Sfdebris.net

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/oct/09/the-haunting-of-bly-manor-review-mike-flanagan-tv-horror-drama

Here is the FIRST FRELLING PARAGRAPH. No alterations or emphasis by me.

I am no horror fan. I am quite frightened enough in and by real life, thank you, and I stumble too over the large obstacle presented by the fact that ghosts and their ilk DO NOT EXIST THEREFORE CANNOT BE SCARY. The horror of humanity begins a long way before man’s worst efforts – the supernatural doesn’t even make it over the fear horizon. Halloween is the most boring time of the year.

I started watching this show at least 37% out of spite and I encourage you all to do the same.

It is odd when someone reviews things with this as their opening paragraph... but instead of saying, "This review is from the perspective of someone who is not about ghosts" they instead say the genre is stupid and infer that people who like it are also stupid.

And there is a place for reviews by people who don't like a genre, it is helpful to other people who don't like a genre to know, "Hey, this will not change your mind on the whole concept" or "even if you are not normally one for this kind of movie, this one does some things different enough that you might find it interesting" or some other angle.

I hate reading reviews from people who are always positive on a genre no matter the failings because they, "just like it!" but this sort of self important crap is always worse.

I dunno, the reviewer has a point.

But then again I'm not a horror guy, but at least I don't waste my time watching a genre I have no care for or even write reviews about. For example: I tried watching THE CONJURING (after so many rave reviews and friends telling me to watch it) and it was quite possibly one of the most boring films I ever watched. That's all I have to say on that.

That said, this reviewer should have just tweeted out that one paragraph Fuzzy wrote and that's it.

"And yet you chose to watch a haunted house movie?"

I mean, out of 1000 different responses, this seems the obvious one.

Makeshift Python wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:00 pm I dunno, the reviewer has a point.

Does he? Humanity's inhumanity to man is something I deal with every day. It's fundamentally boring because it's just evil.

Something that upends your understanding of reality is much scarier.

I mean I get his point of view. For example, I can't appreciate the movie THE EXORCIST because so much of it is complete nonsense to me. It doesn't help that I don't know anything about Catholicism, so whatever references the movie makes regarding that or any other religion just goes over my head. That's just a longer way of saying I'm not the target audience.

I don't think you really need to know anything about mythology to grock The Exorcist.

A malevolant entity has entered the body of a young girl, and a pair of wizards are trying to drive it out with magic.

I always find it funny when people take the position that the supernatural isn't scary in fiction because it isn't real. News flash: Hannibal lector isn't real either! Those people are actors. It's just a movie. None of it is real, we all know that, but that's why we play along.

In fairness to people who feel this way, we all have our own things that get under our skin and pull us out of a story. I can be watching a movie or show with friends and get completely pulled out of it by tiny technical details, specific tropes that I have grown irritated by over the years, or even just back seat protagonisting where I can't ignore smarter choices that characters could have made.

In somewhat less fairness though, ruling out all things supernatural sounds like someone having a near total lack of imagination. You don't have to believe in ghosts, vampires or Brad Dourif to imagine how terrifying it would be to encounter them.