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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) rated The Midnight Side in Books
Jun 7, 2018
(This review can be found on my blog <a href="http://themisadventuresofatwentysomething.blogspot.com/">The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-Something Year Old Girl</a>).
When I read the blurb for The Midnight Side by Natasha Mostert, I thought I was in for a scary ghost story. However, it's not really scary, and there's not much ghost in it. While it wasn't a fantastic read, it was still a decent one.
Isabelle (Isa for short) and Alette are cousins who have always been fairly close. As children, they would lucid dream together. When Alette dies in a car accident, Isabelle flies over from South Africa to England since she was Alette's sole beneficiary. Alette leaves three envelopes for Isabelle asking her for to do a big favor. Things become a bit more complicated when Isabelle develops romantic feelings for Alette's ex. Unknowingly, Alette has put Isabelle in danger. Will Isabelle make it out alive or will she suffer the same fate as Alette?
I don't really get the title. To me, it doesn't really seem to fit the book at all. Nothing special takes place at midnight, so the title is a bit misleading and confusing.
I'm not a fan of the cover at all. Besides showing Big Ben which is in London where the story takes place, the cover doesn't relate to the book at all.
I felt the world building was believable. There's been documented cases of lucid dreaming and receiving telephone calls from the dead. Besides the supernatural aspects, the rest of the world building was believable as well. The only thing I found a bit hard to believe was that Isabelle would develop romantic feelings for Alette's ex after she told her how he treated her. Plus, Alette was not only Isabelle's cousin, but they were like best friends. I suppose it does happen in real life, but it was a bit too instant to be 100% believable.
The pacing was a bit hit and miss throughout the first two-thirds of the book, but when it got to the last third of the book, the pacing steadied out, and I was hooked until the very end of the book.
I was a little bit confused with the story line. In my opinion, it was as if the book couldn't decide if it wanted to be more of a paranormal story or a psychological thriller. Alette leaves Isabelle instructions on how to bring her ex-husband's company crashing down. Isabelle must decide if she wants to comply with her deceased cousin's wish or listen to her heart. During this, Isabelle keeps receiving calls from Alette from the other side as well as Alette appearing in her dreams during lucid dreaming. There is a plot twist that I never saw coming. There's also no cliff hanger ending.
I thought the characters were all well developed. Even if Alette was a bit selfish, I still admired her determination. Isabelle is more of a follower instead of a leader which is why she does what Alette wants her to do. I started off not liking Justin, but by the middle of the book or so, I realized what a large heart he really had. Michael seemed like a good friend, but to me, he seemed to be a bit too...caring if that makes sense.
As for the dialogue, I felt that it flowed very well. In fact, I wish there would've been more dialogue instead of description. I think that having more dialogue would've made this book a bit better. I don't remember any swearing in this book, and the violence is mild.
Overall, The Midnight Side is a decent read. I think it would've been better with more dialogue and less description. I would've also liked more paranormal elements in the book, but that's just a personal preference.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 18+ who are fans of the psychological thriller as horror fans probably won't be too impressed.
<b>I'd give The Midnight Side by Natasha Mostert a 3.5 out of 5.</b>
(I received a free ecopy of this title from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review).
When I read the blurb for The Midnight Side by Natasha Mostert, I thought I was in for a scary ghost story. However, it's not really scary, and there's not much ghost in it. While it wasn't a fantastic read, it was still a decent one.
Isabelle (Isa for short) and Alette are cousins who have always been fairly close. As children, they would lucid dream together. When Alette dies in a car accident, Isabelle flies over from South Africa to England since she was Alette's sole beneficiary. Alette leaves three envelopes for Isabelle asking her for to do a big favor. Things become a bit more complicated when Isabelle develops romantic feelings for Alette's ex. Unknowingly, Alette has put Isabelle in danger. Will Isabelle make it out alive or will she suffer the same fate as Alette?
I don't really get the title. To me, it doesn't really seem to fit the book at all. Nothing special takes place at midnight, so the title is a bit misleading and confusing.
I'm not a fan of the cover at all. Besides showing Big Ben which is in London where the story takes place, the cover doesn't relate to the book at all.
I felt the world building was believable. There's been documented cases of lucid dreaming and receiving telephone calls from the dead. Besides the supernatural aspects, the rest of the world building was believable as well. The only thing I found a bit hard to believe was that Isabelle would develop romantic feelings for Alette's ex after she told her how he treated her. Plus, Alette was not only Isabelle's cousin, but they were like best friends. I suppose it does happen in real life, but it was a bit too instant to be 100% believable.
The pacing was a bit hit and miss throughout the first two-thirds of the book, but when it got to the last third of the book, the pacing steadied out, and I was hooked until the very end of the book.
I was a little bit confused with the story line. In my opinion, it was as if the book couldn't decide if it wanted to be more of a paranormal story or a psychological thriller. Alette leaves Isabelle instructions on how to bring her ex-husband's company crashing down. Isabelle must decide if she wants to comply with her deceased cousin's wish or listen to her heart. During this, Isabelle keeps receiving calls from Alette from the other side as well as Alette appearing in her dreams during lucid dreaming. There is a plot twist that I never saw coming. There's also no cliff hanger ending.
I thought the characters were all well developed. Even if Alette was a bit selfish, I still admired her determination. Isabelle is more of a follower instead of a leader which is why she does what Alette wants her to do. I started off not liking Justin, but by the middle of the book or so, I realized what a large heart he really had. Michael seemed like a good friend, but to me, he seemed to be a bit too...caring if that makes sense.
As for the dialogue, I felt that it flowed very well. In fact, I wish there would've been more dialogue instead of description. I think that having more dialogue would've made this book a bit better. I don't remember any swearing in this book, and the violence is mild.
Overall, The Midnight Side is a decent read. I think it would've been better with more dialogue and less description. I would've also liked more paranormal elements in the book, but that's just a personal preference.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 18+ who are fans of the psychological thriller as horror fans probably won't be too impressed.
<b>I'd give The Midnight Side by Natasha Mostert a 3.5 out of 5.</b>
(I received a free ecopy of this title from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review).
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated The Haunting of Hill House in TV
Nov 13, 2018 (Updated Nov 13, 2018)
Predictable jumpscares (2 more)
Bad acting
Crappy script
Overhyped Garbage
The Haunting Of Hill House is a 2018 Netflix series directed by Mike Flanagan, who directed last year's fantastically creepy adaption of Stephen King's 'Gerald's Game'. Hill House even features some of the same cast members in Carla Gugino and Henry Thomas, whom I both really like. Before diving into it, I thought that this show was going to be tailor made for me, with a brilliant cast and the same subtle but terrifying horror that Flanagan used in Gerald's Game.
However, after watching the first couple of episodes, I was struggling to get into it. Due to the massive amount of hype and praise that this show was getting I decided to stick with it. By the time I got to episode 6, I was done, but then my girlfriend guilted me into watching that rest of the series because she wanted to see it and she was, "too scared to watch it alone."
What a huge waste of time that turned out to be.
If you have read any of my other reviews of horror-based media, you will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the genre. There are very few horror movies or shows that I feel indifferent about. I hate lazy, formulaic bad horror and that is exactly what Hill House is.
Every single episode consists of a jumpscare at the start of the episode, then a hard cut either forwards or backwards in the timeline. Then about 15-20 minutes of piss poor acting and boring dialogue. This is followed by another cheap jumpscare, usually a woman screaming at an obnoxiously loud volume at the camera. Then we get another hard cut back to the other timeline.
The main issue with this structure, (other than being extremely lazy and repetitive,) is that when the hard cut is made to the other timeline, the audience knows that it is done by an editor and that we are now being asked to focus on a part of the story within the other timeline, but for the characters within the show, it makes no sense. For example, two people are having a conversation when something creepy happens. They go to investigate and a screaming woman comes launching towards them or is standing at the edge of a bed or doing basically any other ghost story cliché you can think of. Then the show cuts away to show the characters as children being haunted by a different ghost, but then when we cut back to the present, we never find out how the last jumpscare was resolved. What was the aftermath of that screaming lady at the end of the bed you ask? How was that resolved? How are the character's mentalities after this happened to them? Who cares?! Say the writers, let's just move on to the next cheap jumpscare.
The script is extraordinarily lazy and the child actors are horribly bad. This is an issue that I feel that there isn't really any excuse for anymore after the brilliant child performances in shows like Stranger Things and Season 2 of the Sinner.
If you judge the quality of something based on what it sets out to do versus what it actually does, then The Haunting Of Hill House is the worst show that I have had the displeasure of sitting through this year. The scares are pathetic, the acting is atrocious in places, the script is diabolically cheesy at times, there is hardly any originality present for an, 'original series,' and the show is overflowing with clichés. Not once did a jumpscare actually scare me, because they were all either laughably predicable or they would be totally out of place just for the sake of shock value and would merit a heavy sigh rather than an legit scare. The most egregious, offensively bad example of this was when two characters were having a conversation in a car in episode 6 and a ghost randomly screams from the backseat.
Please do not waste your time with this series, 2018 had so much brilliance to offer on the small screen and despite what you might hear from big publications, this is not one of them.
However, after watching the first couple of episodes, I was struggling to get into it. Due to the massive amount of hype and praise that this show was getting I decided to stick with it. By the time I got to episode 6, I was done, but then my girlfriend guilted me into watching that rest of the series because she wanted to see it and she was, "too scared to watch it alone."
What a huge waste of time that turned out to be.
If you have read any of my other reviews of horror-based media, you will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the genre. There are very few horror movies or shows that I feel indifferent about. I hate lazy, formulaic bad horror and that is exactly what Hill House is.
Every single episode consists of a jumpscare at the start of the episode, then a hard cut either forwards or backwards in the timeline. Then about 15-20 minutes of piss poor acting and boring dialogue. This is followed by another cheap jumpscare, usually a woman screaming at an obnoxiously loud volume at the camera. Then we get another hard cut back to the other timeline.
The main issue with this structure, (other than being extremely lazy and repetitive,) is that when the hard cut is made to the other timeline, the audience knows that it is done by an editor and that we are now being asked to focus on a part of the story within the other timeline, but for the characters within the show, it makes no sense. For example, two people are having a conversation when something creepy happens. They go to investigate and a screaming woman comes launching towards them or is standing at the edge of a bed or doing basically any other ghost story cliché you can think of. Then the show cuts away to show the characters as children being haunted by a different ghost, but then when we cut back to the present, we never find out how the last jumpscare was resolved. What was the aftermath of that screaming lady at the end of the bed you ask? How was that resolved? How are the character's mentalities after this happened to them? Who cares?! Say the writers, let's just move on to the next cheap jumpscare.
The script is extraordinarily lazy and the child actors are horribly bad. This is an issue that I feel that there isn't really any excuse for anymore after the brilliant child performances in shows like Stranger Things and Season 2 of the Sinner.
If you judge the quality of something based on what it sets out to do versus what it actually does, then The Haunting Of Hill House is the worst show that I have had the displeasure of sitting through this year. The scares are pathetic, the acting is atrocious in places, the script is diabolically cheesy at times, there is hardly any originality present for an, 'original series,' and the show is overflowing with clichés. Not once did a jumpscare actually scare me, because they were all either laughably predicable or they would be totally out of place just for the sake of shock value and would merit a heavy sigh rather than an legit scare. The most egregious, offensively bad example of this was when two characters were having a conversation in a car in episode 6 and a ghost randomly screams from the backseat.
Please do not waste your time with this series, 2018 had so much brilliance to offer on the small screen and despite what you might hear from big publications, this is not one of them.
Ross (3284 KP) rated Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) in Movies
Nov 28, 2017
This follow on film stays with the family after the events of the first film left the family reunited but with something decidedly not right about Josh, the father (played by The Conjuring's Patrick Wilson, who I really can't take to).
Everything seems to get back to normal for a short time with the family reunited and moving on from the trauma they've been through. But this doesn't last long and soon strange things start happening again, this time focused around the baby.
For me, this film fell down a little as many horror sequels do, trying to build on tiny parts of the original story rather than carrying on from it. I found the parts where the reality and past of the presence that haunted Josh in his childhood really engaging and exciting and creepy, but felt this should have been explored so much more.
Rose Byrne is good again, somehow keeping the family together through all the unpleasantness.
One thing that did spoil this for me was when, after a particularly creepy scene in which a ghost child's foot steps were heard running through the house, my 3 year old son decided to get up and run through to my bedroom so I suddenly heard footsteps eerily similar to those on the film directly above my head.
A decent follow on with some interesting exploration of small aspects of the first film, but largely more of the same.
Everything seems to get back to normal for a short time with the family reunited and moving on from the trauma they've been through. But this doesn't last long and soon strange things start happening again, this time focused around the baby.
For me, this film fell down a little as many horror sequels do, trying to build on tiny parts of the original story rather than carrying on from it. I found the parts where the reality and past of the presence that haunted Josh in his childhood really engaging and exciting and creepy, but felt this should have been explored so much more.
Rose Byrne is good again, somehow keeping the family together through all the unpleasantness.
One thing that did spoil this for me was when, after a particularly creepy scene in which a ghost child's foot steps were heard running through the house, my 3 year old son decided to get up and run through to my bedroom so I suddenly heard footsteps eerily similar to those on the film directly above my head.
A decent follow on with some interesting exploration of small aspects of the first film, but largely more of the same.
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