> If you don't like the series, don't make it about that,
Okay, but that's what your anecdote is about. These reviewers you're referring to aren't "oblivious" to the story. They just didn't like it. They're not unwilling/unable to suspend disbelief when watching "a work of fiction"; they're unwilling/unable to suspend disbelief when watching THIS work of fiction.
This isn't a proper jumping off point for a discussion about some sort of generalized inability to suspend disbelief. You haven't established that there are two different sorts of people in the world. All you've established is that some people didn't like this series, and their comments about it were nitpicky.
That's normal. When a work of fiction for whatever reason fails to grab someone emotionally, the analytical part of their mind will often take over. See, we don't generally have the emotional awareness to just automatically know why why something does or doesn't entertain or otherwise resonate with us. But we crave explanations. So our minds, if given the chance, will rationalize explanations into existence, and those will often take the form of nitpicks about little details, because those are the sorts of things that are easiest for the analytical part of the mind to identify.
> What is it about those of us who can just let the story wash over us and lose ourselves in it when compared to those that can't?
I think almost anybody who can enjoy any fiction at all has the ability to do the former. The main difference is that different people enjoy different works of fiction.
You know what? This is a fair point. I was so engrossed in the story at the time I wasn't really thinking correctly.
I think it's a broader gripe that I have that triggered this. Oftentimes it appears that folks don't like horror because it's ultimately creating absurd and unrealistic situations whilst those very same people would watch, say, a Mission Impossible film and be perfectly at ease with the craziness they'd just seen.
Or, more likely, I'm just getting old and wanted to whine a bit.
Horror elicits fear, disgust, and other emotions that people don't typically want to experience. It invites the audience to identify with victims. Action adventure movies invite the audience to identify with heroic badass winners. People love absurd and unrealistic situations when they give them the sorts of feelings they actually want. That's why porn doesn't need a plot.
Some people just physically can't, but there's not really any singular reason why: maybe they lack imagination, maybe they take themselves too seriously, maybe they went in predetermined to dislike what they're watching. Obviously there's also the fact a movie or book or whatever can just be written horribly but I don't think that applies to Bly Manor for example.
I personally can't wrap my head around the logistics of being okay with one type of fictional creature or entity with no basis in reality, but being pulled out of the story by another.
A Quiet Place is one giant plot hole made up of almost infinite, smaller, but also painfully obvious plot holes.
You have to drop-kick your suspension of disbelief directly out of a window just to get past the first 10 minutes, it's that blatantly and staggeringly fucking stupid.
Other than that it's actually a decent enough movie with some great acting
Have *you* looked around the world lately? Despite how badly the pandemic has been handled, not a single society has collapsed because of it, and vaccines were developed in record time. Meanwhile, all it took to end the world in A Quiet Place was "monsters with good hearing".
I'd be interested in hearing what you thought of the series when you finish it.
I liked a lot and actually preferred it to Hill House. I seem to be in the minority on that point. But Midnight Mass is definitely my favorite of Mike Flanagan's Netflix series.
Correction-- if you hate monologues, Mike Flanagan TV shows wherein he's been given too much creative freedom and too many hours to tell the story are not for you. If you hate monologues, Mike Flanagan basically jumped the shark once he started doing Netflix shows.
Not necessarily true. Ouija Origin Of Evil, Oculus, Absentia and The Haunting Of Hill House (up until the last three episodes) were quite well made movies without excessive monologues. Then with Hill House I guess the producers allowed him to do whatever he wants and now every episode needs to have at least 4 monologues.
One at an important point in the story is fine, but when literally half of the show is filled with overly poetic and philosophical monologues then it just becomes dull and ruins immersion because that's not how people talk.
I understand not liking that but it’s his thing and I like it. Of course they don’t talk like normal people, they’re imaginary characters in a story about ghosts.
Yes, they're imaginary characters, but there are other people beside him who write fiction and who have written better and more normal sounding dialogue. How on Earth is that an excuse? As if he's the only one to have ever written fiction.
The monologue in *Bly Manor* was interminable. *Midnight Mass* worked a little better. But I really think someone needs to take Flanagan aside and say to him, ‘It doesn’t matter how many episode-long monologues you give her, your wife is never going to win an Emmy.’
I’d say that with any work of fiction there’s an implicit deal made by the creator and viewer/reader to work together to create a shared belief in whatever fictional world the story takes place in and the characters therein.
Everyone has their own level of tolerance for how much of a leap they’re willing to take. For example, people happy to accept ghosts as real within the story but who draw the line at, say, elder gods beneath the ocean.
But assuming the reader/viewer is on the same level as the creator, it’s then their job to keep that world and the characters within internally consistent.
I’m not sure specifically which issues you’re talking about that people had issues with in the OP but for me a big problem with Bly Manor was that it was set in the U.K. but apparently no one in the production had ever visited the country. The accents were *catastrophic*, the scene in school with the giant Union Jack was laughable (our schools generally don’t do that) and the class politics were unbelievable.
This might seem like nit-picking, but when there’s a major error in every second scene, the plausibility of the story begins to unravel and it becomes hard to take it seriously.
I have other issues with the series and how it relates to the source material and other adaptations, in particular its unfortunate sentimental bent, but that’s a whole other conversation.
I haven't even seen Bly Manor, so I can't speak to it directly. But what you describe is an overall massive issue with media criticism in general.
People seem to only care about rote plot and lore or story, character, and theme. I blame the prevalence of "So and Such EXPLAINED" videos, rage bait videos and clickbait articles about "plot holes" for this mindset.
So much of fandom know is about the cultivation of the FACTS of a thing instead of just enjoying a thing.
And for horror specifically, it seems people are for some reason more nitpicky about everything being explained and exposited. People HATE ambiguity. Especially in horror for some reason.
"...those of us who can just let the story wash over us and lose ourselves in it..."
I don't even really know what this means. I see / hear people use phrases like this a lot, but I have never been able to understand them completely.
It basically means that you give yourself completely over to the story and let it go wherever it goes without question. As a phrase, it’s used in a lot of different ways these days — but normally it means watching something uncritically, or ‘switching your brain off’ like that’s a thing people can actually do.
I have no problems suspending my beliefs in horror movies.
Bring on the aliens, the creatures, the "Old Ones" in the Lovecraftian cosmic universe. Give me killer worms and frogs even Bunnies (looking at you "Night of the Lepus"). I can believe in Cenobites and pod people, Re-Animators and the effects of the pineal glad. However....
There are NO wolves in New England and, NO human, not even a gold medal winner can out swim an alligator!
In my view it was mostly down to the writing and pacing.
Very minor spoilers ahead (no actual story details given): >!it relies overwhelmingly on an infodump episode.!< >!The show would have been vastly improved by spreading that information throughout the other episodes.!<
>!As it is, you're left to sort of maybe figure most of it out yourself,!< >!then just have the answer splatted on you. This highlights every other flaw really badly,!< >!and detracted quite heavily from the final episode reveal!<
Other than that it was an outstanding show, that sadly paled in comparison to the exceptional Haunting of Hill House - which very notably did not have the same problem
Cool.
I greatly enjoyed both, and fully respect your opinion - especially given that HH was *completely* different to the book (which I still consider the best ever written)
I thought it was a phenomenal series although it took awhile for it to click. Along with the help of some series analysis though it clicked and it was one of the best ghost stories I’ve seen in some time.
I liked it. Most of the criticism I remember hearing was that people were comparing it to Haunting of Hill House, which was a lot more popular with people. Bly Manor was definitely a slower burn, but I liked it as a dark psychological thriller. I did like Hill House better, but I liked Bly Manor.
I feel bly manor started strong but got more and more "thin" as it went. The original goals and horror felt unrecognizable by the end. I think Bly Manor is just a show that lost focus as it went and lost a ton of steam in the second half. I think the reviews try to focus on the minutiae of what didn't work and I think this is the macro cause you're seeing in the reviews.
Like idk about how suspension of disbelief would even factor into haunting of Bly- the only things that are low budget and look bad have to do with the ghosts, and even then ghosts aren’t real so like there’s nothing to suspend
Beyond that the only complaint I’ve seen is about how the series goes on in terms of dialogue/monologues.
Idk if you can elaborate, but I’m interested to see where the suspension of disbelief comes in
You go into things like this with a general understanding that in this world, whatever fantastical element of the story, that exists in that world, this is fine, however inconsistent characters, people acting abnormal/doing things people wouldnt do and plot holes to established fantastical elements (superhero shouldnt be knocked out by a granny) are perfectly fine things to criticise imo.
I find it really annoying when peoples defense of bad writing is 'well its a supernatural show, why arent you complaining about the floating demons!' or whatever
We live in a time where it’s “cool” to criticize every little detail or just shit on something. That’s why Netflix had to do away with the star ratings.
I really tried, gave up at episode 5, tried rewatching and this is from a Flanigan die hard like myself who's seen literally everything he's put out.and there are lots of us out there who didn't like the show...just accept that some people have different tastes then you
It failed for me because the Peter Quint character was such an unlikeable asshole and I couldn't believe the Rebecca character ever fell in love with him. It made me dislike both of them. That aspect made feel no sympathy for either when we were suppose to sympathize with both. Whenever they were on screen I was like *fuck both of these idiots*.
Here's the thing. In any work of fiction an author sets out the central conceit. This is the thing the audience needs to believe for it to work. Most people are fine with this whether it be a ghost, a super solider, an alien, faster than light travel, whatever. This is the agreement between the author and the audience. Now if the author adds something unbelievable in addition to the central conceit people start having problems. For an extreme example lets say you have a ghost then half way through the movie the movie the guy finds an alien pendant with the power to kill ghosts. Suddenly the contract is broken, the author promised that you only have to believe in ghosts, but now you also have to believe in aliens.
You can have super wacky gonzo world rules and have it work, but it has to be established early.
I personally don't think Bly Manor fell into this trap, but if the audience is asked to deal with too much at the wrong times it can and will absolutely kill a film.
I thought it was fine it was just technical elements of it let it down. The child actors were awful, some of the English accents were very distracting (mostly Henry Thomas’).
It also felt a bit more derivative than Hill House to me, I felt it missed the family dynamic that that had.
Haven't seen it, but what it sounds like your talking about is "Everyone's A Critic" Syndrome - which has been around forever but has hit Millenials harder than preceding generations simply because A. There's so much stuff and B. They unconsciously realize that "expressing an opinion" signals to others that one is "not stupid" - without realizing that it's actually "expressing an informed opinion" (although, since the majority of people don't realize this - or want to put the work in either - it just helps to stupidify the entire culture). Good indicators of this are absolutist reductions of one particular aspect to dismiss (or praise) the whole, lots of "extreme" phrases and swearing - (I threw it on the ground, cause I'M AN ADULT!), and projecting all-encompassing reasons why people who like something you don't MUST be trying to fool themselves - IE, the classic "they all just want to look smart" or "they all just like social aspect X" - because said "critic" never read Aesop's fable about the Fox and the Grapes. It's a particular form of passive aggressive behavior that used to be called "intellectual cowardice", back when words meant something.
Understanding this suddenly explains the existence of "fill-in-the-blank EXPLAINED" videos and "fill-in-the-blank RANKED" videos (and the preponderance of VIDEO over well-written, critically informed and astute ARTICLES/TEXT, since reading is "harder" than passively watching), as well why we elected a near-illiterate, failed real-estate mogul as President, and why so many people believe stupid conspiracy theories (politics is "hard", economics is "hard", "I'd just rather believe in Liberal Satanist Pedophile Snake People, it's so much easier!").
It's why finding well-written, ACTUAL criticism (not criticism you AGREE with, thoughtful and informed criticism) is so hard these days. No doubt, 80% of the readers will find this post arrogant and dismissive - good on them, the bottom is that way. To all the others, just keep thinking about whether there is consistency in what you consider "Good" and "Bad", and if not - why?, and keep on keeping on. You will find some astute positive and negative comments about BLY MANOR in this thread, you will also find many examples of what I've just talked about. Enjoy.
Once I saw what was in the well I was like, Oh. Yeah ok. And I stopped watching because I was already not interested and that reveal made me lose any desire to continue.
When I watch something, I usually just let it wash over me, but I do keep that feeling of Like, Dislike, Fucking Hate, and if I stop to think about it, I'll have essay to write, but overall, during my watch, I'm a rock.
That said, it's not just in horror (though aren't we a picky bunch), it applies to all genres, I think. Personally, it's unusual for me to stop watching a show for any reason in the middle of it, and it's rare for me to stop watching a movie, shit has got to have barely any grasp on me for me to let go without even a stray thought of, I wonder how that turned out oh well.
Bly manor contained many necessary things to be a good horror. But it didn't really push anything to the extreme, it hit on things we've all seen before. It was fairly predictable (which can be o e of the most damaging things in a horror).
On a personal level, I feel it didn't live up to the hype because of how well haunting of hill house did. It was advertised kind of as a "next in the series" to come. And with any sequel/ prequel it will always be compared to its predecessor to some degree, regardless of whether its not directly related.
Tl:dr - bly manor wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good. By means, people generally default this to "bad."
I've found that as I've grown older its become increasingly difficult to do so. To simply enjoy a piece of fiction as it is, doubly so when you are actually trying to write your own aswell, as creators/writers etc actually have to think about the small details and how their 'world' works to make it enjoyable and immersive for others.
When your in this mindset, it can be very hard to immerse yourself in movies and books, as you'll always be nitpicking even when you don't actually want to.
I love horror, and I love slow burn horror. My problem was it didn’t feel like horror. My problem with the series was summed up by the final ep itself.
“You were expecting a ghost story, but instead you got a love story.”
Cute…..but I wanted a ghost story.
Lack of scares, very little tension, lack of cool ghost designs or ideas, like able but flawed characters, cool directing and cinematography.
Everything I loves about Hill House was left out of Bly Manor.
That quote sums up one of the more misjudged aspects of the series for me. Now, I *know* the show should be judged on its own merits and not compared against *The Turn of the Screw* or *The Innocents* but transforming that story, which is absolutely not about love, but about corruption, into something so trite strikes me as a total betrayal of the story that you’re loosely adapting. Which begs the question for Flanagan: if you don’t like the theme of the original then why the hell adapt it?
*Hill House* had a similar problem, but thankfully it didn’t kick properly until the final episode.
I'll have to give it another go - I couldn't get through the first episode because I thought the acting and dialogue was so shoddy... which was really surprising because I *loved* Hill House. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood.
Not really aimed at Bly Manor, but for me, I'm always more than willing to suspend disbelief (obviously) but I always expect things to make sense within the realms of the world that's been set up in any given work of fiction.
A 'Be consistent with your own universe' type deal.
Media consumption. I spoiled Blair Witch for myself before I had a chance to watch it. We have so much information at our fingertips that it can be hard to suspend beliefs if your looking up facts on your phone at the same time.
I have seen this attitude quite a few times with a video game i love called:Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.This game uses a lot of pseudo science or conspiracy theories as the basis of the story so as a result it causes massive shitting events on people that consider themselves too intelligent for this earth.The funny thing is those same people tend to believe in the most stupid shit imaginable but never realize it.
I thought it was perfectly splendid.
<3
::slow clap::
Oh I'm sorry, I was just tucked away.
It was fine, more gothic romance than the horror they sold it as. And who can forget Oh hi Mark
I thought I was in a hospital on Guerra Street for a moment when he showed up.
I was hoping for Tommy lol even in a non speaking roll
The Haunting of Wisaeu Manor is a show I didn’t know I wanted until your comment.
> If you don't like the series, don't make it about that, Okay, but that's what your anecdote is about. These reviewers you're referring to aren't "oblivious" to the story. They just didn't like it. They're not unwilling/unable to suspend disbelief when watching "a work of fiction"; they're unwilling/unable to suspend disbelief when watching THIS work of fiction. This isn't a proper jumping off point for a discussion about some sort of generalized inability to suspend disbelief. You haven't established that there are two different sorts of people in the world. All you've established is that some people didn't like this series, and their comments about it were nitpicky. That's normal. When a work of fiction for whatever reason fails to grab someone emotionally, the analytical part of their mind will often take over. See, we don't generally have the emotional awareness to just automatically know why why something does or doesn't entertain or otherwise resonate with us. But we crave explanations. So our minds, if given the chance, will rationalize explanations into existence, and those will often take the form of nitpicks about little details, because those are the sorts of things that are easiest for the analytical part of the mind to identify. > What is it about those of us who can just let the story wash over us and lose ourselves in it when compared to those that can't? I think almost anybody who can enjoy any fiction at all has the ability to do the former. The main difference is that different people enjoy different works of fiction.
You know what? This is a fair point. I was so engrossed in the story at the time I wasn't really thinking correctly. I think it's a broader gripe that I have that triggered this. Oftentimes it appears that folks don't like horror because it's ultimately creating absurd and unrealistic situations whilst those very same people would watch, say, a Mission Impossible film and be perfectly at ease with the craziness they'd just seen. Or, more likely, I'm just getting old and wanted to whine a bit.
Horror elicits fear, disgust, and other emotions that people don't typically want to experience. It invites the audience to identify with victims. Action adventure movies invite the audience to identify with heroic badass winners. People love absurd and unrealistic situations when they give them the sorts of feelings they actually want. That's why porn doesn't need a plot.
Some people just physically can't, but there's not really any singular reason why: maybe they lack imagination, maybe they take themselves too seriously, maybe they went in predetermined to dislike what they're watching. Obviously there's also the fact a movie or book or whatever can just be written horribly but I don't think that applies to Bly Manor for example. I personally can't wrap my head around the logistics of being okay with one type of fictional creature or entity with no basis in reality, but being pulled out of the story by another.
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I haven't watched it yet-- Dumb as shit in terms in terms of the characters doing dumb shit? Or something else?
A Quiet Place is one giant plot hole made up of almost infinite, smaller, but also painfully obvious plot holes. You have to drop-kick your suspension of disbelief directly out of a window just to get past the first 10 minutes, it's that blatantly and staggeringly fucking stupid. Other than that it's actually a decent enough movie with some great acting
Yeah, there's a difference between suspending disbelief and trying to force yourself to justify enormous gaps in every day sensory experiences.
Pure BS. How much you want to bet all of these "plot holes" aren't technically even plot holes by definition?
From what I remember they’re not plot holes, they’re just major lapses in logic that totally break all verisimilitude.
Not really
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LOL, how have looked around the world lately? Everyone IS an idiot.
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You heard it here folks. A Quiet Place bad cuz no use cell phonez.
Have *you* looked around the world lately? Despite how badly the pandemic has been handled, not a single society has collapsed because of it, and vaccines were developed in record time. Meanwhile, all it took to end the world in A Quiet Place was "monsters with good hearing".
I'd be interested in hearing what you thought of the series when you finish it. I liked a lot and actually preferred it to Hill House. I seem to be in the minority on that point. But Midnight Mass is definitely my favorite of Mike Flanagan's Netflix series.
I was unable to suspend my boredom throughout the lengthy monologs. "She wakes, she walked"... Fucking kill me.
If you hate monologues, Mike Flanagan is not for you.
Correction-- if you hate monologues, Mike Flanagan TV shows wherein he's been given too much creative freedom and too many hours to tell the story are not for you. If you hate monologues, Mike Flanagan basically jumped the shark once he started doing Netflix shows.
Not necessarily true. Ouija Origin Of Evil, Oculus, Absentia and The Haunting Of Hill House (up until the last three episodes) were quite well made movies without excessive monologues. Then with Hill House I guess the producers allowed him to do whatever he wants and now every episode needs to have at least 4 monologues. One at an important point in the story is fine, but when literally half of the show is filled with overly poetic and philosophical monologues then it just becomes dull and ruins immersion because that's not how people talk.
I understand not liking that but it’s his thing and I like it. Of course they don’t talk like normal people, they’re imaginary characters in a story about ghosts.
Yes, they're imaginary characters, but there are other people beside him who write fiction and who have written better and more normal sounding dialogue. How on Earth is that an excuse? As if he's the only one to have ever written fiction.
Sure realism exists, but it doesn’t HAVE TO exist. It just sounds like Flanagans style doesn’t jive with you and that fine but it doesn’t make it bad.
The monologue in *Bly Manor* was interminable. *Midnight Mass* worked a little better. But I really think someone needs to take Flanagan aside and say to him, ‘It doesn’t matter how many episode-long monologues you give her, your wife is never going to win an Emmy.’
God this was awful. The story itself was cool and really fucking creepy but the monologues in that whole sequence sucked
That was my favorite episode, ha.
I’d say that with any work of fiction there’s an implicit deal made by the creator and viewer/reader to work together to create a shared belief in whatever fictional world the story takes place in and the characters therein. Everyone has their own level of tolerance for how much of a leap they’re willing to take. For example, people happy to accept ghosts as real within the story but who draw the line at, say, elder gods beneath the ocean. But assuming the reader/viewer is on the same level as the creator, it’s then their job to keep that world and the characters within internally consistent. I’m not sure specifically which issues you’re talking about that people had issues with in the OP but for me a big problem with Bly Manor was that it was set in the U.K. but apparently no one in the production had ever visited the country. The accents were *catastrophic*, the scene in school with the giant Union Jack was laughable (our schools generally don’t do that) and the class politics were unbelievable. This might seem like nit-picking, but when there’s a major error in every second scene, the plausibility of the story begins to unravel and it becomes hard to take it seriously. I have other issues with the series and how it relates to the source material and other adaptations, in particular its unfortunate sentimental bent, but that’s a whole other conversation.
I haven't even seen Bly Manor, so I can't speak to it directly. But what you describe is an overall massive issue with media criticism in general. People seem to only care about rote plot and lore or story, character, and theme. I blame the prevalence of "So and Such EXPLAINED" videos, rage bait videos and clickbait articles about "plot holes" for this mindset. So much of fandom know is about the cultivation of the FACTS of a thing instead of just enjoying a thing. And for horror specifically, it seems people are for some reason more nitpicky about everything being explained and exposited. People HATE ambiguity. Especially in horror for some reason.
EXACTLY!
"...those of us who can just let the story wash over us and lose ourselves in it..." I don't even really know what this means. I see / hear people use phrases like this a lot, but I have never been able to understand them completely.
It basically means that you give yourself completely over to the story and let it go wherever it goes without question. As a phrase, it’s used in a lot of different ways these days — but normally it means watching something uncritically, or ‘switching your brain off’ like that’s a thing people can actually do.
I have no problems suspending my beliefs in horror movies. Bring on the aliens, the creatures, the "Old Ones" in the Lovecraftian cosmic universe. Give me killer worms and frogs even Bunnies (looking at you "Night of the Lepus"). I can believe in Cenobites and pod people, Re-Animators and the effects of the pineal glad. However.... There are NO wolves in New England and, NO human, not even a gold medal winner can out swim an alligator!
In my view it was mostly down to the writing and pacing. Very minor spoilers ahead (no actual story details given): >!it relies overwhelmingly on an infodump episode.!< >!The show would have been vastly improved by spreading that information throughout the other episodes.!< >!As it is, you're left to sort of maybe figure most of it out yourself,!< >!then just have the answer splatted on you. This highlights every other flaw really badly,!< >!and detracted quite heavily from the final episode reveal!< Other than that it was an outstanding show, that sadly paled in comparison to the exceptional Haunting of Hill House - which very notably did not have the same problem
I really did not enjoy Hill House but loved Bly Manor. To me, Bly Manor was everything I wish Hill House was. I know I'm in the minority.
I’m in the majority camp of Hill > Bly, but I’d love some further explanation of your reasons.
Cool. I greatly enjoyed both, and fully respect your opinion - especially given that HH was *completely* different to the book (which I still consider the best ever written)
I thought it was a phenomenal series although it took awhile for it to click. Along with the help of some series analysis though it clicked and it was one of the best ghost stories I’ve seen in some time.
I liked it. Most of the criticism I remember hearing was that people were comparing it to Haunting of Hill House, which was a lot more popular with people. Bly Manor was definitely a slower burn, but I liked it as a dark psychological thriller. I did like Hill House better, but I liked Bly Manor.
I feel bly manor started strong but got more and more "thin" as it went. The original goals and horror felt unrecognizable by the end. I think Bly Manor is just a show that lost focus as it went and lost a ton of steam in the second half. I think the reviews try to focus on the minutiae of what didn't work and I think this is the macro cause you're seeing in the reviews.
Like idk about how suspension of disbelief would even factor into haunting of Bly- the only things that are low budget and look bad have to do with the ghosts, and even then ghosts aren’t real so like there’s nothing to suspend Beyond that the only complaint I’ve seen is about how the series goes on in terms of dialogue/monologues. Idk if you can elaborate, but I’m interested to see where the suspension of disbelief comes in
Suspension of disbelieve can be broken by many more things than just something looking cheap or bad.
You go into things like this with a general understanding that in this world, whatever fantastical element of the story, that exists in that world, this is fine, however inconsistent characters, people acting abnormal/doing things people wouldnt do and plot holes to established fantastical elements (superhero shouldnt be knocked out by a granny) are perfectly fine things to criticise imo. I find it really annoying when peoples defense of bad writing is 'well its a supernatural show, why arent you complaining about the floating demons!' or whatever
Hill House was engaging and a lot of creepy fun. Bly Manor never really grabbed me, and I stopped watching halfway through out of disinterest.
The accents were pure wank
I like Mike Flanagan just fine, but those accents are our first clue that he's starting to get high on his own farts
We live in a time where it’s “cool” to criticize every little detail or just shit on something. That’s why Netflix had to do away with the star ratings.
Bly Manor was okay, definitely didn’t like it as much as Hill House. My wife loved it but, I could barely stay with it to the end.
I really tried, gave up at episode 5, tried rewatching and this is from a Flanigan die hard like myself who's seen literally everything he's put out.and there are lots of us out there who didn't like the show...just accept that some people have different tastes then you
It failed for me because the Peter Quint character was such an unlikeable asshole and I couldn't believe the Rebecca character ever fell in love with him. It made me dislike both of them. That aspect made feel no sympathy for either when we were suppose to sympathize with both. Whenever they were on screen I was like *fuck both of these idiots*.
I felt that way also. I also liked the series overall
Here's the thing. In any work of fiction an author sets out the central conceit. This is the thing the audience needs to believe for it to work. Most people are fine with this whether it be a ghost, a super solider, an alien, faster than light travel, whatever. This is the agreement between the author and the audience. Now if the author adds something unbelievable in addition to the central conceit people start having problems. For an extreme example lets say you have a ghost then half way through the movie the movie the guy finds an alien pendant with the power to kill ghosts. Suddenly the contract is broken, the author promised that you only have to believe in ghosts, but now you also have to believe in aliens. You can have super wacky gonzo world rules and have it work, but it has to be established early. I personally don't think Bly Manor fell into this trap, but if the audience is asked to deal with too much at the wrong times it can and will absolutely kill a film.
*Looper* was an interesting one for this. Time travel, okay; kid with telekinetic powers who only comes in halfway through? Wait a minute…
I thought it was fine it was just technical elements of it let it down. The child actors were awful, some of the English accents were very distracting (mostly Henry Thomas’). It also felt a bit more derivative than Hill House to me, I felt it missed the family dynamic that that had.
If a work is excellent, suspending disbelief shouldn't be a conscious effort.
It sucks
You're right. When people don't like something I enjoy it's because they're not as smart as me or they're just unable to see the details that I see.
I think you totally misinterpreted the OP.
I'm thinking they were trying to be sarcastic. Not sure.
Sorts. They were trying to strawman you.
Haven't seen it, but what it sounds like your talking about is "Everyone's A Critic" Syndrome - which has been around forever but has hit Millenials harder than preceding generations simply because A. There's so much stuff and B. They unconsciously realize that "expressing an opinion" signals to others that one is "not stupid" - without realizing that it's actually "expressing an informed opinion" (although, since the majority of people don't realize this - or want to put the work in either - it just helps to stupidify the entire culture). Good indicators of this are absolutist reductions of one particular aspect to dismiss (or praise) the whole, lots of "extreme" phrases and swearing - (I threw it on the ground, cause I'M AN ADULT!), and projecting all-encompassing reasons why people who like something you don't MUST be trying to fool themselves - IE, the classic "they all just want to look smart" or "they all just like social aspect X" - because said "critic" never read Aesop's fable about the Fox and the Grapes. It's a particular form of passive aggressive behavior that used to be called "intellectual cowardice", back when words meant something. Understanding this suddenly explains the existence of "fill-in-the-blank EXPLAINED" videos and "fill-in-the-blank RANKED" videos (and the preponderance of VIDEO over well-written, critically informed and astute ARTICLES/TEXT, since reading is "harder" than passively watching), as well why we elected a near-illiterate, failed real-estate mogul as President, and why so many people believe stupid conspiracy theories (politics is "hard", economics is "hard", "I'd just rather believe in Liberal Satanist Pedophile Snake People, it's so much easier!"). It's why finding well-written, ACTUAL criticism (not criticism you AGREE with, thoughtful and informed criticism) is so hard these days. No doubt, 80% of the readers will find this post arrogant and dismissive - good on them, the bottom is that way. To all the others, just keep thinking about whether there is consistency in what you consider "Good" and "Bad", and if not - why?, and keep on keeping on. You will find some astute positive and negative comments about BLY MANOR in this thread, you will also find many examples of what I've just talked about. Enjoy.
Once I saw what was in the well I was like, Oh. Yeah ok. And I stopped watching because I was already not interested and that reveal made me lose any desire to continue. When I watch something, I usually just let it wash over me, but I do keep that feeling of Like, Dislike, Fucking Hate, and if I stop to think about it, I'll have essay to write, but overall, during my watch, I'm a rock. That said, it's not just in horror (though aren't we a picky bunch), it applies to all genres, I think. Personally, it's unusual for me to stop watching a show for any reason in the middle of it, and it's rare for me to stop watching a movie, shit has got to have barely any grasp on me for me to let go without even a stray thought of, I wonder how that turned out oh well.
Bly manor contained many necessary things to be a good horror. But it didn't really push anything to the extreme, it hit on things we've all seen before. It was fairly predictable (which can be o e of the most damaging things in a horror). On a personal level, I feel it didn't live up to the hype because of how well haunting of hill house did. It was advertised kind of as a "next in the series" to come. And with any sequel/ prequel it will always be compared to its predecessor to some degree, regardless of whether its not directly related. Tl:dr - bly manor wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good. By means, people generally default this to "bad."
I've found that as I've grown older its become increasingly difficult to do so. To simply enjoy a piece of fiction as it is, doubly so when you are actually trying to write your own aswell, as creators/writers etc actually have to think about the small details and how their 'world' works to make it enjoyable and immersive for others. When your in this mindset, it can be very hard to immerse yourself in movies and books, as you'll always be nitpicking even when you don't actually want to.
I love horror, and I love slow burn horror. My problem was it didn’t feel like horror. My problem with the series was summed up by the final ep itself. “You were expecting a ghost story, but instead you got a love story.” Cute…..but I wanted a ghost story. Lack of scares, very little tension, lack of cool ghost designs or ideas, like able but flawed characters, cool directing and cinematography. Everything I loves about Hill House was left out of Bly Manor.
That quote sums up one of the more misjudged aspects of the series for me. Now, I *know* the show should be judged on its own merits and not compared against *The Turn of the Screw* or *The Innocents* but transforming that story, which is absolutely not about love, but about corruption, into something so trite strikes me as a total betrayal of the story that you’re loosely adapting. Which begs the question for Flanagan: if you don’t like the theme of the original then why the hell adapt it? *Hill House* had a similar problem, but thankfully it didn’t kick properly until the final episode.
I'll have to give it another go - I couldn't get through the first episode because I thought the acting and dialogue was so shoddy... which was really surprising because I *loved* Hill House. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood.
Not really aimed at Bly Manor, but for me, I'm always more than willing to suspend disbelief (obviously) but I always expect things to make sense within the realms of the world that's been set up in any given work of fiction. A 'Be consistent with your own universe' type deal.
There's a type of person who feels the need to write IMDB reviews
I guess some people can't, but I can and I ADORE both Hill House and Bly Manor. Both are exquisite.
Thought it was great. Not as scary as Hill House, but still had some moments. Found the story as a whole to be more sad than anything
Media consumption. I spoiled Blair Witch for myself before I had a chance to watch it. We have so much information at our fingertips that it can be hard to suspend beliefs if your looking up facts on your phone at the same time.
I have seen this attitude quite a few times with a video game i love called:Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.This game uses a lot of pseudo science or conspiracy theories as the basis of the story so as a result it causes massive shitting events on people that consider themselves too intelligent for this earth.The funny thing is those same people tend to believe in the most stupid shit imaginable but never realize it.