Reviews

The bulk of the reviews seem to have this polarized Mike Flannagan hate going on. So you can really write off half the reviews. If you havent liked Flannagan's work, why are you people watching it?

What you need to know, is that this is a homage to all of Poe's work. Rating it poorly because it isn't a prevoius remake, seems extremely short sighted.

By now you've read the story is set around the house of Usher. Like many of Flannagan's stories, they are designed to be end to end stories. Which is what I prefer. The Usher house hold is the story of rich people, greed, and overall evil people.

Many people cite the parallels of Succession, and they feel like it's underwhelming by comparison. I, however, do not. I actually don't like Succession. Just like many of HBO's series they are drawn out wwwwaaaayyyy to long. This is not. You get what you get for the 8 episodes.

Mike gets a lot of the actors he continues to work with,and Carla Gugino absolutely kills it in this role. She uses a myriad of accents, and makes the central theme of the series take on a life of it's own.

Many persons point to predictability in the plot, but if you've read The Raven, or any of Poe's other works you'll know how things are going to go down. This is a homage again. Looking for something new and exciting other than story telling and visuals will set you up for disappointment.

From what I can see, it's a good effort from a director that doesn't have much under their belt. Definitely, you can see some good story boarding elements as far as being under a budget and his camera work. However, story and the editing somewhat detract. There's quite a few odd cuts. However, it's something they can polish up further along in their career hopefully. Also, I've seen better special effects even at these budget levels.

Overall, zombie apocalypse story, the only spin on it is the positioning and view of the protagonist. There definitely is a ever common family thread in it. However, it is so annoying that it doesn't make any character likeable at all. All seem kind of detached, act on illogical premises. The movie could just be called "Barney", because a kid being the instigator of all the problems and death in the movie seems to be what they had in store. Personally, I found it rather insulting making a kid so dimitted. Also, the way it is framed makes me think none of these people have used firearms before.

I can appreciate the abilities to working with budget constraints, and these film makers actually tell a decent story within those constraints. However, several things pulled me out of the story and I can only attribute it to that. Using odd cuts and foley, where a dark lighting and scuibs or flashing lights would suffice. Some of which aren't all that expensive. The climax of the film is filled with many of these jump quick cuts with little more than exposition.

If you are a lover of low budget movies, then you might able to glean a more enjoyable movie than I can. Overall, I hope all these film makers get more of a chance in the future to polish their craft.

The Lesbian Lost Boys analogy someone else gave is dead on. The other reviews are pretty blatent for their political idiology. With all that crap out of the way. At it's core, it's quality is decent. The storyboarding is middle of the spectrum.

Now, I honestly know nothing about LGBT communities. I don't know if the writer is a member of one these communities. However, I can respect the quality that I *think* that's how a person in these characters shoes would react. So, I think the writing is pretty intuitive. Honestly, as you can see by some of these reviews, people deserve characters they can relate to. I can't relate, but that's okay.

Now, for the bad. This movie is so anti-male it beats you over the head with it at ever waking moment, as is the tendency in any Hollywood movie lately. As some other reviewers might say, I don't like "Strong women characters". However, it's completely incorrect. I love a good strong female lead, especially in horror. We call most modern movies out for being misogynistic. We have to call this out on the other side of the spectrum.

In the end, the movie closes with a decent ending, that brings the whole anti-male thing back to middle ground. However, the movie is just too over the top gay for me. That's okay. It wasnt made for me. I applaud their efforts though, and if they didn't go to their extremist sections, it could have been a better movie for all.

This movie really starts out as a slow burn that focuses on the couples relationship. Over time things happen with some odd events. I don't want to hit this with spoilers. However, the whole story that transpires is told through the couple's relationship.

Which is why I had a hard time with it. I am not really into relationship drama. Which is why this movie for the first half of this movie, the pace realIy bothered me. Even the tension is told through the couples relationship in the 3rd act.

Overall, the storyboarding, the writing, it was pretty decent. Which is why I landed at 5. Anyone likes a good relationship drama, you can probably get a higher score. I just was not a good audience for it.

Let me first get this out of the way by saying, I love the hell put of Eden Log. It's a simple premise that is typically used in many survival horror video games. Your character wakes up, and has no idea of who they are or what they were doing. You have to piece everything together along the way with the narrative.

The best Sci Fi or Horror is all about atmosphere with me, and the creators go all put building atmosphere. From the color palete to the architecture, all designed to put you at unease. The way that Aliens put winding corridors and conduits as a set peice to give a techno-organic mood to everything, Eden Log does the same.

If you are looking for an action hero to zoom all around. Killing things with quips. You're not going to like it.

Eden Log is about piecing the mystery back together. This is like a movie in the realm of the Dead Space games. Near the end of the movie, I was almost expecting a boss health bar to appear. They do not do anything as simplistic as that, but by the end the mystery is solved and you get your closure. If mood is your thing, you'll probably like Eden Log.

Well, I pretty much see most horror flicks. Fired this one up and decided to have a little masterclass here.

Overall, this film does a decent job of some storyboarding and direction elements. Overall camera quality and cinematography, its not completely ghetto.

However, when you start off a story in the first act, you should at least try and build a connection (either good or bad, likeable or unlikeable) from your main characters and audience. This film does none of that. It starts towards making them unlikeable, and suddenly by the middle of the runtime is when you finally get the antagonist or at least a hint of one and tension. By that time, you've usually lost people's attention. Even then, there's literally no tension. Just character insight and character exposition (the act of narrating details, which is always sloppy).

The most effective horror can't rely on exposition. You should see the main characters fears, tentions, emotions all through acting. When you hit the final 30 minutes, it's hit none of that. All of the scares are mostly dream scares or fake outs.

It starts ramping up at the 30 minute mark. However the main character actions are too little or too late for any kind of redemption subplot. Things are restated even when characters exposition them earlier. It's absolutely infuriating and lazy writing.

When it hits the third act you just want the Big Bad to just take care of things and get it over with.

First off, your average MCU fan will not like this series. Namely because there is no hook. There is a vague mystery, but nothing that grabs you from the first two episodes. I can already say this will be the most polarizing thing in the MCU Disney+ catalog, and were off to a rocky start. Thats not to say its decently written, for what it is, but after the first 2 episodes its just not interesting. Overall, it is a play on old TV tropes, as you have seen written so far. The pacing and episode length though cause it to be lackluster. For those complaing about early reviews, you absolutely can apply them. The series will lose a lot of people for its blaze premise and lack of action. Those are just the facts. That said, when the series is complete, I'm certain a binge session would probably look on this more favorably. Unfortunately the writing and pace dont compell me to watch right when it drops. Watching when the whole series is released will probably make the viewing better.

For all of those writing in anything above 8 stars, I question your sanity. This movie is only a hairs breath above X-Men 3 in the entire pantheon. This movie is just bad. If you know the original source material, this movie will just kill you. A wise man once said, if you've got 4 screenwriters, you've got no good screenwriters. I've lived by that mantra, and this doesn't fail it. The writers take one of the most iconic mutant villains, second only to Magneto, and reduce him to vague and ominous (insert bad guy here) style of antagonist. Only a mixed up, ethos of the original character remains. They also take the villains original abilities and just give him any power they want. To play off this God persona of the character. It seemed like the only thing was written towards was another movie to introduce whatever cast they want to try and sign for the next 2 movies. There is one they wrote into their very own movie. "Everyone knows the third movie is the worst." Of course, a tongue in cheek reference to X3 (one of the worst movies I've ever seen). However, since X-Men first class, what do you know...it's the 3rd movie to try and reset the whole universe. Well, played Singer, but not well enough. We know your 3rd movie in this trilogy should be thrown out as well.