Netflix’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ actor pointed out Red Room clue

Oliver
Jackson-Cohen as Luke in “The Haunting of Hill
House”
Netflix

• “The Haunting of Hill House” ends on an uplifting note, but
  one clue could change that.
• Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who plays Luke, told The Wrap that
  whenever a family member is having visions from the Red Room,
  something is red in the scene.
• Jackson-Cohen pointed out that Luke’s sobriety cake at the
  end of the series is red, suggesting that the family never made
  it out of the Red Room.

The secret of the Red Room is one of the biggest mysteries of
Netflix’s hit horror series, “The Haunting of Hill House.” And
Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who plays the adult Luke on the show,
pointed out a clue that suggests the mystery still hasn’t been
solved.

Jackson-Cohen told The Wrap that throughout the
series, when someone is having visions in the Red Room,
“something in the fantasy is red.” He pointed out that Luke wears
red shoes in one fantasy, and “it’s so slight you can
barely even see it. And I think Steven is wearing a red
jumper.”

Throughout the series, the family can never enter the Red
Room when they live in Hill House as children. Years later, as
adults, they return to the house and discover that the room was
actually each person’s personal space. They had each been in the
room numerous times, but nobody else could unlock their
space.

The season ends on an uplifting note, with the oldest
sibling, Steven, being given the responsibility of keeping the
house in the family. In one of the final scenes, the family is
surrounding Luke celebrating his sobriety with a cake. But
there’s something about the cake that suggests the ending isn’t
as happy as viewers have been led to believe, according to
Jackson-Cohen.

“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 told The Wrap. “Um, she went, ‘The cake
is red.’ And on set I went, ‘Oh, my God!’ And she went, ‘I don’t
know!’ And I asked [director] 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.”

Below is a look at the scene with the red cake:

Netflix

Flanagan told The Hollywood Reporter last month that
the series’ original ending was a
lot darker, and it was more comparable to what Jackson-Cohen
pointed out. According to Flanagan, the original ending featured
the Red Room window in the background of the scene above, but he
ultimately changed it because he felt it was “mean and
unfair.”

“We toyed with the idea for a little while that over that
monologue, over the image of the family together, we would put
the Red Room window in the background,” Flanagan said. “For a
while, that was the plan. Maybe they never really got out of that
room.”

It looks like it’s up to viewers to perceive the ending the way
they want.