I am one who usually does not go for stuff when there are few sympathetic characters (the characters are a big reason why I’ve loved past Flanagan series). I really did like this one. I didn’t love it, but I still think it was quite good. (Also noting that a big part of my enjoyment was how it played with Poe stories.…

Others may disagree, but I do think that this series is fairly strong throughout. I like Hill House and Bly Manor more, but it’s probably qualitatively better than Bly. It also sticks its landing better than Hill. (I will refrain from going into the details why out of respect for spoilers.)

As a multi-billionaire asshole, I found the series terrifying.

A creepy house is there. Creepy nooks and crannies also present. ghostly apparitions, well, they are there too... The most presence since the first Haunting. The most sensual and goriest from Flanagan to date, that for sure.

Jason’s metaphorical status is not important to a critical appreciation or personal enjoyment of the characterization. And THAT is what rubs me wrong. That all too often a critical analysis of a narrative privileges the metaphorical or thematic elements over the craft elements. And I even stated that I wouldn’t have…

Yeah I HATE to compare him to Ryan Murphy (although so far Usher *does* have some rather Murphy elements in design/camp, just done better) but like Murphy, he already has a group of actors to pull from with usually only a few being new to one of his projects by this point (in fact at least five of the younger…

It actually does have more “ghosts you don’t immediately notice just hovering there” than any of his shows since Hill House I think (well...  Midnight Club had a fair amount of that too, but...)

Do you know that scary is highly subjective?

No, it isn’t. If you want to sit here and have an academic breakdown of the history of horror and how cultural concerns influence subject matter and stylistic choices you’re absolutely welcome. It’s territory I’ve gone over many times before in pursuit of a terminal degree. Which I now have. So I’m no stranger to your…

Ah, from the same school as “All skyscrapers are just penises”.

Well, I was going to watch it because I like the Vincent Price/Roger Corman Poe films, but now I have to watch it.

This reminds me of a commenter on this site telling me years ago that all blood in horror movies represents semen, and then giving me haughty defense when I said that was stupid. I get that there’s usually a sexual aspect to horror and most are made by men, but really, all of them? This universal life force is…

Midnight Mass was so good. Truly his best work. Hamish Linklater should’ve won the Emmy.

It never achieves the narrative momentum or emotional resonance of Flanagan’s finest: the extraordinary Midnight Mass . . .

Not to mention Greenwood, Gugino and Thomas are the leads in that one as well.

Surprised the article didn’t call out Gerald’s Game, which was a tremendous adaptation of a novel I had considered unfilmable since so much goes on in the trapped wife’s head.

I’m assuming it has some of that. Also the house better fall apart at the end or I'll be mad

I’ve always found that this kind of story, where one or more horrible people suffer a slow, painful comeuppance, is just about impossible to really screw up. No matter how objectively terrible the storytelling is, that base satisfaction level will always be there. It’s the same reason I loved Saw X so much, and I have…

They’re mostly people he’s worked with in the past — Flanagan is one of those directors who has a standard troupe of actors he deploys in his various projects.

Tempted by Carla Gugino (of course)