Screen to Scream: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Since it is Women in Horror Month, I thought I'd look at a classic female author, one who has had a great influence on the horror genre as a whole. People might have been introduced to Shirley Jackson in school from her short story "The Lottery," which may have been their introduction to the twist ending. There are others who know her for The Haunting of Hill House, which birthed at least two movies and a crazy awesome Netflix series. However, I have recently discovered Jackson's last tale and, in my opinion, her most disturbing, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I have also discovered a recently made movie adaptation featuring some well-known stars.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle invokes its terror in much the same way Hill House did: by having a unreliable narrator relay the story, but the audience only realizes how unreliable she is as the story progresses. Hill House's Eleanor Vance is seen for the most part as sheltered and awkward until the house tightens its grip on her. The narrator in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Merricat Blackwood, begins the novel by announcing she is 18 years old and is sadly not a werewolf. From there, the reader is introduced to her eccentric family, her doting sister Constance, and her invalid uncle Julian, who drifts in and out of the present while working on his true crime book involving the family. It is through interactions with these characters that the reader discovers that the rest of the Blackwood clan was poisoned. Their existence is an unusual one but structured, which is just how Merricat likes it. Then cousin Charles arrives and upends Merricat's orderly existence. Charles's increasingly boorish and domineering behavior, along with the festering resentment from the nearby village create a powderkeg that ultimately explodes, but like the title implies, Merricat remains, eternal, unknowable, a violent trap just waiting to be sprung.
The 2018 movie surprisingly follows the book with a few additions to the plot to tell this story visually. From American Horror Story's Taissa Farmiga and Baywatch's Alexandria Daddario to Winter Soldier Sebastian Stan and generally creepy dad Crispin Glover, this movie can actually be called star-studded. The direction and cinematography reminds me of many quirky directors, such as the title cards reminiscent of a Wes Anderson film and the Danny Elfman-sounding soundtrack that'd seem right at home in a Tim Burton film. The actors also portray their characters as slightly off, particularly Farmiga's twitchy and antisocial mannerism she gives to Merricat. Director Stacie Passon's tale and camera work reminded me of a darker version of the series Pushing Daisies, even as the story takes some dark turns. She also changes to the story that render Charles a much larger douchebag than in the book, and the ending though creepy ends up being more weird than horrifying. Jackson's original story is the more terrifying because it unfolds like a piece of origami, each section opening revealing another part of the whole story, another damaged fragment of Merricat's psyche, but what's really going on isn't revealed until the paper is completely unfolded. The movie is a passable and entertaining homage to Jackson's work but the original book remains a masterclass in storytelling, demonstrating how an unreliable narrator, in what they say and don't say, reveals so much about the story.