Reviews

I had to google the age of consent in Spain, and it's 16. Because Apolo Hidalgo's actor is only 17. And there was a scene... I guess I'm just used to these roles being played by actors who are actually in their 20s.

This is not wholesome as a coming-of-age, and a lot of the plot could happen in a B-rated romantic film. However, it is not totally unrealistic. There are teens who are up to no good. These mature experiences are character development for adults.

So if you're looking for a holier-than-thou teenage flick, this is not it. It might also not be it for older audiences whose children might be in the age bracket of the characters. It will be uncomfortable.

Also, why didn't they just fight at the parking lot? Why the pool?

I was expecting a scorned wife who can't think for herself because that's how this kind of show always goes. I hated Leonora because she seemed weak, and then I loved her. There are only a handful of times that we root for villains and this was one of those times for me. She first appeared to be the stereotypical housewife who (stupidly) sets aside herself in favor of her family and so her husband gets to be successful.

But, she was deliciously cunning and manipulative, not typical weakling who will eat, pray, love after her marriage breaks up.

I love it when I can't predict how shows end. The twist at the end was an interesting flourish.

Where do I even begin? So much happened in this series. I love that it has its own lore, with twists and turns for every character. That nothing is as simple as it seems at first glance and everything is connected. Everything was not in chronological order so I loved how they peeled back the layers and slowly revealed the truths.

The main actress reminds me of Nell (Victoria Pedretti) in The Haunting of Hill House, and I think all of them were great actors/actresses.

If Netflix can renew Locke and Key which has terrible acting, they should renew this one. I'd watch another season of this show.

I think I will always excuse a bad script if Michele Morrone was reading it.

It's so cliché, I was able to guess what quote Massimo was going to tell Laura near the end. She was asking him why he didn't do anything even when he knew that she and Nacho were becoming a thing. You know the answer, it's a famous quote.

Nothing much really happened in this movie except establish the Nacho-Massimo-Laura love triangle.

I feel like they should have just turned the entire thing into a TV series so we can be done with it.

I want to know who she chooses and whether this triangle ends in a death.

I was thinking of reading the books but they got bad reviews saying the movies were better, which is an extremely rare circumstance so I'll watch the series free on Netflix.

I give it a 5 because still better acting than 50 Shades or Twilight. Jamie Dornan is a fantastic actor, watch him in The Fall. Robert Pattinson is OK. But Michele Morrone. Not only is he 1000x hotter and more good-looking, he is a really great actor especially in the 365 sequels.

I watched it mainly because of him and Simone Susinna. But everything is cliché and totally unrealistic, like most chick lit/romance novels.

The lead is essentially Bella/Anastasia, but Polish and maybe a bit spicier and not weak. She is in a love triangle like Bella, only instead of a vampire and a werewolf, it's two mafia guys from warring clans. And instead of the US, it's in Italy, and the characters are Polish, Italian and Spanish. And there's the wacky BFF who ends up with a side character, who is of course, more loyal than a sister.

And they live in palatial homes, go shopping all day, and go on expensive hiatuses and clubs. Only this lady actually WANTS TO WORK instead of just exist, so her husband actually gifts her a BUSINESS.

The romance with Massimo starts out with a kidnapping though, and it's a stockholm syndrome situation. I mean if Michele Morrone was your kidnapper, that might be guaranteed.

There's a marriage, some conflict with a secret twin and a mafia ex-lover, marital conflict, infidelity, and a montage of more hiatuses, shopping and bonding with a BFF and daddy.

It's not intellectually stimulating. But in this genre, I don't think it's the worst.

I have loved this show since the first minutes of season 1 and always live in fear of its cancellation along with so many other great shows that have been axed lately. I guess I have cancellation trauma. Kidding aside, a lot of shows also tend to lose steam after a few seasons and I'm so glad S3 was fantastic, it's probably my favorite season yet.

I'm not sure I like the enemies to lovers situation between Devi and Ben but I guess if you're "too much" then you deserve someone who also is "too much". That algorithm created by a Nobel Laureate from MIT probably is genius.

Also, really love the character development here. They spent less time on non-essential characters and gave more time to flesh out Darren Barnet's character, his bromance with Trent, all the love interests of Fab and Trenor (Trent + Eleanor, sorry made that up). Devi has also truly grown, she no longer has tantrums! I'm just sorry Paxton had to be the catalyst for her evolution and receiving end of her trauma. Those eyes are to DIE for.

I don't know who to ship. I think I lean more towards Team Paxton but since he's headed to ASU, I guess that's the end for his character unless he flunks out of college or something, which wouldn't be great. If he doesn't show up in S4 (should there be one), I'm not sure the show's going to be the same without Darren Barnet!

There are a number of instances where the characters have done incredibly stupid things but as I am watching season 3, one example is when the mom locks Bode in the snow globe. They have lousy fight scenes.

Not a big fan of the mom actress, too.

But I keep watching because the keys themselves are fascinating.

I found the premise interesting so I watched it. I think having people you have past connections with in a dating show is unique since other similar shows involve strangers (at least the couple I know of...).

Some of the drama seemed contrived, some characters seemed like paid actors (Dylan Palladino and Daniel the instagram follower), but I was all for it anyway.

It was great to see how some cast members handled their relationships with diplomacy. I liked Nigel the best because he was upfront and straightforward about his thoughts.

The Allysa thing with Dylan was weird and seemed like she was asked to deliberately be the villainous character. Glad she found her person though and stopped pestering Kasey.

I felt sad for Kasey for keeping Dylan despite the red flags. She did say that she struggled with her self-worth and who hasn't been in that journey? Glad to see she's found that she does not need a man to find her worth.

Vince and Yurika were really cute together but sadly, it didn't work out after the show. Maybe Vince shouldn't have sprung for marriage then and there. Oh well.

Ashley left with Quinn, but it also seems like they didn't last long, and she is pregnant now.

All in all, the show was fun. I would watch season 2.

P. S. Either change the host or have no host at all. Betty Who is a great person I'm sure but she didn't "debrief" or improv as good as someone like maybe Ryan Seacrest or something. They could have had her do the interviews with the participants and made her more familiar to viewers. It was odd to only be seeing her pop up only at a few portal-related moments during the show.

This pales in comparison to the original. But even on its own, the cast is lackluster.

There are too many "accessory" characters in the group. And jeezuz, who is their stylist? Is corduroy back? That guy's blazer should never see the light of day again.

The first episode is a bomb. So what if a millionaire's daughter buys someone a scholarship? Those teachers need to work harder.

That stalker-teacher getting rained on just to take a photo of Zoya and the guy was HILARIOUS. 😂

All actors did really well playing their parts. It has Edgar Allan Poe vibes and probably reads well as a novel.

Edith was annoyingly naive in the beginning (understandable since she was young and never really knew love before) but redeemed herself later on. Such a tragic love story but Edith has material for her story now.

Guillermo del Toro has a unique way of romanticizing and visualizing horror and I love it.

This is a great show, a study in human nature, like literally, that is the plot.

People here are expecting the characters to act in certain ways, projecting their own thoughts on how the stranded teens should act. Well joke's on them--they don't even know they are like sheep, unaware of their unconscious biases. Other people do not think like you, they are not you, so don't expect them to act like you.

Enjoying a show involves suspension of disbelief, and frankly, of yourself. You are not the main character. How you would do things is not how characters are supposed to act.

I read a review that wondered why the teens didn't stay inland--well, if that viewer was stranded on an island, they for sure would not be saved because THEY WON'T BE SEEN by passing boats, etc. Which is why they only thought to stay inland later on and keep a signal fire going. I wouldn't want to be stranded on an island with that person, someone who thinks they're intelligent but really isn't. What a pain that would be!

The cast was amazing, they played their characters perfectly. What I would love to see is how the outer world is reacting to all of this. But that's the point of this show--to be in that island with those teens, focusing only on survival with meager supplies and no survival skill training.

I am not yet done with Season 2, but I am grieving this show's cancellation because they did not deserve it.

It's the 21st century and we still have movies with cheap 90s quality, just in 4k.

It's about an NBSB woman who has a one-night stand with a random guy outside a church while it was raining. Which gets her pregnant. It was sprinkled with some futile attempts at depth like how friendship and family is important. That is all. There's no big aha here.

It's terrible. Many filmmakers still believe Filipinos will readily imbibe their garbage.

If I could puke this movie out and erase it from memory, I would.

It had a great cast. It was a run-of-the-mill, feel-good teenage drama not meant for 30+ year olds like myself but I enjoyed it and reminded me of my own teenage summers *cringe*. I needed to take a break with something lighthearted after watching The Boys.

Disappointed over some things that made no sense, i.e., Jeremiah snooping about his mom's cancer at the debutante ball which he has an important role in AND THEN making a scene. Sounds like he could use some lessons in etiquette. And I was rooting for Belly to just forget about mopey Conrad but the heart wants what it wants, I guess. I did like the segues with the 40-year old moms having fun and finding their own summer flings/loves. Which gives one hope for the future despite feeling incredibly ancient at 30+ *cringe*.

Kate Siegel and her husband Mike Flanagan have created masterpieces together. So I came in with high expectations.

This was a basic predictable thriller that would probably enthrall a teenager new to the genre. But as someone who has seen so many thrillers and heard so much about MK Ultra, it was too simple of a plot. I cannot conceive of someone using the techniques just to get women that looked like your dead wife. I mean if you had that capability, maybe aim higher?

Everything was cliché as well: the party with the ex who became an ex because of a miscarriage; the doting bestfriend she actually meets up with regularly; the raving reviews about a service (psychiatrist) leading to her taking advantage of said service; the charming and mysterious doctor who provides the service; the persistent detective who helps the lady in distress and sends backup to the wrong house so he ends up fighting the bad guy alone; the psychiatrist overpowers a seasoned detective (must be the donuts?); the attempt at being clever with the twist near the end right before the actual happy ending: the atrocious haircut at the end because heroines that overcome trauma must absolutely go to the salon and have a makeover (attach fake looking bangs).

Not to mention the cringey lines about there being "nothing like the scent of a woman". Whuut.

I'm very surprised that Kate, who has played many characters with so much more depth, played a stereotypical role.

Definitely nothing like Hush or The Haunting of.

It's been a while since we've seen a vampire movie/series that didn't destroy the mythology and turned the vampires into sparkling hot dudes who can walk in the sun.

This is a fresh breath of air. Actually, it's a breath of the old original musty air that is the vampire lore and I love it. It also reminds me of Anne Rice vampire novels where vampires are still painfully human.

I did not appreciate the excessive religious meanderings, and boy, did they cover the common issues surrounding religion, particularly Catholicism (I was born Catholic, I know). The first 4 episodes were dedicated to slightly agonizing character development but it makes up for it later. And it also effectively show how scripture is usually subject to interpretation and used to suit circumstances, so you'd either be happy with that or be frustrated.

Acting was superb as they always seem to be when Mike Flanagan is at the helm, with Kate Siegel as his muse (I assume). Samantha Sloyan was particularly effective at being an annoying zit.

I am a BIG FAN of The Haunting of and the underrated movie, Hush. I am so glad they made this and look forward to their next.

The Philippines has very few psychological thrillers or none at all. This is a very refreshing break from all the regurgitated and unoriginal storylines typical of mainstream movies and has given me faith in the future of Philippine cinema.

If there's anything to improve upon, it's the commitment of the Rosa actress to being truly deranged and sexually deviant. We have been exposed to all manner of deviance from western films, pushing the envelope in the country will not shock the most avid movie-goers. We wouldn't say no to more gore as well. We know it's costume blood. On that note, the fake blood is too dilute.

All in all, relatively well done.