Ro Rose

I had the same complaint about this as I had about Midnight Mass. It's a decent story told at a bloated pace that would have done much better condensed to fewer episodes. However, what this had going for it that MM didn't was Poe's poetry and lyricism elevating what could have been overly maudlin and wordy scenes into something beautiful and dream-like. In that it succeeds very well. The messaging is appropriately cautionary for the times, but it's delivered in such a ham fisted way that even while agreeing, I was rolling my eyes. I've seen 70s and 80s cartoons that came across as less didactic. A show with more ambition than delivery, it delivers enough gruesome comeuppance to its extremely unlikeable characters that it's at least an entertaining ride.

I'll keep this as spoiler free as possible. First, I didn't find the movie very scary, but I did find it evocative and effective thanks to some stellar performances and tight writing. A couple of transgressive scenes were reminiscent of early Clive Barker. Atmospherically, this owes a lot to The Monkey's Paw short story as well. It has good use of foreshadowing and a fun blink and you miss it nod to another well known Australian horror film. It was well grounded in a much more mundane and tragic horror in the life of the main protag and served as a decent metaphor for grief and grieving, how it causes people to other those who suffer great loss and the lies they're willing to tell themselves or others. I don't see this film as strong as those to which it has been compared, but it's a solid offering and stands on its own merits. Could have dug a bit deeper into its theme.

If you've seen or read media in this genre before, you'll have the "twist" figured out by episode one, but you'll probably stick around for the ride anyway. It's due to the strength of the performances I've rated as high as I have. There are some truly stellar turns with solid direction and some fun nods to other beloved films with the cinematography. However, the monologues (so many monologues) utterly destroy the pacing, don't at all sound like the way people have conversations, and often devolve into preachy treacle other shows and movies have delivered without needing ten minute speeches per pop. Think the endless ending of The Return of the King, and you'll get what I mean, although this problem plagues the series throughout. With the right editing, this could have been great. As it is, it's about 3 episodes too long, and in the utterly predictable end I found myself wishing for some of my time back.

I'll make this as spoiler free as possible. It's the acting of the three mains that elevates an often murky narrative overblown with symbolism into something watchable. I got the sense of a director and screenwriter doing their best with source material not designed for easy adaptation. The titular character is a ghost in his own narrative. There's only one brief moment in the movie, which wears out its welcome before the end of its runtime with an overly dour, unrelenting tone, in which I felt any connection to Kevin at all. Overall, the movie feels like an overly long conversation in which very little of substance is actually said, and it's very predictable.

I wanted to like this series. I loved Get Out and Lovecraft Country, and I like that we're beginning to see more diverse representation in horror. But this series focuses so intently on ugliness, degradation, and violence that it fails to treat its main characters, with very strong performances all, as anything more than vehicles of trauma. You learn very little of who anyone actually is in this story. Instead you only witness in excruciating detail what they endure at the hands of very cliched cardboard cutout villains. Get Out and Lovecraft Country had heart. Them utterly lacks it. The actors deserved better, and black audiences definitely deserve better.