10 Horror TV Shows With Terrifying Surprises

Poor, poor Nell Crain.

Mike Flanagan’s masterpiece, The Haunting of Hill House, follows the tragic lives of the Crain family who move into the evil Hill House. All of the children suffer, but it is Nell who quite possibly has the worst luck of them all.

She is haunted by a horrific apparition known as the Bent Neck Lady during her time in Hill House and suffers from PTSD throughout her whole life after the death of her mother. After seemingly finding peace when she falls in love and marries Arthur – but he suddenly dies of an aneurysm. She also suffers from sleep paralysis, and The Bent Neck Lady starts haunting her again.

The series opens with the news that Nell has died, with her family believing it to be suicide. However, the truth is far darker.

Nell went back to Hill House to confront her demons, where she is greeted by her mother’s ghost. The two have emotional reunion, where Mrs Crain gives Nell her locket atop a staircase. But suddenly, we see that the locket is in fact a noose, and Nell slips. Her neck breaks, and it is then we see the truth.

Travelling back through time, Nell realises that she was in fact the Bent Neck Lady, haunting herself for all these years.

Nell’s life is marked and defined by tragedy, and realising that she was doomed to her fate and that that the things we are most scared of often lurk inside us, was a terrifying and gut wrenching twist.