A fun series of short stories right in time for Huluween
The House: A Hulu Halloween Anthology first aired in 2017. It features six episodes that tell scary stories in bite-size format. Watching it feels, in fact, like trick or treating down a street where all the houses appear dark and ominous.
It’s obvious that the budget is pretty low, but the filmmakers manage to convey some good jump scares and provide some life lessons. The series uses irony to end some of its stories, but never becomes dependent on that plot device.
The stories range from the 1950’s to the 2490’s, with any and all story variables in play. There is an animated episode, and even a VR tie-in. Three episodes were written by Shane Small, the creator of Exploding Kittens and an expert on interactive and virtual reality content. Several episodes end with an invitation to view the story through virtual reality. This creates a gaming tie in like Syfy’s Defiance did in the early 2010’s.
The cast has some great faces that audiences may know from TV series and movies. Lisa Marie Summerscales (the warrior princess from Conan’s talk show), Kevin Bigley (Upload), Philip Labes (Watchmen), stuntwomen Alice Rietveld and Jessi Fisher, and Larry Hankin (Breaking Bad) are just some of the actors.
With the two VR add-ins, the series is technically eight episodes, but Hulu only hosts six. Those six episodes have a total run time of 32 minutes, so viewers looking for some snack size scares can visit The House for some fun. Overall, the series is entertaining without ever being truly terrifying. Nothing here that would send the kids screaming out of the room.