Reviews

Like many reviewers on here, I must admit to not having played the game - so the impressions and thoughts are merely based on the series HBO gave us.

The production values are sound and clearly, the showrunners attempted to go for depth and a wow-factor - but boy how woefully they fail.

Where there could have been a refreshing new take on the genre (it's fungi after all), there are clichés after clichés, where there could have been world building and storytelling, there are clichés after clichés, where there could have been suspense, there are clichés after clichés, and where there should have been character development and personal growth, there are ... well you guessed it.

Post pandemic, this is the show the audience has been waiting for - judging by the praise being sung. Humanity surviving against a terrible vi-, ah no, fungus. Of course, the danger from WITHIN can sometimes be much graver ... (where there could have been psychological exploration, there are ... oh well).

Flanked (and flunked) by wooden performances and largely-chunked-suspension-of-disbelief-patterns-of-behaviour, the show suffers from a variety of shortcomings the most blatant of which: it's all been done countless times before - just better. Nothing is left to the imagination, there is no suspense or psychological tension. The action set pieces are bland. All is being spelled out in the most mind numbing and obvious manner.

SPOILER examples include:

• We only have to cross that bridge, then we will be safe. (ugh - guess what happens)

• They are CLICKERS - they can't see, but they can HEAR (so SSSSHUSHPENSH).

• Why do you want to kill him so bad? He killed my BROTHER! (ugh)

• Grumpy wounded hero of the piece, will we become friends, given that I'm like the daughter you lost? - NO! (yes)

• How can we EVER leave the parameter? - I have a plan - those unguarded tunnels that lead straight out might be an option. (they are an option. They are unguarded. They lead straight out. Why has nobody tried that before? Because THEY TOLD 'EM MONSTERS WERE DOWN THERE. The lie was so good - nobody checked. No guards were required either)

• Oh! An abandoned creepy room full of toys from long dead or departed children - maybe there are monsters just waiting to attack? Shhhhh, maybe be careful. (alas no. Let's scream with laughter, play ball, and flash 'em flashlights in the dark to be seen from miles away whilst barely seeing anything yourself. (not all too scary 'em funguys eh? - nope)).

• Oh! A suspiciously out-of-focus granny in the background of the frame. She's VERY still, whilst there is an unsuspecting girl in the foreground. - Oh NO! She MOVES! WATCH OUT!

• I am a tough warrioress and lover of the hero - so when the funguys attack, I'll use a GRENADE and AT LEAST TAKE SOME OF 'EM WITH ME in an act of heroic self-sacrifice (shame though, that there was virtually no prior characterization so *shrug).

The list goes on and on.

Please showrunners (!), I beg you. Take a risk. Deal with adults. Become screenwriters and directors again. Trust in the minds of your audience or make it your job to rebuild them. Read Truffaut and Hitchcock, Alan Ball, early Spielberg, Shirley Jackson, adult Dahl, Haneke, Corman, even DePalma. Indulge in that 15-second camera pan round a carefully designed room that tells you something about a character - which you refer back to and build on subtlely throughout. Don't play it safe. Hide characterization in nuanced behaviour. Don't spell it all out to a T. Help us engage our minds. Get us used to patience-without-boredom and suspense-without-jumpscares again. Experiment a little. All the best shows did - and they were just as commercially successful.

For those europe-lovers out there: Never ever has a Eurovisiong Song Contest song won that blatantly copied the previous year's winner.

As far as rating similarities go, this is no Godfather.

Much has been said and written about this masterpiece of psychological horror, yet the attention to detail and implied "off-screen" and "background" cruelty continue to amaze. Even upon multiple viewings, little details continue to delight. Did Mrs Gardenia use to grow the herbs for the witches coven (dry herbs in the apartment, never explained again)? Was she being cursed? Why? ("She died in the hospital" - like Hutch). Who moved the cupboard to stop "them" from coming in? And why did she want to keep "them" out (never explained)? What does the sinister look of the elevator operator mean? Does he know that the Woodhouses are walking into the Bramford trap? The emotional abuse implied in the Castevets' grooming of Terry so that she would agree to become the initial "vessel" is ghoulish and all-too-real. How Minnie washes the dishes "extra slowly" so that Roman and Guy have enough time to discuss "the deal" ("Shall I help you, Minnie?"). How Minnie speaks to Dr Sapirstein on the phone in the background off-focus after Terry died and Rosemary got raped and pregant ("Yes. Yes. Let's hope so" (this time)). Minnie's greedy anticipatory look at Rosemary's belly once told that she's pregant. Guy's sliiight hesitation to touch her belly. The implication that the unborn child is beastial (expressed through Rosemary's cravings for raw meat). Dr Hill's never-explained suspicious request for a second blood sample. The progression from drinks to cake-and-drinks with obscure ingredients...the list goes on and on (Oh yes, what about the cocoa bean on only one of the desserts - marking the spiked one? Or the only-just-heard-through-the-wall Castevets' doorbell telling us that Guy doesn't get ice cream, but visits next door to advance the plot with the Castevets once Rosemary begins to realize that something's off).

Only weakness: Cassavetes is not great in the role (I agree with Polanski in this); Robert Redford would have been perfect in a non-typecast-casting-coup.