Recent horror series
Nov. 9th, 2018 06:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamySounds about right:
Satanic Temple sues Netflix' Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for Grand Theft Goat
Sabrina gets a lot of stuff right but ultimately leaves me a bit disappointed. I love the casting here (Kiernan Shipka! Lucy Davis! Whatshisface from Coupling! MICHELLE GOMEZ, ffs!), and the idea of a more serious take on the teenage witch where the aunts are actually proper Satanists, messing with life and death actually has consequences, etc. And it tries so hard; it wants to be Buffy and Harry Potter and Twilight and Riverdale all at once. But it's so blinded with that that it forgets to do something with what it IS. For instance: The first episode sets up that the Satanists preach free will and left-hand path - and then the second episode immediately reveals them to be evil, hypocritical, control-freak devil worshippers. That should have been your whole freaking season 1 arc, guys! That would have let Sabrina (and Sabrina) actually have some fun with the plot, instead of immediately dropping her into the big Good Vs Evil yadayada. And why would you cast a bunch of comedians in a horror drama and then not give them anything to play with? I'm not asking for slapstick here, but just... you have a coven of witches loose in a small town; have FUN with it. Instead the plot quickly settles into a cookie-cutter supernatural YA drama, with the love triangle, the magic school, the life-vs-calling dilemma, the apocalypse, etc etc... Which it definitely does well, but never really brings anything unique to the table.
Haunting of Hill House is a lot more successful. It has very little to do with the Shirley Jackson novel, which is probably a wise choice; both because it would be hard to draw it out, and because the 1963 film version is hard to beat. Director Mike Flanagan has been building his horror pedigree for a few years with some very good if not great movies like Oculus, Hush and Gerald's Game; he's a bit of a traditionalist, but it really pays off here, letting him relax into the haunted-house setting and letting things take their time. It has family drama. It has moments of genuine dread. It has very few actual jump scares, but it saves them for when they're really effective. But above all, it recognizes that horror needs pacing (there's a reason very few good horror movies go beyond 96 minutes). Even in a Netflix binge world, Flanagan makes an episodic series where each episode gets to have an arc unto itself, rather than make a 10-hour horror movie, but still carries the forward momentum without a lot of sidetracks. Some of those episodes (the last one, in particular) tend towards melodrama more than is good for them. Others (the "The Body"-esque episode 6 for instance, see Flanagan's breakdown of the shooting of it here) are almost unbearably tense and dramatic at the same time.
Of course, being Netflix, neither show sets out to truly unnerve the audience or subvert the expectations of either viewers or algorithms. Both essentially set out to be the Stranger Things of their particular target demographic (where I obviously fit into one more than the other). After being disappointed by how Castle Rock fizzled out, I'm still not convinced it's possible - or rather, economically feasible - to make a bingeable long-form horror story in this medium. We'll see what they come up with next. At least The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell has cake and murderous muppets.
But damn, episode 6 of Hill House was good.
Satanic Temple sues Netflix' Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for Grand Theft Goat
Sabrina gets a lot of stuff right but ultimately leaves me a bit disappointed. I love the casting here (Kiernan Shipka! Lucy Davis! Whatshisface from Coupling! MICHELLE GOMEZ, ffs!), and the idea of a more serious take on the teenage witch where the aunts are actually proper Satanists, messing with life and death actually has consequences, etc. And it tries so hard; it wants to be Buffy and Harry Potter and Twilight and Riverdale all at once. But it's so blinded with that that it forgets to do something with what it IS. For instance: The first episode sets up that the Satanists preach free will and left-hand path - and then the second episode immediately reveals them to be evil, hypocritical, control-freak devil worshippers. That should have been your whole freaking season 1 arc, guys! That would have let Sabrina (and Sabrina) actually have some fun with the plot, instead of immediately dropping her into the big Good Vs Evil yadayada. And why would you cast a bunch of comedians in a horror drama and then not give them anything to play with? I'm not asking for slapstick here, but just... you have a coven of witches loose in a small town; have FUN with it. Instead the plot quickly settles into a cookie-cutter supernatural YA drama, with the love triangle, the magic school, the life-vs-calling dilemma, the apocalypse, etc etc... Which it definitely does well, but never really brings anything unique to the table.
Haunting of Hill House is a lot more successful. It has very little to do with the Shirley Jackson novel, which is probably a wise choice; both because it would be hard to draw it out, and because the 1963 film version is hard to beat. Director Mike Flanagan has been building his horror pedigree for a few years with some very good if not great movies like Oculus, Hush and Gerald's Game; he's a bit of a traditionalist, but it really pays off here, letting him relax into the haunted-house setting and letting things take their time. It has family drama. It has moments of genuine dread. It has very few actual jump scares, but it saves them for when they're really effective. But above all, it recognizes that horror needs pacing (there's a reason very few good horror movies go beyond 96 minutes). Even in a Netflix binge world, Flanagan makes an episodic series where each episode gets to have an arc unto itself, rather than make a 10-hour horror movie, but still carries the forward momentum without a lot of sidetracks. Some of those episodes (the last one, in particular) tend towards melodrama more than is good for them. Others (the "The Body"-esque episode 6 for instance, see Flanagan's breakdown of the shooting of it here) are almost unbearably tense and dramatic at the same time.
Of course, being Netflix, neither show sets out to truly unnerve the audience or subvert the expectations of either viewers or algorithms. Both essentially set out to be the Stranger Things of their particular target demographic (where I obviously fit into one more than the other). After being disappointed by how Castle Rock fizzled out, I'm still not convinced it's possible - or rather, economically feasible - to make a bingeable long-form horror story in this medium. We'll see what they come up with next. At least The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell has cake and murderous muppets.
But damn, episode 6 of Hill House was good.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-09 11:45 am (UTC)I used to watch the original Sabrina with K when she was little. I somehow don't think she'll be watching this version with WMBB any time soon.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-09 06:35 pm (UTC)And Sabrina is odd in the way it tries to be both enjoyable fluff and Hollywood Darkness. I don't dislike it, but I wish it had dared to commit to one or the other.
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Date: 2018-11-09 05:16 pm (UTC)Aww, that's a shame. I was looking forward to checking it out because of Lucy Davis, Michelle Gomez and Rachel Talalay, but I assumed it would be more comedic that straight up teen drama :/
no subject
Date: 2018-11-09 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-10 03:51 am (UTC)Episode 6 was insanely good, and scary.
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I think that's the episode that had the moment that unnerved me the most and I literally screamed along with the characters. (When the mother breaks the forever house model and is scrambling to pick up the pieces on the floor. It's how they did it...the pain of seeing someone you love in that way, and dead...mixed with the wish of wanting to see them again, but god, not like that.) The other moment that really bugged me...was when we got the reveal of who the bent-necked woman truly was...that was just plain brilliant.
Also, the ghost with the walking stick and bowler hat..was truly frightening.
What worked with Hill House is how each of the scares and ghosts were "personal" to the characters hopes, dreams and fears...and the fears were far more realistic ones, not schlocky scares. No skeletons jumping out of closets. (Well outside of the thing in the basement.)
Also the puzzle nature of it...the room that appeared to be whatever anyone who was in it at the time desired. Yet, weirdly no one but the people who need it to be that are there at the time.
The ending, I have mixed feelings about. I found the last line to be wishful thinking on Steven's part...because it can be read one of two ways. They may walk together - but in a house that is a mirage and not what it appears. With ghosts that are rather cruel and selfish. And each are stuck isolated in rooms, stuck in certain moments of pain and wishful thinking. Their fears have placed them permanently in the house. I think that is in a way a shout-out to both Kubrick/King's The Shining which claims Jack Torrent, and Jackson's Haunting of Hill House that claims poor Eleanor.
That said...I wish they hadn't done the scene with the Dudley's returning to Hill House and being reunited with their kids...it made the house seem almost gracious, which was a direct contradiction to the themes of the series and everything that came before. I'd have edited two things out of it -- Steven Crain's line and those that walk it's halls walk together no longer alone, and the scene with the Dudley's. And just left us with Hugh, Olivia and Nell standing in the red room as the door slowly shuts on them, locking them inside it for an eternity.
This is a series I want to discuss to death. Because there's bits in it that are rather brilliant. And other's that..I think required a bit of tweaking (although I admittedly like melodrama.).
no subject
Date: 2018-11-10 03:59 am (UTC)There are a couple funny bits in it.
Where's Hilda?
Oh, she irritated me. So I killed her and buried her in the garden.
But, it does tend to take itself a bit too seriously at times and gets pulled down by the teen angst and religious themes. Also, as someone else on DW put it, there are few subplots that just disappear. Such as the mystery about the Warlock and his Iquano that Ambrose got interested in and then...well wasn't.
I was rather disappointed by it as well. I think I wanted more Beetlejuice and less Riverdale. And it does have the same pacing problems that Riverdale has...due to the need for the teen love triangles and conflicts, which take away from the central drama.
Much like Riverdale (which I'm not sure you've seen), the adults are actually far more interesting than the kids.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-10 04:05 am (UTC)It's a great counter-argument to the idea of putting the science back in science fiction. Yes, that's great -- but character, plot, and story need to come first, science and world building second. It's a novel about a heist...and he interrupts an action sequence with a lengthy lecture by the tough smuggler on how chloroform can become a hazardous gas and how difficult it is to stop it. I got bored and ended up skimming most of it.