#Haunting of Bly Manor was excellent and actually made me cry (in a good way)

[kitsmits]

“The Haunting of Borley Manor” - a movie review.

I watched this movie tonight with my husband - admittedly, I missed the first 5 minutes or so because I was listening to a podcast, but once I started watching…I couldn’t look away. It was just so bad. I was so moved by the viewing experience that I simply must share the review I left on Amazon with y’all. (This is what I do instead of writing my own freakin’ stories.)

Ahem.

Taglines: Haunting…Atmospheric…Cerebral…

Well, I guess one could call a lobotomy “cerebral.” I’ll give it this: It certainly made me think of plenty of ways to tell the story better. The writing was just…UGH. (There. Looks like the vocab center of my brain was lobotomized.) Maybe I’ve been watching too many courtroom trials lately, because I found myself wanting to yell “Objection - no foundation!” SO many times. Like…it’s fine to let the audience form questions, but more often than not, the questions raised were of the frustrating “what the ****” variety.

Borley Manor is an actual place with actual lore to it - the podcast “Lore” has a whole episode on it, and plenty of books and movies have been inspired by it. I’d heard the story through that podcast before, and I’d seen another movie about the manor - though I’ll admit, I don’t remember much of either, and my husband had to remind me of both. Once he did, a few aspects of this movie suddenly made more sense: There were gaping holes in the plot and dialogue that, in hindsight, seem to exist in part because the writer(s) are assuming the audience has some knowledge going in. Or, maybe they were so close to their own project, so completely immersed in the story they were trying to tell, that they forgot to establish most of the pertinent facts and circumstances. You know how sometimes, when you work on, say, an essay for WAY too long, you stop seeing your own typos and inconsistencies? Your brain auto-corrects them for you, because YOU know what you meant to say and how you meant to say its? Perhaps that’s what happened here: the writers’ minds automatically filled the yawning caverns in the script.

Or maybe they just REALLY needed to write a second draft.

The main character, whose name I do not recall, is the most American American who ever American’d in England. Honestly, he kinda makes the film feel like a self-insert fanfiction about the Borley Manor. He’s young, handsome, he’s the best at what he does (we’re told), he’s got a Tragic Backstory(TM) and Psychological Trauma, and he’s the Chosen One to uncover this ghostly mystery.

He’s been sent to a tiny village in the English countryside by the Allied Forces to try and listen in on the Germans (oh yeah, this is during WW2, btw). We do see him plenty of times in his little rented cabin with radio equipment and headphones throughout the film. His background prior to the war, we are told through a pointless side character, is in “languages and science.” Yes, you read that right: Science. Just…science. He sciences. You know what? I think I’ll just call him John Johnson who does Job at Place (and if you understand that reference, we are now best friends). Oh, and he’s also apparently a total whiz with languages, but that winds up mattering about as much as establishing what Science he sciences in. He insists to several characters that what he’s doing is classified, covert, super top secret he can’t tell you anything - oh, wait, you asked him about it a second time? Okay, sure, he can tell you what he’s doing. He’s not supposed to have civilians in his cabin either apparently, as he quite loudly states later on after he’s allowed several civilians into the place at various times.

Anyway. American military dude with a war injury, stationed in the English countryside to try and pick up on German transmissions…there’s a burned-down rectory nearby, a war going on, he has PTSD…plenty of great opportunities for creepy stuff. Heck, this would’ve been an excellent setup for a psychological thriller: How much of this is actually happening, and how much is in his head? Maybe have some undeniably real things happen around him - some randomly butchered animals, a villager found murdered (especially one who we’ve been introduced to), for example. Something to suggest that there are actual stakes, that uncovering the mystery of the supposed haunting is important. You might even think the radio will play a role.

(I mean…there IS a scene where he hears a creepy whisper over the radio reciting a prayer about “those who follow worthless idols,” but that’s about it.)

Nope. None of that. We are TOLD the villagers find the manor scary - oh, and John Johnson’s cabin, too, for who-the-heck-knows what reason. We are TOLD the most surface-level history of the place, how it burned down a little before the war, but the fire itself doesn’t seem to be the source or even an effect of the haunting. Creepy Ghost Nun just…happened to be there? Watching? Because ghosts are drawn to misery? Oh, and C. G. Nun also made a “shhh” gesture at Female Romantic Interest(But Not Really), but…that makes no sense when you get to the resolution of the film. (That actually JUST occurred to me now.)

Anyway, our American self-insert, John Johnson, goes for a walk, has a random PTSD flashback to when he was injured in the war (complete with over-exposed grayscale and possibly actual historical stock footage that does not fit in with the style of the rest of the film), and suddenly, he’s waking up at Borley Manor - the titular, burned-down rectory. How’d we get here? Dunno. (There’s a good chance I’m conflating this scene with one of a literal dozen others, to be honest - because they all play out the same way: JJ has PTSD flashback, or JJ has weird dream involving a screaming woman at the manor, followed immediately by JJ waking up in a usually random place. It. Happens. A. Lot.)

So JJ kinda looks around the grounds a bit, and then, when he walks off-screen…Ghost Nun rises like a undead prairie dog from the overgrown weeds. Dun dun DUN!

That pretty much sets the tone for the whole movie. It’s trying WAY too hard to be creepy, but it blew its load by showing the nun in her entirety right near the beginning. It tries to build atmosphere, but between the way-too-consistently-sunny-for-England weather and the high saturation of colors it just looks too bright to be eerie. The quick, often nonsensical cuts between shots were vertigo-inducing; I had to look away from the screen several times because of it. Never felt the need to look away when creepy stuff was happening, though, because it was extremely obvious to the point of being silly whenever it did happen. The plot had more holes than a honey comb. Oh, and don’t get me started on the stilted, unnatural, Turing-test-failing dialogue, or we’ll be here all year.

(Okay - a small, only somewhat paraphrased sample. Scene: Unnecessarily Creepy Neighbor (Whom I Was Half-Convinced Was, In Fact, A Bug Man In Disguise) shows up inside JJ’s cabin. JJ was, once again, randomly asleep, and wakes to find UCN(WIWHCWIFABMID) poking at his radio equipment.)

JJ: “You can’t be here!”

UCN: “Says who?”

JJ: “Will you help me?”

UCN: “No.”

JJ: “Then find me this man.”

I’m only paraphrasing a little. That really was the gist of the scene.)

The best part of the movie, though? The end credits. I’m not even being facetious here; the credits were actually kinda hilarious, and made the whole experience worthwhile. I recommend watching the movie just for those. The movie itself was also rather fun to critique, though I suggest watching with another person so that when you start yelling at the screen your neighbors won’t assume you’re having a psychotic break.

[prettylittlelyres]

2020: My Year in Reading

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I also re-read “Midnight” by Jacqueline Wilson, which was even better than I remembered. My sister and I have been re-reading a lot of Jacqueline Wilson’s books recently, and, in doing so, have found that all our hang-ups about them were actually… just a bit twitty. They’re great stories, they keep you turning the pages, and the pure sass of some of the characters just goes right through the roof. “Midnight” however, is a story I’ve always loved – no silly hang-ups could ever touch it – in part, I guess, because Violet just feels so Sapphic-coded, and also because she had a room full of fairy dolls that she’d made out of love for her favourite series of books, “The Flower Fairies” (sadly fictional, but I would quite frankly die of happiness if Jacqueline Wilson wrote and published even one as a novelty!). That might seem an odd reason to love a book, but, when I was at primary school, I was obsessed with the “Rainbow Magic” books by Daisy Meadows (by several ghost-writers, actually, but I digress) when I first read it, and had my very own “India the Moonstone Fairy” doll, which my mother had helped me to sew! As far as I was concerned, I was Violet, minus the horrid (misunderstood) big brother, and plus a lovely (the best, actually) big sister. Didn’t hurt that I was a baby gay, either, and that I had a close friend who played dolls with me (and with whom I might have been a bit in love). I’m seriously considering writing to Jacqueline Wilson to tell her how much I adore “Midnight”, even at 22. (I’m just not sure how to do that without coming across as a sycophant.)

Somehow, I’d managed to forget how heart-breaking “Vicky Angel” and “My Sister Jodie” were (also Jacqueline Wilson), but re-reading them at the beginning of December brought all the Big Tears flooding back. I managed not to cry outwardly, but these books hit me hard! I loved the Gothic atmosphere of “My Sister Jodie”, though – it was quite a bit like “Midnight” – and all the references it had to “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett (which I need to read, actually; I’ve only ever read the Ladybird version). The descriptions of Melchester College as the family sees it for the first time, and then looks around their living quarters, are great, such a strong contrast between this beautiful vista and the drab dreariness of life-behind-the-scenes.

I took December to make my way through my small (but growing!) library of writer’s craft books, with “Writing Deep Point of View” and “Fiction Pacing” by Rayne Hall, and “Writing Your Story’s Theme” passing a few hours on a rainy afternoon by reinforcing all I learned at A’ Level and teaching even more, and “Ghost Stories and How to Write Them” by Kathleen McGurl giving me a much clearer idea of how to craft something spooky, as well as how to market it. I don’t really write many short stories, but that’s something I want to change, so I thought it would be a good idea to start with some craft revision! Further to wanting to write more spooky stories, I also took December to finish “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James (more popularly known since the brilliant Netflix series as “The Haunting of Bly Manor”!), and the novel we were set in our French class, “Et si c’était vrai” by Marc Levy (the basis for the film “Just Like Heaven”, which I adore).

I’ve been trying to get into more subgenres of Alternate History and Fantasy, as I’m really enjoying “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey, but I’m painfully aware that it’s Eurocentric in the extreme. I’m so glad I made an effort to push my reading horizons further this year, because I loved reading “Daughters of Nri” by Reni K. Amayo, and I’m looking forward to reading “Children of Blood and Bone” and its sequels by Tomi Adeyemi. I tried to read the first one two years ago, but my brain was mashed potato at the time, and I couldn’t concentrate on it at all. I’m doing much better now, so it’s on my reading list for 2021!

I also finally read “Alone: A Love Story” by Michelle Parise, which is the novel-version of a podcast with the same name. It helped me through a horrible time a few years ago and is just so beautifully written that – despite it being attached to some nasty memories – I really love it, and still listen to it to go to sleep. Obviously, I knew exactly what was going to happen, because it follows the same “storyline” as the podcast, but the book is just as excellent. They are both the author’s memoir, focussing on how she’s learned to enjoy living alone, being single, and carving out an independent life for herself. Suffice to say, it was the first step on my ladder to “feeling OK”. Steps 2, 3, 4… 10, 15… 86, etc. were spontaneous day trips to Winchester, where I would proceed to hole up in a coffee shop with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook, sipping tea while I worked, and tried not to think about what was making me sad. Those steps were not as good as the first one, and if I’m going to recommend you pick just one, I’d say, “Pick Step 1, and read or listen to “Alone: A Love Story” by Michelle Parise.”

For far too long, I’ve had “On Beauty” by Zadie Smith, and “The Returnees” by Elizabeth Okoh on my Kindle app (I don’t like Amazon, so I’m looking for alternatives!), and hadn’t read either one of them through to the end. I’d picked them both up on occasion, but only on short bus journeys, or while I was passing time, waiting for tea to cool; it made it hard to get into them, but I decided I’d sit down and read them both from the beginning, and not stop until I reached the end, and they’re both fabulous. I love Elizabeth Okoh’s painting of life in Nigeria, and as a British-Nigerian, and Zadie Smith’s lavish descriptions of everything are just wonderful. I can’t wait to see what Elizabeth Okoh does next (“The Returnees” is her debut novel), and I’m looking for my next read from Zadie Smith.

More speculative fiction finished off my reading in December! “Gone” by Michael Grant is perfect for fans of “The Society” (Netflix – please renew it! I would so love to see further seasons!), and “Q” by Christina Dalcher was deeply upsetting, but a gripping read. At last, I also finished “The Left/Right Game” from the r/NoSleep subreddit. I stayed up late, late, late, and then woke up early, early, early, to read the last chapters, on the morning of New Year’s Eve.

So, there you have it; a condensed overview of books I read in 2020. Condensed? Yes! Condensed quite a bit! This article is over 6,000 words long as it is, so I think I shall split it up into several posts, and queue them to be published, one per day.

I hope that I’ve helped you find something to read, or that I’ve reminded you of a favourite book you now want to re-read! Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2021 be much better!