--- title: The Haunting of Hill House Hints at Possible Twist Ending description: The Haunting of Hill House seemed to end on a somewhat happy note, but there may have been a detail that hinted at a chilling twist. canonical: https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-16T20:30:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:04:35.739Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Haunting of Hill House May Have Had an Ominous Twist og:description: Spoilers ahead og:url: https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36db75566269622b/69893f53656a3f5f5abd600f/the-haunting-of-hill-house-luke-crain.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Haunting of Hill House May Have Had an Ominous Twist twitter:description: Spoilers ahead twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36db75566269622b/69893f53656a3f5f5abd600f/the-haunting-of-hill-house-luke-crain.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The End of _The Haunting of Hill House_ May Have Included a Foreboding Twist  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Nov 16, 2018 8:30 PM UTC  The Haunting of Hill House The Haunting of Hill HouseSteve Dietl/Netflix  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Nov 16, 2018 8:30 PM UTC **Warning:** This post contains major spoilers for the [Netflix original series](http://time.com/5244936/netflix-new-shows-movies-2018/) _The Haunting of Hill House_, a modern reimagining of [Shirley Jackson’s](http://time.com/4595609/shirley-jackson-100-reviews/) 1959 novel of the same name. [_The Haunting of Hill House_](http://time.com/5419832/haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-explained/)seemed to end on a somewhat happy note, with the surviving members of the Crain family appearing to resume their lives free of the demons that once haunted them. But according to Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who played adult Luke, there may have been a detail in the final montage of scenes that hinted at a chilling twist. In a recent interview with [_The Wrap_](https://www.thewrap.com/haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-ending-luke-oliver-jackson-cohen/), Jackson-Cohen addressed a possible Easter Egg that suggests the show’s ending perhaps wasn’t as happy as fans thought. “There’s this thing that happens when we’re all in the Red Room,” Jackson-Cohen said of the scenes in which each of the living Crain siblings experience a horrifying vision in the Red Room. “I feel like I have to be careful if I’m saying this right. But whenever each child, each sibling, is in the Red Room, something in the fantasy is red. And it’ll be a very, very small thing. For Luke, when Luke gets taken to the hotel room, he’s worn Converse throughout the show, and all of a sudden his Converse are red. And it’s so slight you can barely even see it. And I think Steven is wearing a red jumper \[in his fantasy\].” Jackson-Cohen went on to explain how this detail could tie into the flash-forward scene in which Luke celebrates two years of sobriety with his siblings. “And so there’s something at the end — it was Kate \[Siegel\], who plays Theo, who kind of pointed it out to me — with Luke’s sobriety cake,” he said. “She went, ‘The cake is red.’ And on set I went, ‘Oh, my God!’ And she went, ‘I don’t know!’ And I asked Mike \[Flanagan\], and he went ‘I don’t know.’ And so I can’t tell whether or not I’m just crazy with this — or whether or not it’s something that could have legs.” The mysteries of the Red Room continue. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/"},"headline":"The End of The Haunting of Hill House May Have Included a Foreboding Twist","datePublished":"2018-11-16T20:30:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:04:35.739Z","description":"Spoilers ahead","url":"https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/","keywords":["Television","TV"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36db75566269622b/69893f53656a3f5f5abd600f/the-haunting-of-hill-house-luke-crain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36db75566269622b/69893f53656a3f5f5abd600f/the-haunting-of-hill-house-luke-crain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"1","caption":"1","creditText":"Steve Dietl/Netflix","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5457261/the-haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-twist-ending/","name":"The End of The Haunting of Hill House May Have Included a Foreboding Twist"}}]}] ```