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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Great visuals wrapped in an shockingly uninspired central plot. .
I truly have no idea why Hollywood does this.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark isn't a "mystery".
It's a wonderful collection of short stories with fantastic illustrations that excite and repulse in equal measure. They are simple, almost a cross between a Grimm Fairy Tale and the wonderfully macabre distress of a Cronenbergian nightmare.
When I first head that Guillermo Del Toro was attached to this way back when, I was thoroughly excited. I believe early reports had him directing as well.
I am also on board with the director responsible. I loved Troll Hunter.
But it was when I saw that first trailer, and saw the rating. This is not intended to be a faithful recreation of the book. This is an amalgamation that goes by "feel" and little else.
This needed to have a harder edge. It needed an R rating. It needed to be soaked in atmosphere, the viewer dreading every scene. It needed that uneasiness that permeated each page of the books.
Unfortunately, a producer must have seen the newest GooseBumps with Jack Black and things changed. Tone changed.
I am not asking for buckets of blood and gore. But these books, while sold as books for children, were not in the least, intended for them. I grew up with these books, and have read them dozens of times. They amazing in how short they are, but so effective in achieving actual chills in record time.
But now, we have the movie.
I have no complaints towards the acting, or editing, or general design. The "monsters" were (for the most part) incredible. They were exactly as they should be. This is one of the most important aspects for a film adaptation to get right, and they nailed it.
It's the story. It's the plot. It's combining so many of these stand-alone tales into one dour narrative that is absolutely unforgiving in it's laziness.
This movie needed to be more like "Trick R Treat" than Goosebumps. It needed an edge.The resulting film, as it stands, wasn't bad. It's wasn't good.
I would of loved to have seen these stories represented in hour long episodes on Netflix. This needed to be a series, not a microwave-version of the "greatest hits" wrapped around an uninspired plotline that veers off into it's own "thing" for no good reason whatsoever.
Watch it for the practical effects and then read the books and imagine what could have been.
Game of Thrones: The Long Night (2019)
A mess.
I opened up Notepad midway through to write down the things that perturbed me.
1) At the start, why would they run out into pitch darkness?
2) Why didn't the Melisandre fortify ALL the weapons and the wooden barriers immediately upon getting there?
3) not using the dragons constantly, just hanging back and watching the battle from a distance? WTF? Why not use the dragon fire to illuminate the way for the Dothraki charge in the beginning?
4) Jon Snow going after the night king in an area where recently deceased bodies are likely to rise again, and he, having dealt with them before, should have known this.
5) Dany's dragon just chilling on the battlefield and becoming be a sitting target for all the walkers that surrounded them.
6) Arya sneaking around the castle for the "stealth section" of the episode. Whisper quiet when thousands of people are all over that structure inside and out. I'm happy to report that though they were screaming like banshees outside and in combat, they observed the need for quiet in the library and kindly obliged.
7) people coming out of absolutely nowhere to save someone else. More plot contrivances and Ex machinas than a Roland Emmerich movie.
8) Multiple overhead shots showing archers just chilling on the castle wall, bows at the side watching the walkers come at the wall.
9) this entire sequence: Sam getting knocked to the ground, having his Saving Private Ryan moment of muted silence while he is in shock and everything moving around him in slow motion, and then getting attacked, being saved by a familiar face, and as they smile and celebrate, THAT person gets killed. wow. big shocker.
10) How many times are we going to witness major characters get entirely enveloped by baddies just to miraculously make it out alive when the camera cuts to the next shot?
11) how the did Arya sneak up on the night king? I get that he grabbed her, but how did she manage to get even remotely close to him to have this entire scenario play out? Especially when they made a point in prior scenes of the SAME episode to show that white walkers can HEAR when drops of blood are spilled on the ground, and the Night King himself sensing that Jon Snow was following him from behind, from a huge distance away.
This was one of the most frustrating episodes of television I've ever seen. Strange, disjointed shot blocking, and cinematically incoherent editing along with more particle effects than the end of Batman vs Superman, along with dim lighting and a noticeable indifference to an established pace.
This was, at least for me, an anomaly. We all know what Game of Thrones can become. We know that these guys are able to pull off some incredible feats of filmmaking, where acting, directing and writing work in nearly perfect harmony. This was an episode that felt jammed through, and it needed to go through a few more rewrites.