After being slightly disappointed by the lack of hardcore horror in the Haunting of Bly Manor, I was hoping for this HBO series to provide the good horror I was looking for. To my surprise, my disappointment in this series is much bigger and not only because it lacks horror.
The story is about a black family with a lot of courage and a very mysterious past. They will begin to discover their past after receiving a weird letter from a family member who has been missing for some time inviting them to a very special place. A member of this family was also in charge of the writing of a book about safe travels for black people, this story takes place in the 50s so there was a lot of racial problems in the society.
The first episode was exciting, there are monsters, a glimpse of magic, and a lot of action. It was quite intense but sadly, the series simply loses steam as the episodes advance and the politics behind its writing get tiresome and annoying. This is one of the best examples of politicized entertainment you can find out there, I wasn't expecting HBO to ruin one of its productions this way but they did.
The series has its good moments, I enjoyed the monsters, and at the beginning, I also enjoyed the mysterious aura surrounding the strange wizards. Another good moment is when a girl is being chased by 2 evil spirits which reminded me of the type of evil being from the horror movie "It follows" but this time it was much creepier and disturbing. That was very good.
There are also a lot of things I didn't like. The plot is very messy and it leaves several things unexplained, such as the origin of the monsters. Several episodes were very slow and boring and others were very messy. The series tries to join together a lot of fantasy topics such as monsters, magic, time travel, and multiverses but it felt like the writer was overwhelmed including so many stuff. Plus, there is the inherent degeneration of entertainment when the creator decides to politicize it.
If you are looking for a dramatic series with a good touch of fantasy this might be a good choice to watch. Have in mind that if you don't like to see politics mixing with entertainment then I don't recommend you to watch this show. If the characters' races were inversed I am sure most radical leftists would call this show racist and would end up looting HBO offices or something like that.
The best
- Good monsters even though they don't spend much time on the screen.
- There is more fantasy than just monsters but the sloppy writing makes it feel very convoluted.
The worst
- It checks all the tickbox for radical leftist cultural mandates, such as all white people being bad. In the last episode, there was a very racist comment where a black woman says something like "no white people will be able to use magic never again." It is very disappointing to see entertainment being politicized and ruined as a result and it is worrying to see leftist radicals so out of control.
More information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6905686/ Review: AA In numbers: 5/10