Here's What Netflix's Haunting Season 3 Would Be About If It Happened

Summary

• While Mike Flanagan's The Haunting series only has two installments, the filmmaker recently shared what Season 3 could be about.
• In the foreword to the new edition of Richard Matheson's Hell House, the filmmaker wrote that the novel was his first choice for an adaptation, but the rights were unavailable.
• The novel is about a group of people who study the most haunted and evil house in the world.
• Unfortunately, now that Flanagan has left Netflix, the project is no longer in the cards.

Mike Flanagan is undoubtedly a modern master of the visual thriller with his unique vision and approach to adapting old and new chilling stories.

Whether it is a series or a movie, Flanagan never seems to miss the mark in reaching a wide audience with frightening plot lines and scares that contain a deeper message about our lives and society.

But perhaps Flanagan's most popular work has come from his partnership with Netflix. In 2018, The Haunting of Hill House became a real hit with the streaming platform's users and ensured the filmmaker's successful ride with the studio for several more years, until they officially parted ways recently.

In 2020, the first show became an anthology series with the release of The Haunting of Bly Manor, and as it turns out, Flanagan had plans for a third season of The Haunting, but sadly, it wasn't to be.

Richard Matheson's Hell House could be The Haunting S3 source

Last week, Suntup Editions announced the release of a special limited edition of Richard Matheson's 1971 novel Hell House. The edition includes a foreword by Mike Flanagan, in which the showrunner opens up about his failed plans to adapt the novel for the small screen.

‘Had there been a third season [of The Haunting], I wanted that season to be The Haunting of Hell House. It was actually the first title we explored when Hill House was over, but the rights were spoken for and there did not seem to be a path forward,’ Flanagan writes in the foreword (via Bloody Disgusting).

Unfortunately, with Flanagan's departure from Netflix and his passion for Stephen King's works, it looks like Hell House is no longer in the filmmakers' plans.

What is Hell House about?

But let's imagine we're in an alternate reality where Flanagan managed to make The Haunting Season 3 based on Hell House. What would it be like?

Richard Matheson's book focuses on a colorful group of people hired by a dying millionaire to explore the possibility of life after death.

A physicist with an interest in parapsychology and a strong belief in science, his wife, and two mediums must spend time in a notorious mansion known as the most haunted house in the world, which never lets people who set foot inside leave alive.

The house plays its own key role in the story as it begins to play on human phobias, weaknesses and desires to turn its new residents against each other.

Sounds like a perfect Flanagan story, right? Well, let's hope that somewhere in a parallel world, our alternate selves got to enjoy this chilling tale on screen.

Source: Bloody Disgusting.