Dreams in the Witch House

It was more of a pleasant surprise to see Ron aka Rupert Grint (hehe) in this episode.

The premise was somewhat intriguing and started simple. Brother felt helpless as he was unable to save his sister and that guilt carried over to his adulthood.

Overall the episode was alright. It got a bit draggy in the middle. The added villain with its disgusting rat and that house felt a bit random and pushed in. Especially since it is the villain that caused the ripple.

The ending was somewhat a downer but acceptable. Disgusting for sure.

But if it keeps rupert grint back, im all for it. Nice seeing Ron again in the screen.

This is the first in the series I disliked. Not only does this do a disservice to the source material, it is completely antithetical to lovecraftian horror philosophy. The idea of an afterlife, or purgatory, are not concepts that feel right in the Lovecraft universe. They're too optimistic. It's as if the writer or director took an existing story and we're told to make it fit within a Lovecraft framework. The middle of the road ghost story we're left with would be better told without the restraints of fitting it into the vague framework of the original Dreams in the Witch House.

Bad bad bad. Acting was fine.

I liked the way the episode started with a simple and compelling premise of a boy trying to find out what happened to his sister. Then over the course of an hour it got ridiculously complex with characters coming out of nowhere with little explanation of their back story or motivation, and I was like "when did this humanized rat show up and why?" It was a mess by the end and a waste of Rupert Grint, who I liked seeing on screen again and did a good job with what he was given.

Does Guillermo del Toro specialize in taking on problem personality actors and putting them to work again? He's had Crispin Glover and Rupert Grint in this series so far, both a bit notorious for their difficult natures but also very fun to see on screen again.

Had been looking forward to this episode as this is one of my favourite of Lovecraft's short stories. Typically though I was left disappointed. Instead of the nightmarish, hallucinatory tale of other dimensions, child sacrifice and unknowable Alien gods, here we have a rather run of the mill ghost story that only borrows a title, a setting and some characters from the source material, while pretty much ignoring all the interesting details of the source. Given the author's utter disdain for what he saw as the childish notion of 'souls', the afterlife and any form of spirtual redemption this is a very frustrating watch.

Anyway...Rupert Grint ( in very good form) plays a spiritualist desperate to bring back his dead sister and in the house of the title he seems to have found a way to the 'other side' but must now fight off a long dead, vengeful witch and her horrific familiar. As a stand alone horror for those with no knowledge of Lovecraft's wider Mythos this is decent enough, If derivative, slice of scares. If, like me, you were hoping for something a bit more grown up from a series helmed by avid Lovecraft disciple Guillermo Del Toro you will be disappointed and a tiny bit annoyed.

Years after seeing his twin sister die, and her ghost transported to a dark forest, Walter Gilman vows to get her back.

I was so excited to see this story adapted, and was even more excited when I saw Rupert Grint's name appear, I figured for him to feature that it was going to be something special.

Sadly this came as something of a disappointment, I was expecting something bleak and macabre, but was instead faced with something a little more Alice in Wonderland.

Some things worked, the visuals, the acting, Grint in particular was great, and there was some atmosphere.

Sadly there were more detractors, the story itself just didn't work on any horror level, it lacked tension, it lacked excitement, it needed to be more bleak. Pacing was poor, it was just too pedestrian, the script was distinctly average, at times if felt a little amateur.

The biggest disappointment so far this series, this was the one I had high hopes for, 5/10.