This trailer does not do this Netflix series justice. While we both enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and even Doctor Sleep, when I asked Ben if he wanted to start the series I got kind of a "Meh" response, so I went ahead and started watching myself and it soon drew him in. Ben ultimately described it to a friend of ours as,"psychological horror—Edgar Allen Poe style—with a stiff middle finger to modern capitalism" and that pretty much sums it up.
There is gore and violence, yes. But it is what I would call…tasteful…gore and violence. It's always in service to the story and not gratuitous. And in the rare instances when it might be considered over-the-top, it's done offscreen. (And most deliciously, as you delve further and further into the story you realize how appropriate it is in the context of what's happening in the story.)
Each of the eight episodes take their respective names from one of Poe's seminal works, and while the tie-ins aren't always immeidately apparent, at the end of the episode you think back and go, "Of course!"
We started watching only two episodes per night, but by the third night we said fuck it! and binged the rest.
When we started researching the director, we realized that one of his series, The Midnight Club, completely slipped past us, so we're busy catching up on that now, and we're undoubtedly going to go through his back catalog and see what other gems we've missed.