on burlap sack in shed with scary face behind

The face turns out to be an old wasps nest. Shirley asks her father if she can take the kittens into the house. Once inside, she shows the younger kids how to feed the kittens milk with an eyedropper.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - Shirley Lulu Wilson feeding kitten with eyedropper

Kitty Carnage Warning!  After this things take a dark turn and anyone sensitive to horror involving kittens should probably stop reading. Shirley wakes up to find that one of the kittens has died.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - dead newborn kitten in box with other kittens

With her father and mother beside her, Shirley prepares to bury the kitten. As she is saying a eulogy for the kitten, whom she had named Jasper, she notices its throat and mouth are moving. Shirley clutches the tiny kitten only to be terrified when a beetle crawls out of its mouth.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - dead newborn kitten in box

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - dead newborn kitten in hands

Later in the episode Shirley and Theo (Mckenna Grace) check on the kittens only to find them all dead but one. Shirley picks up the tiny thing only to have it open its eyes to reveal white, fogged over eyeballs.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - dead newborn kittens in box

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - newborn kitten in hands with eyes closed

If it’s any consolation at all, all of the kittens in the episode appear to have been created with a combination of puppetry and CGI. No real kittens were probably used for filming.

The Haunting of Hill House - Open Casket - newborn kitten with white milky eyeballs

Final Mewsings: We knew milk is not good for cats but who knew it was this bad?


Relevant Links:

IMDb logo  Official Website Link

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