The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a Netflix television show based on a comic/graphic novel. There was an earlier show starring Melissa Joan Hart, and it was good, but this version was much darker.

Sabrina is a half mortal/half witch who is approaching her sixteenth birthday, the day she will have to choose if she is willing to let go of her mortal side and become a full witch. She, of course, struggles with this decision as she feels that she is giving up some part of her, or disappointing her mother if she gives up her mortal half. Living with her aunts Hilda and Zelda, and her home bound cousin, Ambrose, they aren't much help for Sabrina, as none of them have ever been mortal. Her boyfriend, Harvey, doesn't know what is going on, nor do her friends, Rosalind or Susie. In the end, Satan gets what he wants, and Sabrina, while trying to help, sets a path of destruction that she can't fix.

Like Riverdale this is a darker version of the Archie universe. But, unlike the plot in Riverdale, there were issues with the plot and the story in Sabrina. I admit, I did binge this in one day, but partly because I was stuck home due to my car breaking down. I was actually supposed to go and see the new Halloween movie yesterday (Sunday, 10/28), but instead my car decided to be a little brat and I was stuck home, with nothing to do because I was also dealing another day of a seven day migraine (which I do still have today). I really only liked two characters in the show, Hilda, who was hilarious and honest, and Salem, who didn't get enough screen time.

The issue I had with this show, it isn't that it was a darker version of the original story or the show. The issue wasn't that most of the characters were unlikable. The issue wasn't even that it seemed to veer too much from the original work. The issue was the stupidity of the characters, especially when things seemed so obvious, and they had the ideas right there in front of their stupid faces. One example, and the one that I found the most annoying, is when Sabrina travels to limbo to looks for someone's soul. While there she sees her dead mother (as we know this is why she is living with her aunts, because her parents are dead), who asks Sabrina why she is there, an that she hadn't seen her since she was a baby. This scene is never expanded upon, and I was frustrated as to why it was even there if no one was going to talk about it. The problem are that there are several scenes like this, when someone says or does something and it is never finished. Another was when Susie is looking through the books on the shelf of a coffee shop/bookstore. Hilda approaches her and she runs away, leaving behind the book she was trying to steal, but it wasn't ever explained why she was trying to steal the book she had, as it is not a common book for teenagers to read.

Now, while I felt there were several plot holes, I did enjoy some things. I enjoyed the darker tone of the story, and I liked how, unlike the previous television show, Salem was always a cat. They never tried, or at least they didn't seem to, to use cheap animitronics or CGI. I enjoyed that Sabrina wasn't perfect, and she was trying to do good, and questioning why she should give herself to the Dark Lord. It was interesting to me how she continually questioned things that the other witches seemed to accept as fact. To be honest, accepting things we are told as fact seems to be a thread that runs through religion. As someone who grew up in a Christian household, and went to a Christian school until the age of fourteen, I too grew up not questioning what I was told.

In all honesty, I should have asked more questions of my faith. For example, why is there no mention in the bible I read of Lilith, or how demons came to be? Why are we told that hell is an excruciating place and that those who worship Satan are evil (I've met some Satanists, they aren't evil)? There are so many questions I would have liked to ask before leaving the church. I do believe in a higher power, I believe a lot of what I was taught, but animals do have souls, and maybe we are living in hell right now because humans are evil (or is that their nature). I would have liked to have someone like Sabrina helping me question why we do the things we do, and why other Christian faiths have some of the same ideas but some different.

But enough about my own religious issues, and my own questions. I liked Sabrina's willingness to learn and question, and I think more people should question while they are learning things.

So, yes, I think you should watch The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It isn't perfect, and there are times when I became both frustrated and annoyed, but it was a fun thing to watch, especially as a fan of the older television show and the Archie universe.

The Haunting of Hill House is a short novel written by Shirley Jackson, who also wrote on of my favorite short stories, The Lottery. There have been a few movies based on this novel, one of the more well known is the 1963 movie, the lesser known version is the 1999 version (which was terribly miscast). This review is for the Netflix series, which was recently released.

If you haven't read the book, you should read it. It isn't very long, and is a quick read. It has none of the characters of the television series, however both movies do try to remain true to the book. The story revolves around Eleonore and her experiences in the house. She is there as part of an experiment to discover if or what might be going on in the house. The study is done by a cocky man, Dr. Montague, who is a supernatural investigator. In the end, the house may be haunted and it takes it's toll on the psyche of Eleonore. 

Some of the names of the characters are the same, there is an Eleonore (sometimes called Nell), and there is a Theodora, and a Luke, but none of them are related. The story of Hugh Crane is a lot darker, in one version he was keeping his family in the house, as prisoners, in the 1999 movie the children he killed and entrapped in the house were calling Nell home to protect and save them. In the Netflix series Hugh Crane is a man who loves his wife and his five children. He doesn't know that the house has ghosts and it is built much like the Hotel in AHS: Hotel. Once you die in the house, you become part of the house.

The children, Steve, Nell, Luke, Susie, and Theodora, are all experiencing nightmares brought on by the psychosis of one of them. And after one of the siblings dies, the rest are called back to the house, to either save each other and find out what happened that night they were forced from the house by their father, or they are there to die and become part of the house themselves. None of them have talked about what they have seen, and none of them want to believe that what they saw when they were there, for one summer, in that house, but now, along with their father, they need to figure out what the truth is, and what is just a facade built by the house itself.

I know that several people out there found this frightening or scary, but for me this was, overall, sad. It isn't about an evil house, but more about mental illness and the destruction of a cohesive family. Some of those who have died in the house are only there because they had an untreated mental illness, and the house took advantage of that. There were scenes that were suspenseful, but the show was not scary. It had spooky moments, but mostly, it was sad to see how broken a family was because they didn't talk about one night that forced them to leave the house, and become a broken family. They children are kept in a single home, but not with either of their parents. The audience isn't really told why the father never took the children back in, although the audience does learn why the mother doesn't, and maybe this has some reason as to why the father didn't go back for them. What this did was led to the children staying quiet, broken, and finding different ways to cope with losing their parents. They each have a problem, and each has something they don't want to face.

I did enjoy this, but wonder where it will go for season 2. This may be titled the same as the Shirley Jackson novel, but it really didn't have anything to do with the book, besides some of the characters having the same names as the characters in the books, and the caretakers of the property being the same. Of course, one thing every single version has, which did make me laugh and almost choke on a cookie, was the the words, "In the dark, in the night." This is said by one or more characters, and when I saw it in the 1999 movie, I couldn't help but laugh, and when it was in this version I, like stated earlier, almost choked on a cookie.

I do hope it finds a way to relate more to the book. I enjoyed the book, and I thought, even though neither movie was fantastic, they at least both related to the book as well. For me, this version only made me appreciate my siblings more, and made me think about how much life we take for granted, even when we don't realize we are taking it for granted. Each day is a gift. Each day, we can make a change, and look at what things really mean or what they really are.

So, if you have the time, check out The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and you decide if it is scary or not.

Let me start by saying I do not, I repeat I do not, like westerns. I only started watching this show because my partner wanted to watch it. I will now admit that I don't regret it. This was a really television show.... Like really good!

If you haven't seen the Netflix original television series GODLESS, do yourself a favor and go, watch it now, like right now. T

The plot from IMDb - Frank Griffin, an outlaw terrorizing the 1880s American West, hunts down Roy Goode, his partner turned enemy. Roy hides out at a ranch as Frank's chase leads him to La Belle, New Mexico - a town mysteriously made up almost entirely of women.

The cast of characters is delightful as there is more than one good guy and more than one bad guy. The scenery is desolate and the show starts of with a huge scene that makes the viewer wonder what the heck they have stumbled into. It does make one want to watch what happens to either find out what has happened in the show, or to find out what will happen in the show. 

The women of the town, La Belle, are self- sufficient, but it isn't something they have picked up because they wanted to. The reason the women are taking care of things in the town is horrifying and yet it is fascinating. They have the strength to do everything a man is supposed to be doing for them, from the whores to the elegant ladies to the hard edged frontier woman. In fact, throughout the show the women are all seemingly stronger than the men.

This show also has some excellent acting from Jeff Daniels as Frank Griffin, Scoot McNairy as the sheriff, Bill McNue, and Merritt Wever as the sheriff's sister, Mary Agnes. There were in fact, several good actors and would love to name all of the but I would run out of room. I will comment on Jeff Daniels as Frank. I have never seen Jeff Daniels play a bad guy like Frank, and he was lovely at it. There were times in the show when the audience can feel for him and what he has gone through, but then there are times when the audience see how terrible of a person her really is. He was really wonderful in this role.

I recommend this show for everyone. It is a limited series and currently has only seven episodes, although some of them are longer (the last episode is an hour and twenty minutes long). It was fascinating, it had a ton of well written characters, and I loved how this was a woman driven show where women were the main characters.

Everyone kept raving about this Netflix show, so I decided to jump in and join the lemmings. When I sat and watched the first two episodes I must say I was not impressed. I thought they were slow and I didn't really care for most of the characters. I will say that things picked up, but only a little bit, and really only in the last two episodes.

There are only eight episodes in the freshman season of this new show, which isn't a lot for a television show. I know I was not the only one who wanted a little more, even with an extended final episode.

This series is not really a horror series, which many people have said, it is more science fiction than horror, even with a few scary scenes with an unnamed monster. There is a lot which is never explained, and I often find it frustrating since a freshman season of a show should not only introduce the characters but the idea behind the scenes. What was this show about? Honestly, I cannot say I am sure. It could have been about a bad place, it could have been about a bad man, it could have been about a monster, but this was never divulged. So after watching it, I will probably watch season two, but I am not as excited as many of those who I have talked to about how the first season went.

I would have liked a little more about how things had come to be, as there were some hints and some conclusions made, but nothing was really fully developed, even the reason the main female child was kept. Was she created? Was she born the way she was? There was not development in how she came to be where or who she was.

There also seemed to be an unnecessary character, the father of the missing child. He is seen in the first episode and then once towards the end but it is added drama that was not needed and his character didn't add anything to the series. Also, he alludes to the mother having an issue before, but it is never spoken about again.

I can't say that I loved this show like everyone else I have spoken with, however, it was interesting. I am looking forward to season two just to see what happens next, but I don't feel the eagerness I have felt with other shows, such as JESSICA JONES.