Watching The Hound of the Baskervilles with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Absolutely baffling how they made movies back then with zero fucks given for modern streaming necessities. No bathroom breaks, no snack intermissions, no “Are you still watching?” judgment pop-ups. Just a relentless, uninterrupted story unfolding at a steady pace, as if people were actually expected to just… sit and watch. It’s like they thought people could handle a movie without doing other stuff. Truly barbaric. 😵‍💫

A list of its glaring deficiencies follows:

1. No Repetitive Recaps Every Ten Minutes – Astonishingly, the film expected me to remember what had already happened. At no point did a character turn to the camera and say, “As you may recall…” before summarizing the entire first act. Unforgivable.

2. No On-Screen Text Explaining the Obvious – No pop-up stating “London, 1889” when we were clearly in London, in 1889. No ominous subtitle declaring “The Hound” when the enormous, glowing-eyed dog lunged at the screen. Just trusted the audience to infer things. Barbaric.

3. No Overcompensating Sound Design – When something important was revealed, it was done through mere dialogue and acting. No swelling orchestra, no aggressive bass rumble, no ear-shattering “BWAAAH” to alert me that This Is A Big Moment. Reckless and irresponsible.

4. No Artificially Inserted Cliffhangers – Scenes flowed into one another with distressing smoothness, rather than cutting off mid-sentence to force me into watching the next part. I was left to decide of my own free will whether to keep watching. Disorienting.

5. No Excessive Exposition – At no point did a minor character enter solely to deliver two paragraphs of backstory, exit, and never return. If you wanted to know something, you had to listen or, heaven forbid, piece things together yourself. Who has time for that?

6. No Forced Reactions to Ensure I Knew How to Feel – After a dramatic reveal, the camera did not cut to every single character so I could gauge their emotional state. Some of them simply reacted naturally, and the movie moved on. I found this offensive.

7. No Time-Wasting Fake-Outs – When a shadow loomed ominously, it turned out to be an actual threat, rather than the butler carrying a tray. Every scene contained forward motion. I grew suspicious.

8. No “Dumb Character to Ask Obvious Questions” Trope – No one said, “Wait, so you’re telling me that the mysterious deaths and the giant paw prints could be connected?” The film seemed to think I could follow along without a designated idiot to spell things out. Upsetting.

9. No Algorithmically Inserted Diversity of Tone – The film committed to its atmosphere. No quippy side character deflating the tension. No random slapstick moment to balance out the “heaviness.” Just a persistent, deliberate mood. Reckless disregard for emotional variety.

10. No Sudden Flashbacks to Explain Something Already Understood – At no point did the screen fade to black-and-white and replay an earlier moment just in case I had become distracted by my phone. The film relied entirely on me paying attention the first time. Monstrous.

By the time the credits rolled (without automatically minimizing into the corner of the screen), I was left shaken. The sheer nerve of these filmmakers, crafting something meant to be absorbed in a single, uninterrupted sitting. The sheer audacity of it all.

Had I… just watched a movie? The questions swirled. Had I truly understood the plot without redundant exposition? Had my brain… filled in gaps on its own? Worse still—had I experienced suspense not force-fed by aggressive musical cues, but simply by allowing events to unfold?

I felt changed, and not for the better. My faith in the natural order of things had been shaken to its core.

I glanced at my streaming app, desperate for reassurance. But now, the endless rows of thumbnails, all promising easily digestible. I staggered to my feet, lightheaded, my worldview unraveling. In the distance, my phone buzzed, beckoning me back to the comfort of fragmented attention. I had endured 87 whole minutes of pure, uninterrupted storytelling?

God help me.