More a creepy, sombre, love story with sparse shocks and dread than a horror film.
To start with, this season should have been 1 or 2 episodes shorter. I really had to push hard through the first 4. I wanted to give up, it was slow and confusing, but I kept telling myself that at any moment I was about to become savagely gripped by the story. In the end, and having invested so much time, my laziness at not wanting to spend more of it reading reviews, searching for something else to watch kept me on the treadmill. Episodes 5, 6 and 7 picked up a bit and 8 and 9 were kind of good leaving me not exactly frozen with horror but slightly chilled and pensive. The other reviewers are right, this is nothing like season 1 - The Haunting of Hill House, which I rated an 8. Why market this as a horror? It is not!
I found it difficult to care about the fates of the characters very much, though I thought the children were excellent and fascinating to watch even if they sounded like they'd hitched a ride with H.G. Wells from another century.
One thing I found quite refreshing was that it didn't lazily portray Father Stack as a brutal, stereotypical religious type but instead a very caring, sympathetic and helpful teacher.
I want to mention some inaccuracies that bothered me. Some of the so-called English accents especially the narrator's were an absolutely laughable mix of different regions. If any US readers can imagine an English actress doing an American accent incorporating 3 different and disparate states, then you'll appreciate how much of a problem this is for a lot of UK viewers. For me it really detracted from the atmosphere and escapism and made me groan and laugh when I should have been feeling altogether different emotions. You'd think they'd get the narrator's accent right!
I have never heard or seen a policeman with such a ludicrous accent and lofty attitude. No English policeman would sound or behave in such a contemptuous, sneery manner the way he did. It was as if he were portraying the unlikely circumstance of a nauseous member of royalty grudgingly working as a policeman to make ends meet.
And how hard would it have been to get a UK telephone ring on the soundtrack? What, none of the 300 odd people involved know how to Google?
And what was with all the night-time creature sounds?? We don't have crickets, katydids or such full throated frogs in the whole of the UK let alone England. Why not the odd owl, fox, or badger?
There were key points involving reflections but those seen in water or on metal were barely discernible. They were supposed to shock but even pausing the video I couldn't tell who many of them were and that just added to the overall confusion.
I was surprised at the racial and gender spread of the characters. Looked like a pc box ticking exercise to me and I hate it when it's so obvious that it betrays the time period. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for diversity in media reflecting current times, my own ethnic origin is south/central Asia, but since I'm mentioning distracting inaccuracies and unbelievabilities, that added greatly to the feeling of inauthenticity.
In summary - a vaguely entertaining, perplexing, melancholy mess, with a good..ish ending. Hope that helps! 6/10
