I never go to the trouble of writing reviews unless something really compels me to. Usually, it's from a more positive view point. Something I enjoy so much I feel the world just MUST know about it.
But that is not the case here.
To start, I'll say that I thought "Hill House" was utterly brilliant. "Bly Manor" rating is unfair, as that was also really good... but admittedly not as good as Hill House. It was just too similar to Hill House, so it kind of loses its muster. But still, good stories and themes, good acting, held my interest throughout.
Definitely also a fan of the movie "Oculus."
"Midnight Mass" was awesome until... bahhh, everyone's a vampire now! Cheesy... "Midnight Club," interesting premise, horrendous execution, unbalanced, disjointed, much worse acting (for the most part, the Scottish girl was great). Basically entire episodes that would bore me to tears and were, for lack of a better word, stupid.
Which brings us to where we are now.
The idea of Flanagan making "The Fall of the House of Usher" was something that filled me with excitement. I thought this would be Flanagan's redemption; his return-to-form.
I am a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe. There's a reason his poetry and stories are remembered.
They were told with such heart and eloquence.
While some of the themes in this series were pretty cool and effective, examples being Tell-Tale Heart, Gold Bug... many more of them were so bad, that it was basically DISRESPECTFUL to these magnificent works.
"Pendulum" for instance had NOTHING to do with the original story. "The Raven," an episode so highly rated, was LAUGHABLY bad. I don't even want to get into the reasons why, because I'm spending enough time reviewing this piece of dog sh** as it is.
Flanagan clumsily tacks on the main pieces of Poe's stories, on to the sequence of other moments that had otherwise NOTHING to do with it.
"Masque of the Red Death" was embarassing, crass, and abysmal.
The woman who played the creepy lady in the bar who sealed their fates was a high-point. Genuinely creepy, pretty interesting.
But overall, entire scenes would serve no purpose. The acting is pretty good in some parts, atrocious in a lot of others, so basically unbalanced, and therefore not even REMOTELY believable. Almost impossible to get into, when you look at a large group of people, and NONE of them look or act alike, they don't at all seem like a family in any way, shape, or form, and it really just feels like Flanagan caving to the modern leftist mob, and getting his D. E. I. Points in. But in no way does this drive the story forward or, again, make it remotely believable.
You also have your "Old rich, white men" bad thing here. A tireless trope that is in virtually every TV show imaginable throughout the last 4 or 5 years.
And... apparently every single member of the family is a sexual deviant?
Weird dance-party orgies, as well as a woman with two employees who act as their sex slaves, and a wife who wants to watch her husband bang prostitutes?
Is all of this (or really any of it) necessary to drive the story forward? Or is it just there for shock value and/or to please younger, Gen-Z liberal audiences with increasingly diminishing values, and depraved desires to consume relentless content like this?
I understand trying to modernize these works to make them more palatable... but to say all of it was taken too far, and to say that gigantic swaths of liberties were taken, would be VAST understatements.
To turn classic, dignified literary works into this garbage is just such a slap in the face.
Furthermore, the fact that Flanagan has been capable of telling such beautiful stories, that retained integrity and dignity in the process... I'm just baffled that this is what he has stooped to and this is what he is now churning out.
It's such a disappointment, and this might be the last straw, as I feel put off from checking out any of his work again in the future.
For the people who do enjoy this... I really struggle to find the reasons why.
But that is not the case here.
To start, I'll say that I thought "Hill House" was utterly brilliant. "Bly Manor" rating is unfair, as that was also really good... but admittedly not as good as Hill House. It was just too similar to Hill House, so it kind of loses its muster. But still, good stories and themes, good acting, held my interest throughout.
Definitely also a fan of the movie "Oculus."
"Midnight Mass" was awesome until... bahhh, everyone's a vampire now! Cheesy... "Midnight Club," interesting premise, horrendous execution, unbalanced, disjointed, much worse acting (for the most part, the Scottish girl was great). Basically entire episodes that would bore me to tears and were, for lack of a better word, stupid.
Which brings us to where we are now.
The idea of Flanagan making "The Fall of the House of Usher" was something that filled me with excitement. I thought this would be Flanagan's redemption; his return-to-form.
I am a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe. There's a reason his poetry and stories are remembered.
They were told with such heart and eloquence.
While some of the themes in this series were pretty cool and effective, examples being Tell-Tale Heart, Gold Bug... many more of them were so bad, that it was basically DISRESPECTFUL to these magnificent works.
"Pendulum" for instance had NOTHING to do with the original story. "The Raven," an episode so highly rated, was LAUGHABLY bad. I don't even want to get into the reasons why, because I'm spending enough time reviewing this piece of dog sh** as it is.
Flanagan clumsily tacks on the main pieces of Poe's stories, on to the sequence of other moments that had otherwise NOTHING to do with it.
"Masque of the Red Death" was embarassing, crass, and abysmal.
The woman who played the creepy lady in the bar who sealed their fates was a high-point. Genuinely creepy, pretty interesting.
But overall, entire scenes would serve no purpose. The acting is pretty good in some parts, atrocious in a lot of others, so basically unbalanced, and therefore not even REMOTELY believable. Almost impossible to get into, when you look at a large group of people, and NONE of them look or act alike, they don't at all seem like a family in any way, shape, or form, and it really just feels like Flanagan caving to the modern leftist mob, and getting his D. E. I. Points in. But in no way does this drive the story forward or, again, make it remotely believable.
You also have your "Old rich, white men" bad thing here. A tireless trope that is in virtually every TV show imaginable throughout the last 4 or 5 years.
And... apparently every single member of the family is a sexual deviant?
Weird dance-party orgies, as well as a woman with two employees who act as their sex slaves, and a wife who wants to watch her husband bang prostitutes?
Is all of this (or really any of it) necessary to drive the story forward? Or is it just there for shock value and/or to please younger, Gen-Z liberal audiences with increasingly diminishing values, and depraved desires to consume relentless content like this?
I understand trying to modernize these works to make them more palatable... but to say all of it was taken too far, and to say that gigantic swaths of liberties were taken, would be VAST understatements.
To turn classic, dignified literary works into this garbage is just such a slap in the face.
Furthermore, the fact that Flanagan has been capable of telling such beautiful stories, that retained integrity and dignity in the process... I'm just baffled that this is what he has stooped to and this is what he is now churning out.
It's such a disappointment, and this might be the last straw, as I feel put off from checking out any of his work again in the future.
For the people who do enjoy this... I really struggle to find the reasons why.
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