Reviews

I thought I'd give this series a go, I like Dick Wolf serieses, and Missy Peregrym, so it was probably going to be at least mildly entertaining. Then Jo Danville walked in and that was it. I loved her in CSI:NY, and apparently so did Wolf since he just renamed the character, Dana Mosier, and put her in the series; I think Jo even when back to the FBI at the end of CSI.

The stories are nothing new, and the plots are predictable at this point, but there's nothing new in crime dramas anymore, so I can't hold that against the series. Apart from that it's very enjoyable so far.

I like the characters, their different styles and backgrounds make things interesting. Even if I do know what's going to happen, it's still fun to watch the cases unfold. I like that there isn't a lot of unnecessary background and personal storylines, that's not why I watch procedural crime dramas (I'd watch chick flicks for that.) And the science is absolutely hilarious.

The series started off as a fairly good (nothing amazing) fanfic. Then about two thirds of the way through series 3 the writers got lazy, and the whole thing turned into a half-witted, American, cop show. It got a little better for serieses 10 and 11, but still very much a lowest common denominator series.

I love the books and thought I'd enjoy this series, even if they had tried to update it, and to begin with it was quite enjoyable, but not for long. The writers clearly know nothing about the 50s, couldn't be bothered to do any research, and based this series on what they've seen on TV, without considering the obvious fact that the programs they were watching weren't made or set here. Nothing about this series fits with the UK in the 1950s and the writer's ignorance gets more glaringly obvious the longer the series goes on. The US was barely affected by WWII (that's how their soldiers enticed European women with chocolate and stockings), whereas rationing hadn't fully ended here in 1953 when the first series is set. And the country where the QUEEN (nicknamed Princess Auto Mechanic) was an engineer in the war, and women had had to take over all the traditionally male roles, including active military roles, didn't have the sexist attitudes towards what women could and couldn't do, that appears in most of the episodes in this series. And women weren't inherently submissive, or worried about being able to survive without a man to look after them; the men hadn't been around for years, and many of those who returned needed care rather than being the caretakers.

Not to mention the moronic mistakes in forensics, police procedure, and basic common sense.

After series 3, the writers seem to spend more time coming up with ways for the current Inspector to be aggressively stupid and incompetent, so he can unfailingly arrest the wrong person, than they spend on the actual plot of the episodes; which is an impressive level of cretinous laziness considering they already had stories written for them. Is character devolvement a thing? Because that's what they have created here. In any other series, the Inspectors would at the very least eventually come to accept that Father Brown is usually right, even if his "meddling" didn't get any less annoying, and listen to what he had to say. In this series, the longer the Inspectors know the Father, the less likely they are to even hear him out, and they either completely ignore him (after threatening to have him arrested on no charges) or go in the opposite direction to be contrary; even ignoring the evidence in their determination not to admit the priest might have a point. That doesn't happen here, in a country that isn't big enough for anywhere to be cut off and essentially autonomous. Every now and then the writers remember than the Kembleford police are a phone call away from the Chief, have to send their reports to HQ, and don't get to keep their jobs when they invariably charge the wrong person.....then they forget and revert to stereotypical small town US, where the Sheriff is the law.

And it's only VERY loosely based on the characters from the novels, Father Brown is notably young (which in 1911 meant about 20), plump, quite shy, speaks very little, and has only a passing interest in Man's laws. He has let innocent people hang, let unrepentant murderers walk free, and on a few occasions, washed his hands of the whole thing because not everyone deserves saving. Making him a bumbling fool who is mocked and disliked by all authority figures is an insult to the author. And what they've done to Flambeau is almost as bad, plus being a real let down for anyone who's read the books; obviously, this group does not include the writers of the series. The character is quite brilliantly written: he's a "giant", loud, passionate, multifaceted, highly intelligent Frenchman, whose joie de vivre fits his name, and is a completely free man. He and the Father become friends in the first story, and since Flambeau (who is nonviolent, and uses silly tricks and playing dress-up to get away with his thefts) has never actually been caught, he goes straight-ish (kinda like Sid in the series) and settles in England near his friend. He is the only companion the Father has in the novels, has far more empathy, and since he doesn't believe in god, is often more interested in earthly justice than the priest. He becomes an investigator at one point, and brings several cases to Brown because he genuinely wants to help. Turning him into a clichéd, basically English, self-centred, violent, common criminal, is just ridiculous, and irritating when you know there's so much more to the character. Why use the character names if you aren't going to use the actual characters? The writer's could have just made up a couple of names, or far more sensibly, used the characters they were given instead of completely changing Father Brown and inventing Sid to fill Flambeau's role.

They basically just remade the first film, except with a much lower budget (and IQ of the writers). It's exactly the same storyline as the first one; scientist with a god complex decides that human life, morals, and every law about genetic modification are worth less than their research. Makes one of the best killers in the history of the planet smarter. Turns out scientist isn't as smart as fish. Watery death. The end.

While it was quite funny considering how many problems, and deaths, could have been avoided if the characters had just watched the first film, it does highlight just how much of the film was a remake instead of a sequel.

And the bits they did change were moronic! The loony toon's research doesn't even make sense, let alone work even in theory, none of the things he did would have affected the sharks like he said they did, the reasons for getting extra people to the lab just when the sharks decide to go rogue were ridiculous, and there was no reason whatsoever for the visitors to have stayed longer than about 5mins (at least in the first one they didn't know the scientist was insane and the sharks were super intelligent), and the plot randomly went off on a Terminator tangent about halfway through.

It was so bad I felt embarrassed for the cast, at least films like Piranha and the Friday the 13th films were supposed to be stupid, everyone knew they were jokes, but this was touted as a serious sequel to a popular horror film. So we were all the victims of false advertising.

The entire plot revolves around the "fact" that all black people look the same. I can't believe LL Cool J was part of this.

Absolutely repugnant episode in every single way!

The past few seasons the writers have really been embracing the racism; black people can't be Russian, there are no white Muslims. But this episode really extracts the urine.

Every single character in the episode swears that 2 men are identical based solely on heritage and lack of hair. They don't even have the same skin colour, but apparently brown is brown and that's all that matters.

The chatacters even claimed to identify someone who's face they never saw, just by their silhouette and the fact that none of their face is at all visible in the cctv footage, which suggests that they're dark skinned.

This film doesn't deserve the low rating it has. Who doesn't like a bit of ridiculously over the top, anatomically impossible, gore, and a nice simple plot? Who's watching low budget slashers looking for high art?

If you didn't follow the plot, that's a you problem, not a writing problem. And if you did follow the plot, it's not particularly unbelievable. (Certainly no less believable than a man who made a full-body human skin suit, and that happened in real life. (Google Ed Gein.))

The SF/X were on the Jason punching a head off level of realism, the plot required no thinking to follow, but there were enough unanswered questions to make it worth watching to the end. I really don't know what people's issue with it is. It's a low budget film (like student film low budget), with a cast of about 10 people, I'm not sure what miracles other people were expecting. Yeah, the script needed some work, but no-one sane expects a Shakespeare sonnet from the writers of a slasher film. It's not like the cast of the Freddy films have elegant soliloquies.

Seeing Mackenzie Gray was an extra bit of fun for me, I like him, and he pops up in the most random places.

Funniest film I've seen in ages. It has ALL the tropes and clichés and is proud of it. Considering the fact that the entire point of slasher films is to kill off as many people in as many different (and often ridiculous) ways as possible in around 90 minutes, this film fits the genre perfectly. With the added bonus of bunking off a bunch of people it's kinda fun to see die stupidly. It's even got a moral, but I won't give away the ending.

I honestly really enjoyed the film and I'm only writing a review because I saw the unfair rating it has when I was searching for it to watch again. If you think horror has to be a big budget, all star cast, epic then don't bother. If you enjoy a good old fashioned high body count, low brain power horror then I'd recommend it.

Plus I love Danny Trejo.

I've lost count of the number of times I've rewatched this series, it's one of my favourites, but every time I watch it I ask myself why. Jules is an actual psychopath. Throughout the entire series there isn't one second when she even recognises that other people are people, let alone cares about their feelings or how her actions effect them. The few times she's almost a good parent or friend, it's because someone explained how it would make her look good. She's only there for her "friends" when it benefits her. And her poor boyfriends/partners are tortured on a daily basis because she just decides who they should be and the throws a tantrum when they don't fit her imaginary version of them. Because it's sooooo hard only ever thinking about herself and she needs their support.

Luckily the series is saved by the rest of the cast and some damn good writing.

The combination of characters means there's something relatable to a wide range of viewers. Ellie and Andy are the best and worst couple I have ever seen and the fact that they are so in love despite being polar opposites is heartwarming. Plus Ellie is so ridiculously over the top it's funny. They find a way to take the edge off when her cold hearted act starts to get too much.

Travis is the voice of reason, except when he isn't and falls down the rabbit hole with the adults. It's fun to watch him try to fight the crazy.

Laurie's total indifference to most social norms is one of my favourite things. The things she does just being herself are hilarious, and the things she does to scandalise Ellie are brilliant! "Chess with a monkey" will stay with me forever. And she's just so BIG! She's loud, and dresses like she fell through an 80s music video and stole all the florescent, but her heart is the biggest thing about her. She's there for everyone, even Ellie, even when it doesn't seem like they're friends.

And the unique relationship between Andy, Bobby, and Grayson is really lovely. There's definitely an opportunity for a sequel to the series where Andy and Bobby have finally run away together. And it's sweet watching Grayson find his emotions with them, no worrying about what's "manly" just men being open and caring for the people they love.

Basically it's the Mad Hatter's tea party, but with wine.

The film wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either. It's a collection of ghost stories with some, low budget, filler to link them together, I'm not really sure what other people were expecting from an anthology from an unheard-of production company, but this fulfills the brief.

I actually rather enjoyed the film, the idea of making offerings to the dead and the dead making their own offerings in return, was quite novel. And the stories the dead sent were pretty good.

I really like Asian mythology, so the short stories were exactly my kind of thing, but the stories rarely have a moral or a nice neat ending, which I know annoys a lot of westerners. If you don't like that type of story, don't watch the film. Even the characters question the lack of point or moral to the tales.

If you like Geodam or Junji Ito Maniac, then you'll probably appreciate this film, but if you don't like the "s**t happens" approach to story telling, this will be frustrating. There's no explanation for most of the things that happen in the stories and most of them are completely open to interpretation. Which is what I find interesting about them.

First we start with the client gushing over her amazing, wonderful, perfect, miracle baby, then vaguely mentions that the child she already had is standing right next to her. The child that she clearly only brought along with the expectation that she would also gush over the magical rainbow baby. All that "we thought it would never happen for us" while the proof that is already happened for them stands there forgotten. BTW,there's no such thing as a "double rainbow baby", no-one else is counting so they can make their kid sound more special.

Then we move on to Little Miss I-know-all-about-flavours-coz-I-have-super-senses, who after hearing that the baby doesn't like bitter or sour goes "I'm making key lime pie, because that's what I like to make" and proceeds to choose other citrus fruits to add on, just in case the lime itself wasn't sour enough.

I was already doubting Maya-Camille's claims to have a better sense of taste than other people (mostly because that isn't one of the senses that improves for deaf people), then she nearly made her colleagues vomit with her "treat" of a candy cane in a gherkin. There's no way in hell that anyone with taste buds thinks that's good, but Maya-Camille has no clue that it's a revolting combination. Then she picks citrus fruit when the single instruction was to make something really sweet. Some citrus can have some sweetness, but all citrus fruits are sour, it's just a matter of degrees of sourness, but apparently the "flavour expert" doesn't know that, doesn't care to find out, and can't taste it with her superpower.

This show is the epitome of "it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part". There isn't even a prize, the winner just gets bragging rights.

All 5 dessert chefs are kind, caring people who just want the clients to have the best celebration possible and don't care whose design accomplishes that.

Christina Tosi is so supportive of her chefs and will find anything they need to make their vision come to life. And the 4 "competitors" are more than happy to lend a helping hand, even giving each other recipes to help each other's creations.

And their creations are epic. There isn't a single episode where they don't go far beyond the client's wildest dreams and create true edible art. 15/10, all the stars!

Kinda fun, but I totally see why it didn't get renewed. The joy of seeing humans wear the cone of shame was great, that's not enough to make a long running series. To steal a quote "it was cool for what it was, but it wa'n't all that." And it's all been done before. There are several tattoo cover-up shows, and the whole premise of Just Tattoo of Us is people getting tattoos that are chosen by a (supposed) loved one, and they don't get to see it till it's done. They even copied the whole "bonding moment" of one of the team getting tattooed on the show.

Cover-ups are a very specialised skill and not all the artists are good at it, which was a little disappointing. Not to say they aren't talented, but not all the tattoos were as good as they could have been. And having watched far too many tattoo shows, random artists on YouTube, and tattoo competitions, it's clear that the claim that they are some of the best artists in the industry is a rather exaggerated.

It was entertaining to hear the stories behind the terrible tattoos, even if a worryingly high number of those stories are " I knew someone who bought a tattoo machine". But even that isn't original, like they say on the show, there's a story behind every tattoo.

The whole thing was just a bit meh. I'm not mad I watched it, but I wouldn't watch it again.

From the very start Milly is a truly awful human being and her psychotic behaviour completely takes over the episode. If I'd wanted to watch a self-obsessed lunatic manipulating everyone around them I'd watch the Karcrashians. And the ending just made me angry.

A man presumed dead showing up at his widow's wedding and declaring he is rejoining the family, is a pretty good set up. There were so many possibilities for different murder-victims combos. But the way the writers tried to sex up the story and add a load of ill-fitting red herrings taken from several other mystery novel serieses made it more like a bad soap opera storyline than an episode of a crime drama. It got so bad I wouldn't have been surprised to see a secret evil twin pop up.

The only good thing about the episode was the acceptance shown to a certain character (by most).

I'm a big fan of Death in Paradise and Humphrey in particular. I'm also a fan of Johnathan Creek and this series has the same kind of feel.

I've rewatched Death in Paradise so many times and the Humphrey episodes are just that little bit more fun, and now we have more of the kindest, most unintentionally funny, brilliant detective St. Marie ever had. What's not to love?

I'm really enjoying the series so far, the cases are weird and new and enjoyably confusing, and I love that they've found a way to bring it home but still base it in a small community. Plus they've actually kept the character, there's even been a couple of call-backs to the original series. So many spin-offs take a beloved character and throw their entire personality and history out the window, as if just the name and the actor are enough, they aren't. But this series is obviously created by someone who really appreciates DI Goodman in all his bumbling glory.

I was expecting something along the lines of the film Bedeviled, but less stupid. (Not that stupid films can't be enjoyable, I have seen it 5 times.) This series is far more than it appeared.

I just put it on to see if it was worth watching and accidentally watched the first 5 episodes, at which point I couldn't not see how it ended so I ended up watching the whole series in one night.

The characters are well written and well acted, they're really relatable, the audience either are those kids or remember being them.

The story itself is seriously creepy, more so because of the insidious nature of the app. It can improve or destroy its user's life so subtly and quietly even the user doesn't realise what it is doing, let alone their friends and families.

Plus we all rely far too much on our phones and it would be really easy to for an app to beggar everything up.

I was so disappointed. After reading the plot outline is was quite excited to watch this series, it reminded me a little of Dead Set and I was looking forward to seeing the series I thought I was going to watch, just to see the exact same scenes from Dead Set with a different cast.

This is basically a shot for shot remake of Dead Set. Even the actress playing the main character looks a lot like the original.....and they may have just borrowed the wardrobe.

There doesn't seem to be any reason for not just dubbing the English version, except to give some little known actors and actresses some work.

As a huge fan of short stories, anthologies, anime, Manga (watching or reading), and Asian stories this has immediately shot to the top of my favourites list. I admit I haven't finished the series yet, because I had to go back and rewatch some of the earlier episodes almost immediately. They're just so good.

Netflix recommended this because I'd just watched (and "love this"ed) Goedam and Asian, Horror, and Anthologies are my most searches for categories, and a relative recommended it because Requiem from the Darkness is one of my all-time favourite serieses and this has much the same feel. I am grateful to them both and fully intend to watch or read as much of Junji Ito's work as I can find.

One of the many things I was impressed by was the story told by the "post credits madman". Which is complete unique as far as I know. Each episode ends with a few short, haunting, lines from an unidentified narrator, and I love the creepiness. It also takes a rare talent to write a story that can be told in chunks of about 30 seconds, by an unseen speaker.

If you aren't into Manga style animations, this is not the series for you.

The drawing style is perfectly legitimate (and I think has a unique beauty) and the stories are typical short stories, there's no closure because if there was the stories would no longer be short. If you don't want to have to work out the characters backstories and what happens after the story ends, then short stories (and Asian media in general) is not for you either. I personally enjoy this snapshot of life. I don't care what happens to the characters after the story is done. Also every story has to end somewhere, why does the ending have to be happy, or have some kind of meaning? The killer is revealed, the monster is fed, the main character dies, whatever, it doesn't really matter what happened next.

I watched Patient Seven last night so immediately recognised the story at 40:40 as being from that.

The connections for this compilation are the short films that were "edited"/used in their entirety to make this. Each of the stories told and shown in this film is taken from somewhere else and re-released as if it was original.

The stories themselves were a bit bit and miss, like the curator went through the horror film bargain bin and just threw together the first few they came to. The small part of this film that actually was almost original was so predictable it was boring. Basically, the characters are stolen too, they're lazily written stereotypes from every low budget horror film out there. They don't even have enough personality to make you care if they live or die, let alone make an interesting film.

I don't get all these rave reviews for Kate Micucci, the stuffed duck would have been more entertaining to watch. And probably shown more believable emotions. Apparently Micucci can either do weird and crazy, or crazy and weird, which gets real old, real fast.

I also greatly disliked the episode itself, aside from Micucci's abysmal performance. The character wasn't likeable to begin with, then just got more selfish as time went on. And the "new Stacey" wasn't any different, it's like they didn't even try. I get that the story is relatable and that's what makes it scary for some people, but for me it was just an hour of irritation with no payoff.

I'm currently watching the series for the second time, and will be watching it many more times after this, but I will not be watching this episode ever again.

Guillermo del Toro was the perfect choice for a curator of horror stories. Even the episode I really hated was still a good choice, I just didn't enjoy it. He knows what will scare, disturb, or just make your skin crawl, and he knows how to show it on screen, what more could you want?

Even before Dreams in the Witch House (adaptations of which appear in both serieses) I was thinking this is very like Masters of Horror, which I also love.

If you don't know what "anthology" means, just don't watch (or read) them. Don't watch then moan when it isn't the series you were looking for. This is exactly what it says, a collection of stories, mostly by random writers, that Guillermo del Toro liked (some he wrote) and thought would entertain others. It's not meant to stick to a theme, or even a particular run time.

As another reviewer has said, there is something for everyone in this collection. Horror; natural, supernatural, or absolute fantasy, this anthology has it all. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer, so I'm hoping more serieses.

It's a group of twenty-somethings on a horror reality show, I don't know what people were expecting.

It's got a House on Haunted Hill (the remake) vibe, and I like that.

The show they're competing on isn't supposed to be some genius original idea, it's low budget trash tv. The characters aren't supposed to be deep, they're basically Big Brother rejects, eg. When asked their greatest fear, one answered eating meat because she's vegetarian.

It's just a bit of fun. The whole debate over what's real and what's just a set up for the viewers of the show is entertaining and that's good enough for me.

I really enjoyed the film. It is in no way a Saw rip off. The only similarity is that the killer spoke to his victims to explain what was happening. If you've seen and understood all the Saw film, it's obvious that the killers in the two films have nothing else in common. There are lots of cases, in film and real life where a killer with a twisted morality is trying to make some kind of point.

Almost everyone has secrets and "If you lie, you die" was an interesting approach to the question of how far people will go to protect those secrets.

It was a good film and I will be watching it again.

I'm actually more annoyed than I would have been with a bad episode because this started pretty well and could have been really good. But no, they gave us another Murder House therapy session/absurb attempt at a moral lesson.

The whole beginning storyline, with the game and the argument about not understanding the story, or the "vibe" of the Murder House was brilliant.

Then that ending.... I thought I'd blinked and missed something, but I was giving the writers too much credit. They'd just gone with the "and I woke up and it was all a dream" lazy ending, except with even less thought put into it.

Firstly, Agatha Christie would have hated this. Anyone who's ever read or seen her work would know she was a very intelligent writer and none of her detectives were ever controling psychopaths who threaten people with execution unless they do exactly as they're told. I mean, wft?!!!

I'd already stopped caring who lived after the second episode and was just watching for the mystery, but even that turned out to be insane. What I think the writer thought they were putting in clever red herrings, but if you're paying attention they just seem like mistakes because they don't actually make sense in the storyline.

Wtf?! Why does every single American series have to have an episode where the most half-arsed, selfish "parents" nearly get themselves and their kids killed and suddenly the kids aren't feral and it's all happy families?

I mean really, she chose to be a single parent, who works all the time and leaves her kids to be raised by someone else apart from the few hours when they're asleep. And as Isaac points out within about 30 seconds of meeting them, on the seemingly rare occasions she does spend a few waking hours with her children she makes no effort to actually parent them. Is this ok in America?

I'm pretty sure the kids were only written into the show for this specific episode and it's just not worth watching.

Having watched the episode twice now (it's actually ending as I write) I can still barely remember the actual case (what little I do remember are all spoilers so I won't include them here).

The whole Christina Frye storyline completely overtakes the episode and since she is such a disgustingly reprehensible, smug, con artist, all I'm left with is the feeling of wanting to kick the self-satisfied smirk off a b***h's face!

Jane was a pretty awful person, but he knows that now and is at least trying to do better. And he really believed the spiel about giving people hope. Frye just loves the power of the con. Lying and manipulating people, and making them thank her for it.

My only consolation is that eventually she's going to get caught out, like they all do. And hopefully it'll be soon so we don't have to listen to her any more.