Kascha K

Amazing show. Super great acting, serious themes, realism... like a filled out season length version of Gravity. I love it Ignore all the dullards who seem content to copy and paste the exact same gripe list who couldn't be bothered to reword it to sound original. None of them are astronauts nor are they writers, pilots or anything else relevant to make appeals to expertise and it's debatable given their gripe list that they have ever watched a network show before because they are entirely unfamiliar with the concept of dramatic license. This is a very good show.

I am really jaded on horror movies, normally only listing The Exorcist, The Shining, The Ring, Insidious, The Mothman Prophecies, and The Fourth Kind as 100% awesome, but this movie in my view has done extremely well for itself. Well enough to be at least considered in the same company as the last two I mentioned. The acting was good. Keri Russell had the most to sell and she did a very very good job as a youngish suburban mother with underlying struggles in her marriage, and two kids who have their own seemingly minor issues that increase in volume as the film progresses, all living in a neighborhood that seems like it might have been the backdrop for that 80's Madness song Our House. Things in this movie mount as does the unease and freaky unexplained behavior as it should in a great atmospheric horror film and everything that happens seems very authentic and not way over the top. Making it seem as though there are definitely forces acting against this family but that they are probably not demonic or supernatural. As things go farther and farther out of control and the manifestations go from manipulation of environment to manipulation of the bodies of the family itself, the score, acting, direction, and atmosphere keep up well. Not with stupid jump scares that seem contrived, but with genuine shock moments that make the viewer feel right in the shoes of the characters and feeling their senses of disbelief and mounting fear. When the hopelessness of the truth finally reveals itself, and after the requisite battle for rationality fails, the end game is about as harrowing as one could hope for and delivers very much in the same vein and with the same methods as some of those aforementioned movies, plus others such as Sinister and Paranormal Activity. People will probably be able to pick out those techniques in this movie, and some might say they are just all thrown together with a common fallback trope over the top to try to give it a twist, but sometimes in a genre where it's very hard to be original these days one has to judge by how well those elements are all brought together and call that its own sort of originality or at least uniqueness and I felt that was the case with this movie. Very good choice for lights out Saturday couples movie night and even better solo.

I had seen this advertised on Netflix for a bit and decided today to watch it. Got through the whole season one and I have to say that for the most part it was a highly enjoyable show. The effects, the sets, the acting, and the concept I thought were all great. I had a few issues though, some minor and some major. Right off the bat I have to say there are severe frustrations centered around the decision making of Kensie and Tyler. I understand they're teens and they have grieving to do, and had no issues with their withdrawn and moody behavior through the first few episodes. Nor do I have a problem with the visualization of Kensie's fear or how she acted after it was defeated. I thought that was very astute and took understanding of the relationship we really have with fear. I also understand what it was that was wrong with Tyler and his self blame for his father. But this ridiculous pretense of knowing what was going on, lying to everyone about it and continually shutting Bodie out of a situation they wouldn't have known about without him got to be too much to take. There were numerous times I looked at the screen and yelled "it's impossible that you're this STUPID!" The only one who had it together and understood what was going on was Bodie. Yet so much time gets wasted and keys lost because these two older kids are convinced they know things they don't. And the mother. Her story makes very little sense until it's made clear why she can't figure anything out. Same with the brother in law, whose plight is explained late in the season. But other than them being the adults legally necessary to set up the living situation both are utterly useless to the plot and serve only to provide distraction and body for the main plot. The twist was not jaw dropping. I pretty much guessed what had happened before it was confirmed just because of the sheer stupidity of yet another adult who unimaginably doesn't have a clue, but has too many vital components in her possession at one time and is never seen again. It was also pretty hard to believe that nobody got hit by anything at a certain major turning point in the last episode that people who saw it will know immediately and my skepticism was confirmed at the end. Basically the entire thing turned on the inability of major characters to resist trying to make everything that they are seeing logical. You never allow someone who prides themselves on their disbelief to lead an expedition into the extraordinary. And that is the part that required too much suspension of disbelief from the viewer for me to accept. Amazingly, it wasn't the idea that everyone in town walks around with magic keyholes in their faces.