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Post by Sharbs on Oct 30, 2018 6:27:44 GMT
Just watched Ep. 6 and that's the worst hour I've spent ever. This show is fucking with my head hardcore
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Post by alexanderblanchett on Nov 3, 2018 11:15:49 GMT
One of the best horror/mystery shows of the year. Haunting indeed. I hardly ever saw anything close as scary or creepy as this 10 episodes. Real scares. Real shivers down my spine. The last time I experienced something like that was when I was 10 years old and got my hands on the "Shining" VCR from my brother.... But this show does not only work because of its jump scares (which were truly incredibly... usually it is a cheap way to fill a horror film but in this case it was absolutely on the point ) but also an incredible story to tell that takes place during two different decades. And that is absolutely my kind of thing. Fantastic screenplay and absolutely interesting and perfectly written characters. The direction was awesome. The film works because the scariest scenes were done during silent moments or random moments when you did not expect them without any music or sounds that announce those. Other scenes were right out of a realistic nightmare. The acting was fabulous with Elizabeth Reaser and Oliver Jackson-Cohen being the best of the bunch. But also Kate Siegel and Victoria Pedretti were great. I liked Carla Cugino and on a lesser extend Henry Thomas (tho he had many good moments). Michael Huisman was the weakest of the Buch with a generally pale and boring performance. Annabeth Gish had great moments in the final episodes and Timothy Hutton is fantastic. Don'T get me started about the kids: Those were stunning performances and among the best child performances in a TV show ever. Most memorable and outstanding performance was Violet McGraw. Episode 6 was the best and I have no words to describe how good that one was. Technically absolutely mindblowing episode. Perfectly crafted and performed. The only little thing that was a let down was the final conclusion. While still be wonderfully executed, I expected more a more shocking twist based on how shocking other twists were during the other 9 episodes of the show. It was not terrible or anything but felt a bit lazy. Still it is one of the best Shows of Netflix and I really hope there will be a second season.
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Post by Pavan on Nov 5, 2018 15:02:20 GMT
I like it when horror stories are told with a touch of emotion and there's loads in here at least till the 6th episode. The key thing to getting emotion right is simplicity and that's what is missing from episodes 7 to 10. Flanagan tried too many things. Sure some of it worked like the bent-neck lady and Abigail twists were unexpected. He sacrificed simple and efficient storytelling for theatrics and it feels messy watching those penultimate episodes but yeah he wrapped it all to a satisfactory resolution but this could have been a great show if it didn't try too hard to be different. Still a solid show nevertheless.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 2, 2019 1:04:45 GMT
so I just started watching this and it's quite good two episodes in. Proper horror seems to be something of a rarity on TV. God knows why it plays second fiddle to pulpy quasi-horror like AHS and Penny Dreadful. God knows why it's taken so damn long to import all of cinema's delightful horror tropes to the silver screen but thank you Mike Flanagan for finally making that happen. We need more long-form horror. Wouldn't a Black Mirror-esque horror anthology show be the coolest fucking thing ever? Horror is so broad, the possibilities are endless. Anyways, I like what I'm seeing so far. Flanagan is no horror slouch. The thinking-man's James Wan. He knows how to effectively weave a terrifying atmosphere that makes good use of jumpscares but he also knows when to pull back let the suspense just kill you. The horror market is so oversatured in jumpscares that they've become a given in any horror film. We know to expect them and we've adjusted how we view horror films around this realization, but Flanagan's balancing of both traditional jumpscares and suspenseful restraint throws that all into chaos. I never know what I'm going to see next, but I'm terrified, absolutely terrified that that creepy corpse on the table is going to open its eyes any second now while the camera just lingers on its cold dead face. Of course, that would be silly and obvious (and totally something James Wan would do) and if it happened I'd probably roll my own eyes. But the anticipation of it happening, the expectation of that jumpscare, the waiting for it...that's how Flanagan uses the viewer's own imagination to terrify them. It's ingenious and collaborative, but most of all it shows an acute understanding of how viewers process cinematic horror. He gets me. My one complaint so far is all the timeline jumps. There's essentially one storyline that progresses naturally (the present), but I feel like at least half the episodes are comprised of flashbacks that show both the characters as children and more confusedly flashbacks to them as adults. It's all a bit wonky and disorienting and keeps me at an arm's length from the characters. But I'm mostly here for the horror and Flanagan more than delivers there. The narrative just has to be serviceable and so far it certainly is at least that. I've been watching it before going to bed and OH MY GOD is that a bad idea
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Post by Pavan on Feb 22, 2019 6:13:12 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 22, 2019 7:15:15 GMT
Very cool to see it's continuing as an anthology but I can see the haunted house narrative becoming old. The season was quite good but horror is so broad and haunted houses are so overdone. Why restrict themselves to that?
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Post by Sharbs on Feb 23, 2019 18:17:48 GMT
Hill House is one of the best series that's ever minied, but I'm bored with this concept. Anthology series do absolutely nothing for me.
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Post by stephen on Feb 23, 2019 18:23:17 GMT
I'm intrigued by this concept, and hope that it's a period piece rather than a modern retelling, because there's already going to be a modernized adaptation coming out soon.
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Post by Pavan on Aug 31, 2020 14:47:17 GMT
Same cast but different story? Why would they do that? I liked Hill House. Will give this one a try.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Aug 31, 2020 15:25:22 GMT
Same cast but different story? Why would they do that? I liked Hill House. Will give this one a try. Because Victoria Pedretti is a queen and should be in everything!!
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Post by Pavan on Sept 23, 2020 15:11:57 GMT
Creepy but not a really effective trailer.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Oct 6, 2020 1:26:50 GMT
Bly Manor getting very good reviews. So excited.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Oct 10, 2020 1:37:09 GMT
Loved the first episode. Very atmospheric and the kids are amazing. Looks like I'm gonna be stanning Victoria Pedretti even harder after this😍
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Post by Pavan on Oct 11, 2020 11:11:33 GMT
I'm two episodes into Bly Manor. I like that it is set in English countryside and it's visually alluring but mostly happens inside manor and it's well lit too. It's moody and taking it's sweet time setting up the characters, the backdrop and delivered a couple of really tense moments.
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Post by cheesecake on Oct 11, 2020 15:09:41 GMT
This is being adapted from my favorite novella so I'm trying to lower expectations but I didn't think much of that first episode at all.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Oct 12, 2020 4:23:34 GMT
I'm crying! That last shot 😢 While this doesn't reach the highs of Hill House, I found this more investing in each character's stories. I read somewhere how horror in this is treated more as a vehicle rather than a destination and I agree so much. This never really sets to scare you but instead tell a story of love, grief and pain in dealing them and the result is both heartbreaking (very!) and haunting (effective but definitely not the selling point) Boasts some wonderful performances with Pedretti (who has perfected the act of a woman dealing with loss) giving yet another lovely character in Dani, the affable pairing of Kohli and Miller and also Eve and Jackson-Cohen (with a pitch perfect scottish accent) who are just amazing. The kids and Kate Siegal are the MVPs for me. The heart of the show for me. Also, episode 8 is a piece of art. Highly recommended if you're looking for a beautiful gothic story with some tinge of horror. Flanagan does it again - made me cry in a 'horror story'. ❤️ Also, a comedy for Victoria next pleaase. The girl's tormented in literally everything I've seen her in.
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Post by bob-coppola on Oct 12, 2020 13:14:22 GMT
I had great expectations 'cause I went nuts for Hill House, but even if it felt a little short, can't say I'm disappointed. It's a great, powerful suspense - I actually love that it pretty much rejects being a horror story and re-frames the ghost story as a love story. It's creepy but just the right amount. It does faulter here and there. While Hill House was more concise by focusing in one particular shared trauma by one particular family, it was interesting how it showed how the same experience could reverberate differently in different people. It also had a tidier, neatier, more cohesive narrative - even with the Rashomon-esque style. Everything seemed deeply connected. Bly Manor, on the other hand, is flawed in that aspect. I feel like they kept throwing some things on the wall to see what'd stick. There were too many sub-plots with no connection between themselves besides some coincidences and narrative rhymes. Some if feels random and replaceable. Everyone has a deep, long backstory and some of it just doens't add anything relevant plot-wise nor thematically. And it hurts that it spends its middle episode focusing on the weakest part: that butler/nanny Bonnie and Clyde-esque plot. Even if I liked Peter's humanization, I felt like it just didn't belong in that series, or should've been more central. At the end, this and the 17th century flashback (that I dug a lot and resonated emotionally very well with me) felt more like too elaborated ornaments to justify a beautiful mythology and to link the first episodes to that GRAND FINALE. And my god, what a finale. Pedretti agains plays the perfect heroine, delivering another heartbreaking performance full of compassion, kindness and dignity - things you don't really expect to see in a horror story. Her character is tragic and embodies the anthology's ethos of the ghosts haunting our homes and following us everywhere being the loss, the grief and the guilty we need to process - and sometimes, we might never be done processing. The last half hour had me completely floored, crying like a baby. Between this and the 8th episode, I actually very liked as well some visual cues that work as analogies with living with dementia, or seeing someone losing themselves to dementia/mental illness. I don't know if I'm reading too much in between the lines, but that was very beautiful and it moved me a lot. Other than that, I love its fractured story-telling, how it literally plays with the notions of memories and flashbacks, how it visually displays internal monologues and inner demons... I spent most of this rambling complaining/nitpicking, but I truly loved it.
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Post by quetee on Oct 13, 2020 0:38:52 GMT
I haven't seen this yet but the user response on rotten tomatoes is pretty low. 62%
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Post by Pavan on Oct 16, 2020 14:01:50 GMT
As i said in my previous post Bly started strongly with enough mood, tension and setting up the characters but it kinda derailed in the middle especially that "dream hopping" thing, with those constant ins and outs. I get it that Flanagan and team were trying to portray dreams, memories and that's sort of thing but it ate so much of the story that i didn't care for and it's little relevance at the end makes them even more of a chore.
That said the show redeemed itself with the final two episodes, the strongest ones where the actual crux of the story is revealed. I particularly loved that eight episode. It's a mini-movie in and itself. Kate Siegel was fantastic. As beautifully constructed as it was I thought it came an hour lately. Nevertheless it greatly ties into the sequence of things and the next coming finale.
Bly is moody and emotional than scary. It's a sad ghost-romance story to put into perspective and i love sad ghost stories. This is one such story with a focus on love, time, memory and grief.
Great performances from the cast. Pedretti and the kids stand out really. I never realized Carla Gugino has such a soothing voice. Did she lend her voice to any audio books? I'd love to listen to them.
Overall Hill House is better but Bly is my kind of story. Too bad some dull portions bring it down. I liked it but i did not love it.
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Post by quetee on Oct 16, 2020 17:42:17 GMT
I haven't seen this yet but the user response on rotten tomatoes is pretty low. 62% Conspiracy theory alert: audience score is now zeroWhat happened? RT wiped out the score.
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Post by cheesecake on Oct 20, 2020 22:01:21 GMT
I saw someone online say the marketing for this was akin to Crimson Peak -- really more of a gothic romance so it may disappoint those who loved the horror aspect of Hill House. I thought it was... fine? The pacing was terrible and Flanagan really ought to rely more on show, don't tell. It left little to no impression on me, unfortunately.
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sirchuck23
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Bad news dawg...you don't mind if I have some of your 300 dollar a glass shit there would ya?
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Post by sirchuck23 on Oct 21, 2020 15:15:38 GMT
I saw someone online say the marketing for this was akin to Crimson Peak -- really more of a gothic romance so it may disappoint those who loved the horror aspect of Hill House. I thought it was... fine? The pacing was terrible and Flanagan really ought to rely more on show, don't tell. It left little to no impression on me, unfortunately. So you didn't find the show perfectly splendid?
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Post by cheesecake on Oct 21, 2020 22:28:39 GMT
I saw someone online say the marketing for this was akin to Crimson Peak -- really more of a gothic romance so it may disappoint those who loved the horror aspect of Hill House. I thought it was... fine? The pacing was terrible and Flanagan really ought to rely more on show, don't tell. It left little to no impression on me, unfortunately. So you didn't find the show perfectly splendid?
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sirchuck23
Based
Bad news dawg...you don't mind if I have some of your 300 dollar a glass shit there would ya?
Posts: 2,724
Likes: 4,834
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Post by sirchuck23 on Oct 21, 2020 23:08:46 GMT
So you didn't find the show perfectly splendid?
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