- Sat Oct 27, 2018 4:16 am
#111028
MINOR SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE BEFORE I RANT A BIT
The ending I saw was not the ending I heard, I could go on about this, and have to some friends a lot lately, but the crux is that not only was it sappy, it was thoroughly unearned and ignored the bleakness of leaving the house as is with everything left as is. There was an opportunity for either a downbeat ending and owning it, or giving everyone a truly happy ending. But to go somewhere in between, to have that sappy sounding song playing, and to then rewrite Shirley Jackson’s opening lines to suddenly be about something else really turned me off the whole thing despite how much I really kind of liked what came before. The result was that now that I think about it, taking Jackson’s themes and character names, ITs time cut structure, American horror stories first season finale, and making Carla gugino some low rent jack Torrence just means that Flanagan’s influences are taking over whatever originality he may have. I don’t think he’s a bad director, but There are some folks out there who are really giving him the keys to ankingdom im not sure he’s earned from genre fans just yet. It was a decent haunted house chiller that wanted desperately to be something more, and at times approached that level, but threw it away on that ending which was saccharine and ingongrous to the themes and plot he had established for the previous 9.8 hours. You want a happy ending, burn the house down and give everyone a happy ending, I’m not a pessimist, I’m not a nihilist, leave on a high note, I’m fine with that, but if you are going to leave half your characters in some hellish purgatory of a haunted house then acknowledge the bleakness of that ending and don’t pretend that it’s ok for the ghosts too now.
Hallelujah, holy shit...where’s the Tylenol.
And....scene
The ending I saw was not the ending I heard, I could go on about this, and have to some friends a lot lately, but the crux is that not only was it sappy, it was thoroughly unearned and ignored the bleakness of leaving the house as is with everything left as is. There was an opportunity for either a downbeat ending and owning it, or giving everyone a truly happy ending. But to go somewhere in between, to have that sappy sounding song playing, and to then rewrite Shirley Jackson’s opening lines to suddenly be about something else really turned me off the whole thing despite how much I really kind of liked what came before. The result was that now that I think about it, taking Jackson’s themes and character names, ITs time cut structure, American horror stories first season finale, and making Carla gugino some low rent jack Torrence just means that Flanagan’s influences are taking over whatever originality he may have. I don’t think he’s a bad director, but There are some folks out there who are really giving him the keys to ankingdom im not sure he’s earned from genre fans just yet. It was a decent haunted house chiller that wanted desperately to be something more, and at times approached that level, but threw it away on that ending which was saccharine and ingongrous to the themes and plot he had established for the previous 9.8 hours. You want a happy ending, burn the house down and give everyone a happy ending, I’m not a pessimist, I’m not a nihilist, leave on a high note, I’m fine with that, but if you are going to leave half your characters in some hellish purgatory of a haunted house then acknowledge the bleakness of that ending and don’t pretend that it’s ok for the ghosts too now.
Hallelujah, holy shit...where’s the Tylenol.
And....scene
I have been in this business a long time. Now if I don't want to do a show, it's not because I got stage fright. It's because some creature from beyond doesn't want me to do the show. Now gangway.
