Why Shirley Jackson's novel is better than the Netflix film v of Haunting of Hill House

As noted in previoius posts on her work (see index on "web-based" full version of this blog), I read Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House many years ago and all that I really remember is that I was pretty much terrified. I'm brave enough to come back to this novel, at last, and I'm not disappointed. Few writers do a better job of establishing a mood of menace and creepiness - even w/in the struct confines of the "haunted house" novel: In this case, 4 strangers come together to spend a weekend in the eponymous house to investigate reports that the house is haunted by ghosts or spirits. The 4 - Dr. Montague, the researcher who brings them together, Eleanor (who experienced and incident of haunting in her youth and now is a single woman of about 30 living w/ her sister and bro in law),Theodora (also single about 30, an artist who has psychic abilities she can't explain), and the nephew of the owner of the house, a spendthrift and ne'er do well, we're told (he hasn't appeared yet, some 60 pp in). We mostly so far focus on Eleanor and her arrival, and SJ does a great job establishing her first reaction - repulsion - to the Gothic monstrosity: She's the first to arrive, thinks about chucking the whole project, but is rejuvenated when Theodora joins her and the 2 begin to explore the grounds. SJ really excels in establishing the setting; the house is in the remote hills around a small town that seems modeled on Bennington, Vt., where SJ lived for many years. Most find the small towns of Vt to be charming, but not SJ, who always, apparently, felt unwelcome by the locals who were put off by a NY Jewish eccentric writers/faculty wife. The scene of Eleanor in the diner drinking vile coffee and scrutinized by the waitress and the 1 customer establishes a sense of gloom and malice. The characters clearly don't know the rules of horror fiction: don't go into a ruined Gothic mansion, distrust creepy servants who respond roboticly to all questions, never go for a weekend to a cabin (or house) in the woods or hills), if the town is creepy, turn back. All told the novel is off to an excellent start, and by the way the recent Netflix film v of the novel takes a completely different tack, opening w/ a family inhabiting the house - a narrative structure that diminished the whole work - I'm glad I didn't watch beyond the first episode.)