The 2003 BBC two-parter Byron, starring Johnny Lee Miller as the eponymous poet, arrives burdened by the weight of its subject’s mythos. George Gordon Byron – aristocrat, revolutionary, literary titan, and self-appointed "bad boy" of Regency England – demands a treatment as complex and incendiary as his life. While the miniseries, written by Nick Dear, boasts the BBC’s customary production polish and Miller’s magnetic lead performance, it ultimately falters in its core ambition: to dissect the man beyond the scandal. Instead, it leans heavily, often exploitatively, on the very sensationalism that Byron both cultivated and lamented, sacrificing historical nuance for titillation and reducing profound tragedy to a lurid soap opera.
The plot ostensibly traces Byron’s tumultuous trajectory from his 1811 return to England after travels through Ottoman Greece (where his documented predilection for young male companionship began) through his brief, disastrous tenure in the House of Lords, the explosive success of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the obsessive, destructive affair with the unhinged Lady Caroline Lamb (Camilla Power), his ill-fated marriage to the intellectually formidable Annabella Milbanke (Julie Cox), the suffocating rumours of incest with his half-sister Augusta Leigh (Natasha Little), his self-imposed exile to Italy, and finally his death in the Greek War of Independence. Structurally, it follows the expected biopic beats. Yet, the narrative feels curiously hollow, a somewhat routine recitation of the key facts. The miniseries prioritises the events of scandal – the Lamb obsession, the marital collapse, the exile – over the psychological and ideological currents that drove them. Byron’s genuine political radicalism, his searing critiques of industrial exploitation and Tory oppression, are relegated to background noise, mere set dressing for his sexual exploits. The profound intellectual ferment of the Romantic era feels absent; this is Byron as celebrity gossip column, not as a thinker who reshaped European consciousness.
Where the production undeniably succeeds is in its visual authenticity. The production design and costumes are, as noted, commendable. Theyl evoke the early 19th century with meticulous, almost fetishistic detail. This is the legendary high standards of British TV production in full effect. One feels the weight of the fabrics, the chill of the unheated mansions, the constrained elegance of the era. Yet, this very authenticity becomes ironic. The sumptuous visuals often serve merely as a gilded cage for the miniseries’ primary focus: sex and nudity. True to Byron’s scandalous ‘bad boy’ reputation, the screen is saturated with it. Scenes in Greece featuring young boys, explicit encounters with married aristocrats, Lady Caroline Lamb’s near-naked hysterics – the miniseries equates historical accuracy regarding Byron’s libertinism with graphic depiction. The problem isn’t the inclusion of his sexuality, but the framing. It rarely explores the power dynamics, the emotional devastation Byron wrought, or the societal constraints that made such behaviour simultaneously transgressive and, within certain circles, tolerated. Instead, the nudity often feels gratuitous, a cheap tool to signal "scandal" and titillate, reducing complex human relationships to prurient spectacle. It panders to the modern viewer’s expectation of a "dark and edgy" historical drama, mistaking explicitness for depth.
Johnny Lee Miller, however, is the production’s undeniable anchor. He captures Byron’s intoxicating duality with remarkable skill. He embodies the talented artist and iconoclast effortlessly – the razor-sharp wit, the languid arrogance, the magnetic charisma that drew admirers like moths to a flame. Miller perfectly channels the Regency-era "rock star," radiating a dangerous, knowing charm that makes Byron’s allure utterly believable. Crucially, he doesn’t shy away from the poet’s profound cruelty. We see the casual contempt for servants, the calculated emotional evisceration of Annabella, the callous dismissal of Caroline Lamb’s genuine mental anguish. This refusal to romanticise the protagonist is the miniseries’ greatest strength, offering glimpses of the tormented, insecure man beneath the bravado, particularly in quieter moments of creative struggle or exile-induced melancholy.
Alas, Miller’s nuanced performance is undermined by Nick Dear’s script, which historians rightly lambasted for its reckless distortions. The portrayal of Lady Caroline Lamb as a near-psychotic caricature, played with unhinged intensity by Camilla Power, is particularly egregious. While Lamb was undoubtedly obsessive and emotionally volatile, historical accounts reveal a sharp intellect, a talented writer in her own right (Glenarvon being a thinly veiled roman-à-clef about Byron), and a victim of societal gaslighting regarding her mental health. Reducing her to a shrieking, half-naked menace solely serves to vilify her and absolve Byron of significant blame for the relationship’s destruction. Equally problematic is the depiction of Annabella Milbanke. Historically, she was a progressive thinker, deeply interested in mathematics, science, and social reform – a woman far ahead of her time intellectually. Julie Cox portrays her instead as a cold, rigid, stuck-up traditionalist, a prudish foil whose inability to handle Byron’s genius justifies his cruelty. This erases Annabella’s formidable intellect and agency, transforming her from a complex woman dealing with an impossible situation into a cardboard symbol of repressive morality. Dear’s script seems determined to make Byron the only interesting, complex figure, flattening everyone around him into simplistic archetypes to heighten his tragic grandeur.
In the end, Byron possesses the superficial trappings of a prestige historical drama – superb production values, a career-best performance from Johnny Lee Miller, and a subject of undeniable fascination. Yet, its soul is compromised. By fixating on the salacious at the expense of the substantive, by distorting key historical figures to serve a reductive "tortured genius" narrative, and by mistaking graphic nudity for psychological insight, it ultimately fails the man it seeks to portray. It captures the glittering, scandalous surface of Byron’s life but remains blind to the profound intellectual and emotional depths beneath. The miniseries shocks, it entertains with its glossy sheen, and Miller compels, but it leaves the viewer no closer to understanding the revolutionary spirit, the devastating self-awareness, or the genuine human wreckage that defined Lord Byron. It is a stylish, exploitative rehash of the very tabloid frenzy Byron both despised and perpetuated. It’s a miniseries that prioritises the myth over the man, and in doing so, does both a profound disservice.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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The Curse of La Llorona came out back in 2019 and I remember hearing all this noise about it been part of the Conjuring universe because James Wan was producing it, they even threw in Father Perez from the Annabelle movies to make that connection feel more real but after watching it I can tell you none of that matters when the actual movie is this boring and lazy. This thing made like 123 million dollars worldwide which is insane to me because it really did not deserve any of that success, the whole thing feels like they were just trying to cash in on people who wanted to see something about Mexican folklore and instead gave them this forgettable mess that does not do anything interesting with the legend at all, its just another jump scare fest that you will probably not remember a week from now. Linda Cardellini plays this social worker named Anna whose husband died and she is raising two kids on her own, she works for Child Protective Services and gets involved with this case where a mom is trying to protect her kids from La Llorona by locking them up in a closet but of course Anna thinks the mom is crazy and takes the kids away which ends up getting them killed. The mom warns her that she just made a huge mistake and that La Llorona is gonna come after her own kids now, then boom the ghost starts showing up at her house and you already know where this is heading because every single haunting movie does the exact same thing, there is no originality here at all.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/3j9mzk8z)
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/3j9mzk8z)
There are a couple moments that were neat, this is why I dont completely trash this movie and at least gave it a 5 although I wouldnt recommend it, like when the little girl opens that see through umbrela by the pool and you can see the ghost standing there for a second, that was actually pretty cool because it did not rely on a loud noise to scare you, it was just this creepy flash that gets you, but most of the scares are just loud and annoying and they do not actually make you feel scared, they just make you jump for a second and then you move on and forget about it five minutes later because there is like no real horror in them, its like they were not even trying to build any real tension or atmosphere. The movie also tries to throw in some random humor that does not fit at all with the rest of the tone, like there is this character played by Raymond Cruz who shows up in the third part and he is supposed to be this ex priest who uses science and religion to fight ghosts or whatever, he has some funny lines but it feels so out of place in a movie that is trying to be a serious horror story, its like they could not decide if they wanted to make a scary movie or a comedy.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/3j9mzk8z)
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/3j9mzk8z)
I would say that the worst part of the movie is that the characters itself felt kinda lame and stupid, its like the girl in Annabelle Comes Home that actually kick on the movie by doing dumb stuff, same here they make so many dumb decisions just so the plot can keep moving forward and its frustrating to watch people been this idiotic. There is this one scene where they set up all these protections around the house to keep La Llorona out, they use these special seeds from a tree or something and it creates a barier that she can not cross, but then the little girl sees her doll outside the barrier and she reaches for it and breaks the line and lets the ghost in, like come on where the fuck is the adult looking for this children. Your mom just told you that this ghost is trying to kill you and you are gonna risk everyones life for a stupid toy, it makes no sense and its just lazy writting to create drama. After I think about, her mom is just the same sht, she notice burn marks on her kids arms that look exactly like the ones from the other kids who died and she does not even ask about it and just ignores it until the detective shows up and accused her ass for been abusive to her own kids, this is another clear example of either they high, crazy or stupid and the movie feeds from this stupidity so they could have that scene where she almost gets arrested and you are sitting there thinking how can she not see whats going on.
The whole movie just felt lazy to me like they were not even trying to do something diferent or interesting, they were just checking boxes and rushing through everything to get to the next jump scare without caring about building any real story or characters that you actually care about. The pacing is weird too because nothing really happens for the first half of the movie and then in the third part they try to cram in all this stuff about the legend and how to stop La Llorona but its too late by then because you already stopped caring about what happens to these people. They have this whole thing where they rub eggs all over the house to detect evil spirits and it looks so dumb, I know its supposed to be a real Mexican tradition or whatever but the way they did it just felt forced and cheesy like they were trying too hard to make it feel authentic. At the end they defeat La Llorona by showing her one of the necklaces that belonged to her dead children and she just gives up and leaves, no big climax or anything just oh here is your dead kids necklace now go away, it was such a weak ending that left me feeling like I wasted my time watching this garbage. The Curse of La Llorona is rated R for some reason even though there is nothing in it that would make it deserve that rating, they could have easily made it PG 13 and probably made more money off of it, there is no real violence or gore or anything disturbing its just a watered down horror movie that tries to act like its scarier than it actually is. This is one of those movies that makes me mad because it had potential and they completely wasted it, they took a genuinely scary legend and turned it into another forgettable mess, if you want to see a good horror movie go watch something like Hereditary or The Conjuring or even Sinister, do not waste your time with this one unless you just want to see some predictable jump scares and bad acting, I would give this thing a 5 out of 10 and that is been very very generous.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/ywn2jtff)
The whole setup is pretty simple when you think about it, Sage and Diego are this couple who arrive at this beautiful lake house mansion type place for a weekend getaway and you can tell right away they got some issues going on between them. Diego quit his teaching job to write a book full time witch is never a good idea unless you already got published and Sage had to leave her freelance writing to take an editor position just to pay the bills and keep things afloat, so there is already some tension there about money and career choices and you can feel it even when they are trying to have a good time. Then this other couple shows up, Will and Cin, and they claim they also booked the place for the same weekend and instead of one couple leaving like normal people would do they all decide to be adults about it and just share the damn place because its huge and has enough room for everyone. The thing is Will and Cin seem a little too friendly right from the start, like they are trying way to hard to make everyone comfortable and suggesting they all hang out and party together and play games, and you start getting this feeling that something is not right with these two but you cannot quite put your finger on what it is yet, the funny part is that they also gamble many times to push Sage and Diego away like when Will tells Diego to just "Rock, Papers, Scissors" the house and who ever wins stays, thats a free pass for them without even knowing, there are many of this during the movie.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/ywn2jtff)
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/ywn2jtff)
Slowly but surely I saw how the movie builds up the awkwardness and discomfort between these four people, like Will and Cin keep doing these little things that cross boundaries and make Diego and Sage uncomfortable but not enough to make them leave or cause a scene. Will ends up stealing Diegos grandmothers ring and proposing to Cin with it right in front of Diego and Diego just lets it happen instead of calling him out on it witch seems insane when you think about it but the movie does a good job of showing how people will put up with crazy shit just to avoid conflict or looking rude, if Diego had stood up it would be the end of the game still Will went for it on purpose, Will and Cin are just adrenaline junkies. Then you got Cin trying to lure Diego into her; but not in a bad way yet, and telling him she can get his book to some famous author she knows and Will is doing the same thing with Sage and trying to get in her head about there relationship problems and its all part of this game they are playing to mess with this couple and see how far they can push them before they break, they hole concept is to find out if they really love each other but mostly they just looking for the perfect couple that doesnt exist. The whole middle part of the movie is just watching these two couples interact and I was trying to figure out what the hell is actually going on, like are Will and Cin just swingers who want to have some fun or is there something darker happening here and the movie keeps you guessing for a while witch I really liked, because at first you had no prove they were the one from the first scene chasing a couple through the woods and eventually killing them to recreate a paint scene so you literally think its all mistake they bump into each other.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/ywn2jtff)
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/ywn2jtff)
Then shit hits the fan in the third part of the movie when Diego and Sage discover that Will and Cin actually own the house and have been doing this to other couples for a while now, by the way Sage is the one who discover all this and was so sweet that she did trust Diego after Will tried to get on her head, they find this whole murder headquarters type room with newspaper clippings about missing couples and files on all the people they have killed before and you realize these two are straight up serial killers who get off on playing these sick games with people. The twist is that Will and Sin are actually brother and sister witch I saw coming from a mile away but it still works because the movie does not try to make it seem like some huge shocking reveal, they have this whole thing where they grew up really close and killed there parents when they found out about there relationship and now they just do this for fun because they think other peoples relationships are fake and full of lies. Once the truth comes out the movie turns into a full on survival horror situation and the violence gets brutal real quick and I love this because even when the cat is out of the bag is there when the movie decides to go full throttle with violence, we are talking chainsaws and axes and people getting there faces cut off and blood everywhere and its the kind of stuff that makes you go oh damn they really went there. The final fight between these two couples is intense as hell and even though Diego and Sage seemed pretty weak and passive for most of the movie they end up fighting back hard and taking these psychos down in some really satisfying ending.
