NEW UK HORROR BONUS: CREEP (2004) Review

Creep (2004)
Written & Directed by Christopher Smith

The night is still young (sort of) and I don't feel like crawling off to bed yet, so before the NaBloPoMo sands finish running through that hourglass, I guess I can throw one more review up for the month.

This time it's a look back at the way the month started, with another New UK Horror Film.  We were so impressed with writer/director Christopher Smith's horror-in-the-woods-while-on-a-team-building-exercise film, Severance, that Dr. Girlfriend and I decided to check out his earlier film, Creep. 

It's nowhere near as polished as Severance, which is to be expected, but it's still a bit of fun.  If only a bit.

Spoilers Ahoy!

The Finish Line

So NaBloPoMo is finally over!

And yes, I am going to wuss out with a final post that really doesn't accomplish much.

Thanks to everybody who's been reading.

There will be more soon, particularly once Dr. Girlfriend and I decide on our next film festival subject matter.  We'd appreciate any suggestions that you folks might make.  Right now I'm leaning toward Assassins in Film, or perhaps Director-Specific runs of films (David Cronenberg and/or John Carpenter are at the top of my list), but I'd love to hear some ideas of what others might want to watch, read and talk about.

Now I'm going to go pretend I don't have a blog for a couple of days.

See ya!

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.05 Review

The Walking Dead
1.05 "Wildfire"
Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
Written by Glen Mazzara

I'm writing this just minutes after watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead, so I'm not sure how coherent it's going to be.  Up to this point, it's been kind of easy to discuss the show, since I've been intimately familiar with the comic and love the entire genre of zombie narratives.  Sure, a lot of the field is awful.  But there are gems in there, to be sure.

The best works tend to deal with the people realistically.  Which means with all the tragedy, anxiety, hope, fear, humor, successes, and failures.  That's one of the things that The Walking Dead does best in its comic format, and it's one of the things that the TV series is shaping up to do best, too.

Most of this episode is straight out of the comic, but we're getting a huge plot shift here, and I'm not sure how to react to it just yet.

Get your Spoiler Shields up, and let's see if I can figure out what it is I want to say.

A LATE ZOMBIE REVIEW: DEAD SET

For the past three years, Dr. Girlfriend and I have initiated a yearly Easter Zombie Film Marathon (you know, to celebrate the Resurrection), and after watching each film, I've written up a blog post about it.  For the most part.  2009 was a rough year, schedule-wise, and all we really got to watch was the UK Zombie TV series, Dead Set.  And I never wrote it up.

So a friend was over last night, and he'd never seen it, so we watched it one more time.  And since we're nearing the end of NaBloPoMo, and my brain is starting to shut down, I figured now was as good a time as any to write it up.  But before we get to that, here's a list of the other Easter Zombie Film Marathon Entries so far:

2008:

• Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
• Zombie Honeymoon (2004)
• Horror Express (1973)
• Blue Sunshine (1976)
• I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
• Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead (1997)
• Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) (1974)
• Dead & Buried (1981)
• Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)
• Deathdream (Dead of Night) (1972)
• City of the Living Dead (Gates of Hell) (1980)
• Demons (1985)
• Fido (2006)
• Battlefield Baseball (2003)
• Enter. . . Zombie King! (Zombie Beach Party) (2003)
• Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love (2003)
• Les Revenants (They Came Back) (2004)

2010:

• Pontypool (2009)
• To Kako (Evil) (2005)
• Boy Eats Girl (2005)
• Isle of the Dead (1945)
• Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)
• Sugar Hill (1974)
• Night of the Comet (1984)
• Night of the Creeps (1986)
• The Zombie Diaries (2006)
• Plaga Zombie - Zona Mutante (2001)
• Dead Snow (2009)
• Grey Knight (1993)

As you can see, 2009 was a bit of a letdown with just Dead Set and some various television show episodes involving zombies.

Anyway, Spoiler Shields On, and away we go!

CRONENBERGIAN DUEL: SPLICE vs HUMAN CENTIPEDE

Over the past few weeks I've finally caught up with a couple of films that, from what I'd heard, each attempted to stake a claim to the cinematic void left in Cronenberg's wake as he's moved on to more mainstream fare.  Both films were released in 2009 and both do decent jobs at what they set out to accomplish.  Critical reaction has been split with mostly positive reviews of Vincenzo Natali's Splice, and mostly negative reviews of Tom Six's The Human Centipede (First Sequence).

Of course, as usual, I had pretty much the opposite reactions.

I know both of these films have already been out for more than a year, and everyone I know has already seen them, but still, for those who are as far behind as I was, Spoilers Ahead!

MISFITS 2.03 Review

Misfits is back for another week of wacky hi-jinks.  Before we jump into that, though, I just want to say how glad I am that their viewing numbers are up and staying pretty steady.  Season 2 has consistently scored a higher viewership than Season 1 did, and with a One-Hour Christmas Special on the schedule now, and word that Season 3 has already been green-lit, things are looking good for what is, without a doubt, my favorite television superhero program ever.

Yeah, I said it.  Ever.

Come on.  It's not like there's a huge field of contenders.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, having the short UK seasons helps to eliminate a lot of the meandering that tends to deflate enthusiasm and water down dramatic tension we see in most American productions.  We're seeing a bit of a shift toward the tighter, more streamlined seasons over here, but it's pretty much entirely on the cable networks like FX, AMC, SHOWTIME, and HBO, where they're committing to 12 or 13 episode seasons and don't have the content limitations that the Big Four have (i.e. swearing, sex, violence, and all that other good stuff).

I firmly believe that this shift is a big part of what makes the best shows on television these days practically all cable dramas.  With Sons of Anarchy, Justified, Terriers, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon, The Walking Dead, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, all working on the shorter season model, all have consistently shattered boundaries and provided solid, ground-breaking quality programming (even when there's nobody watching - sorry Terriers and Rubicon).  And do I even have to mention shows like The Wire, Deadwood, and The Sopranos? 

This seems to be a no-brainer.

Cut the episode numbers, focus on tightly plotted, well-written stories, and don't worry about offending people with your content and language.  Is it any wonder that mainstream networks continue to pander to old people and children (or the psychological equivalents) with authority figure melodramas (cops, doctors, lawyers) and unscripted "reality" shows?  There's very little imagination or creativity in the vast majority of American network television, and the viewing numbers are showing just how creatively (and perhaps morally, but that's another discussion) bankrupt they really are.

But enough of my soapbox ranting/wanking.  What about this week's Misfits, you ask?

Well, it's not the strongest episode in terms of done-in-one plot, but there are huge revelations about what's going on and where it's all heading.  And we find out who Super-Hoodie is.

As always, Spoilers Ahoy!

Thanksgiving Post

I just wanted to take a few moments out of our Thanksgiving festivities (food, football, more food, more football, etc.) to type up a quick Thank You to all the friends and family who help to keep my life from spiraling off into chaos and depression.  You're all greatly loved and appreciated.

That's particularly true of Dr. Girlfriend, the love of my life.  There ain't nobody better.

Catching Up With DEXTER: Episodes: 5.07, 5.08, 5.09

I'm a big fan of Dexter. Been watching since the beginning or thereabouts. At the IDM household, we'd heard a lot about the first season, but didn't have Showtime, so it was sometime during the second season or so that we started catching up.

It's a show I wasn't sure about at first. I loved the concept, but the execution sometimes left something to be desired. This was especially evident when compared to the show Michael C. Hall's previously headlined, Six Feet Under. And let's face it. The main reason I gave the series a shot was because of him.

It took about halfway through that first season to start seeing Dexter Morgan instead of David Fisher.

But the story won me over, and by the time the first season ended, I was on board. It wasn't great, and at times it was pretty freaking bad, but it had something special. The novelty of the idea gave way to a more nuanced and interesting narrative.

It was only recently that I read the first couple of Dexter books and realized that while they're not too bad, the show really took the initial concept and ran with it in creative ways that the books didn't seem capable of. I don't know if that's just the difference between the singular work of a novelist compared to the collaborative work of a television series cast and crew, or what, but Dexter, the show, outgrew its literary source exponentially.

And now we're almost through Season 5, and the show just keeps getting better and better. I didn't think they'd be able to top Season 3 with Jimmy Smits, and then along came Season 4 with John Lithgow, which is still, no matter how good the current season is, the pinnacle of the show so far.

But on to these past few episodes.

Oh yeah. Spoiler alert!

What I'm Listening To...

I'm taking the day off from serious blogging, so in order to keep up with NaBloPoMo, here's a list of the music I'm listening to these days.  That still counts, right?

And for easier loading, I'll even keep them below the cut!

Enjoy!

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.04 Review

This episode is entitled "Vatos" and was written by Robert Kirkman, the co-creator and writer of The Walking Dead comic upon which the series is based.

Earlier this week, I spent the day re-reading the early issues of the comic, and was surprised to find just how close the pacing was between the source material and the television series.  There are changes, sure.  Some are pretty substantial changes, but key plot points are being hit in the show at just about the same pace as they were in the comic, with each issue corresponding pretty closely to the episode breakdown.

All of which is to say that I knew what was coming with tonight's episode of The Walking Dead.  For the most part.  But I have to admit, even though I knew what was coming (and hell, the previews were enough to let anyone paying attention know), it didn't lessen the impact.

Spoiler Screens Up!

ENTER THE VOID (2009) Review

Enter The Void (2009)
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Written by Gaspar Noé and Lucile Hadzihalilovic

If I were to review this in one sentence, that sentence would be: "Well, I've never seen that in a film before."

Note the fact that there's no positive or negative connotation in the sentence that you could arguably walk away with.  That's probably the most telling thing about my reaction.

But first, some back story.  Apparently, Gaspar Noé has been wanting to make this film since his adolescence, and actively trying to get funding for it since the early 2000s.  However, it was deemed too expensive and at least one false start ended with producers dropping out, even though they liked the script.  It was the financial success of Noé's 2002 film, Irréversible, that changed things.

Enter the Void is a French film cast with English-speaking actors, mainly because Noé didn't want viewers distracted from the visual elements of the film with subtitles.  He has also approved the use of dubbing for releases in non-English speaking countries.

And now, Spoilers.

SUPERNATURAL 6.09 Review

This week Supernatural takes a brief pause from the ongoing story of the coming Monster War and gives us one of the most enjoyable episodes of the season.  Which shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given that it was written by Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick, and writer/producer of Angel,and Firefly.  He's been a writer and producer of Supernatural since the first season and is responsible for some of the most entertaining episodes (including this season's "The Third Man", which focused on Castiel's return to the show).

The episode is entitled, "Clap Your Hands If You Believe", and yes, that is a reference to Tinkerbell.

Spoiler Shields Up!

FRINGE 3.07 "The Abducted" Review

Fringe closes out November (there's no episode next week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday) by shifting the Two Worlds story line into high gear, but I'm afraid it's at the cost of logic, scripting, and acting.  I'd say this is easily the worst episode of the season, but I think those shortcomings come at the insistence of moving the plot forward.

As friends will note, I've been a defender of this series, even when the writing and acting hasn't been entirely up to snuff.  Mainly this is because of the strength of the ideas behind the show.

"The Abducted", however, was lacking in nearly every department.

Spoilers ahoy!

MISFITS Season 2.02 Review

It's that time again!  Misfits time, that is.

So we're into the second episode, and as with the first season, the first Misfit that we spend some serious time with is Nathan (Robert Sheehan) and, as with the first season, we get to see him actually showing some emotion instead of just being a wanker.  After a particularly disturbing opening sequence of Nathan stripping down from his orange jumpsuit to just his bikini briefs and slathering himself with suntan lotion, we get to the real meat of the episode (no pun intended); the arrival of the brother Nathan didn't know he had.

Jamie (Sam Keeley) came to town to meet his father for the first time, and now is wanting to meet his older brother.  Of course, hitting his dad in the head with a toaster, duct taping him up, and tossing him in the boot of the car, probably wasn't the best way of introducing himself.  But let's face it.  Their dad is a twat.

Okay, Spoilers ahead!

THE WALKING DEAD: COMPARE & CONTRAST

I spent my day today (in between answering phone calls at my crappy job) re-reading the first 24 issues of The Walking Dead.  This is the first time I've gone back to these comics since reading them for the first time.  The first issue was released all the way back in October of 2003, so we're talking about quite a bit of time between then and now.

Well, the biggest surprise is that I remembered those comics in absurd detail.  I hadn't forgotten a single page in the past 7 years.  Part of the reason for that is that writer Robert Kirkman did a fantastic job of crafting scene after scene of horror and dread and psychological portraiture.  That's really the main strength of the comics over the first three episodes of the TV show.

The characters in the comic are constructed to carefully avoid cliches.  However, because of the emphasis on character, a weakness does become apparent after a while.  And it's not even much of a weakness, but is a repercussion of working in the comics medium.  The characters are too damn talky at times for my tastes.  It didn't bother me the first time through, before I was familiar with the characters and their personalities, but this time around, it was a little tedious.

This is probably one of the main reasons the television show incorporated more broad-stroke characterization over the first two episodes, at least with the newer characters.  But in a world where you can't swing your dick without hitting a zombie narrative, this isn't really a problem in the grand scheme of things.  That both versions are at least trying to focus on character before gore is where the real strength of the story lies.  Particularly given the fact that the gore isn't avoided at all.  This is why, I think, The Walking Dead connected with so many readers and is now connecting with so many viewers.

WHAT LOOKS GOOD #335: FAST, FURIOUS, AND LOOKING GOOD

Well, we've reached the halfway point for National Blog Posting Month (I don't feel right calling it NaBloPoMo, as that sounds kind of dirty), and I'm going to take this opportunity to relax a little bit and post something a little shorter than normal.

Over on the Most Diverse Comics Webzine on the Internet, Comicsbulletin.com, I am one of three writers who regularly contribute to a weekly column called, What Looks Good.  (Short Plug: I also contribute to Flashbacks of Ol' Marvel, or F.O.O.M., which looks back at classic moments from Marvel Comics (I've been focusing on critiquing the Marvel Live Action Films from the very beginning and am just about to hit the 1990 Captain America movie) and am the sole writer of Mondo Marvel, where I am reading all of Marvel's 1960s comic output in chronological order and writing about it.)  The three of us take trade off weeks and, Matt Spatola, Chris Murman, and myself, all have very different approaches to our weeks at bat.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.03 Review

The Walking Dead
1.03 "Tell It To The Frogs"
Director: Gwyneth Horder-Payton
Writers: Frank Darabont, Charles H. Eglee, & Jack LoGiudice

If it's going to take a committee of writers to keep the quality up, then by all means, bring on the committees.

After the ham-handed dialogue and broad-stroke characterization of "Guts" I was seriously worried about the quality control on this series.  I know they went into it with only a six-episode commitment, which couldn't have been good for their confidence.  I know that they probably wanted to get the show off and running and felt they could afford to take some short-cuts here and there in order to get into the meat of the show.

But I'll be damned if last week wasn't painful to watch at times.  It got better once they moved beyond the character "work" on the roof and concentrated on the logistics of getting out of Atlanta alive, but there were definite cracks in the foundation of The Walking Dead.

Cracks that never showed up in other AMC series.

Well, this week, those cracks are patched up, sealed over, repainted, and/or whatever other construction metaphor you want to throw at it.

And yes, here come the Spoilers!

TERRIERS NEEDS YOU

I watch a lot of TV, as anyone who knows me can attest to (or anyone who's been keeping up with this blog will know).  When I like a show, I tend to support it through thick and thin.  When there are weak episodes, I don't pile on, or start looking elsewhere for a new fix, because I understand that the process of making a television series involves so many variables that it's amazing anything good ever makes it to the screen.

My favorite shows right now, all have weaknesses.  Stargate Universe takes itself too seriously and has some poor acting at times.  Sons of Anarchy is ridiculously melodramatic, which sometimes undercuts the reality of the narrative.  Fringe has a healthy amount of goofiness and weak writing, but the strength of its core concepts and John Noble's performance redeems all of that for me.  The Mentalist is mostly trite and cliche, but again, the charisma of the main characters keep me coming back.  Dexter is hampered at times by trying to push the whole family aspect and there is some horrible writing now and then.  Even Boardwalk Empire, while high-quality all around, just doesn't hold my interest for long stretches at a time.

Terriers, which airs on FX every Wednesday at 10:00 (EST) has no weakness to speak of, and is the most consistently excellent program on television.

Oh yeah.  I said it.

But none of you bastards are watching it, so its chances of being renewed for a second season are plummeting.

GENRE TV ROUNDUP: SGU, FRINGE, SUPERNATURAL

I just caught up with a few shows from this week, Stargate Universe, Fringe, and Supernatural, that I thought I'd chat a bit about today.  Every one of them moved their respective series' Seasonal Story Arcs forward with big revelations and while they were all kind of low-key otherwise, each episode was pretty characteristic of the ongoing series.

I'm not going to dance around some of the details of the episodes, since they're from all through the week, but I'll go ahead and say, SPOILER WARNING.  At the same time, if you haven't seen the episodes, or the shows, some of this might not make much sense to you.  But that's okay with me.

Here we go!

MONDO MARVEL #28 - AUGUST 1964

Once more Mondo Marvel makes it's Marvel-ous way onto the Interwebs.  Check it out and let me know if it's worth paying attention to, or am I just pounding my head against a huge 1960s rock!

MISFITS Season 2.01 Review

I wanted to like Heroes.  Really, I did.

But it was all smoke and mirrors.  It was all cliches, already told stories, and extraordinarily boring characters.

And I don't even want to think about No Ordinary Family.

No.  Everything I want from a superhero story was captured in the UK series Misfits.

You haven't heard of Misfits?  Well, if you're on this side of the Atlantic, I can't fault you.  It's a British show, airing on E4 about a group of juvenile delinquents who are out doing their community service when a mysterious storm hits.  It turns out, everyone caught out in the storm gained strange powers.  Not just our protagonists, but everyone who was caught in the storm.

Our "heroes" include Simon (who turns invisible), Kelly (who can read minds), Alisha (who can make people desire her by touching them), Curtis (who can turn back time), and Nathan (who, after an entire season of trying to discover what his power was, discovered he could not be killed after waking up in his coffin, six feet under).  Most of them are virtually unlikable, although they all have their own distinctive charismatic charms.  But best of all, they don't immediately decided to be "superheroes" or "super-villains" or super-anythings really.  They just want to get their lives together and not have to keep killing their probation workers.

Spoilers Ahead!

TOWER PREP Review

Tower Prep is a new live-action show on The Cartoon Network, created by Paul Dini.  For those who care, Dini is responsible writing just about every cool, well-received animated series since 1979.  Sure, there were duds like The Gary Coleman Show, or the occasional Pound Puppies episode, but he also had his hands in (pauses for a deep breath):

• Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle
• The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle
• Flash Gordon
• Dungeons & Dragons
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
• Tiny Toon Adventures
• Animaniacs
• Freakazoid!
• Batman
• Superman
• The New Batman Adventures
• Batman Beyond
• Clerks
• Justice League
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold

And now, he's venturing into Live-Action with a show that is a cross between Harry Potter, The X-Men, and The Prisoner.

Yes, that Prisoner.

BNS PRESENTS THE BILLY NAYER SHOW

BNS Presents The Billy Nayer Show
By The Billy Nayer Show

I was surprised a few weeks ago by an email from artist extraordinaire Cory McAbee saying that there was a new Billy Nayer Show CD finished and available for download.  It has been too long since there was new material from the band, so, needless to say, I jumped over to the site and immediately downloaded BNS Presents The Billy Nayer Show.

It was not a bad decision.

In fact, it was a damn fine decision, and one I heartily encourage others to make.

It's kind of strange listening to McAbee and Co. performing music that isn't related to one of their film ventures.  Granted, there have only been two feature releases (and one bizarre musical performance/art piece) before this, but those are the past works that really made me love this band.

THE BURROWERS (2008)

The Burrowers (2008)
Directed by J.T. Petty

At the urgings of my good friend Mr. Martini (and no, that is not a drinking joke), I finally settled in and queued up writer/director J.T. Petty's western horror film, The Burrowers.

Not to be confused with The Borrowers, about the adorable tiny people who live in your walls.

Mr. Martini had been singing the praises of this film for quite some time, but I always found one reason or another to put off watching it.  I'm not sure why.  His track record is pretty good when it comes to horror films, so I really should have watched this a long time ago.

Because it was just that good.

So good, in fact, that I think all of you should watch it now, too.  Especially if you're a fan of westerns, a fan of monsters, and/or a fan of Clancy Brown.

Yes, the man who played The Kurgan, Sgt. Zim, Lex Luthor, and Mr. Krabs is in this. That should justify the viewing in its own right.  But wait!  There's more!  Starring alongside Brown, is William Mapother, who is probably most recognized these days for playing Ethan on Lost.  He's joined by another Lost vet, Doug Hutchison (who also played Loony Bin Jim in Punisher: War Zone).

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.02 Review

I've been reading The Walking Dead since the day it premiered, back in 2003.  I haven't missed an issue.  There have been highs and lows in the comic, but overall, it is one of the most consistent series on the market, releasing its 79th issue this month.

But that's not why I'm watching The Walking Dead on AMC.

I'm of the school of thought that you can't let the source material influence one's critical reception of an adaptation.  You can't let the source material fill in the blanks that might be left in the adaptation.  The adaptation has to stand on its own.  So, I don't care about the comic when I'm watching the show.  The show is it's own entity.

I'm watching The Walking Dead on AMC because Frank Darabont can do no wrong.  Well, almost no wrong, but more about that later.  This is the man who gave us The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, after all.  But to be honest, I don't give a shit about that, either.  Never watched either film.  I understand that they are apparently great films, but I have no interest in them at all.

What won me over to the Darabont camp was The Mist.  Or, more specifically, the black and white version of The Mist.  If there is any kind of tentacled thingy up in the sky watching down on us and granting wishes, I'm going to go out on a limb and offer up something for a black and white release of The Walking Dead on Blu-ray/DVD.

It has to be.

But that's the future.  What about the now?  What about Episode 2, "Guts"?

Okay, let's talk about that, warts and all.

PSYCHOVILLE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL REVIEW

Yes, it's true.  Not only did we turn our clocks back an hour last night, we also seem to have slipped back a week in our Halloween Viewing!

In actual fact, we just kept forgetting that we had the Psychoville Halloween Special to watch, and finally remembered yesterday.  I've really got to start writing this stuff down.

For those unfamiliar, Psychoville is the brainchild of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, formerly of The League of Gentlemen.  Series One ran last year on the BBC and was a brilliant mixture of horror and comedy as five character, most of them played by Shearsmith and Pemberton themselves, received haunting messages threatening to expose their secrets.  And those secrets involved madness, murder, and a mysterious locket.

It was one of the best shows I watched in 2009, particularly Episode Four, which was an inspired retelling of Hitchcock's Rope, as mother/son murder-team David and Maureen do their best to hide their victim from a surprise guest, and it's all done entirely in one shot.  That episode was perhaps the best single viewing experience of the year.

Series Two is on the way and scheduled for airing sometime next year.  But to hold us over until then, the BBC commissioned a Halloween Special and if the ratings were any indication, I'm not the only person anxiously awaiting the return of this series.

SUPER GENIUS AT WORK

Thursday nights at the Infernal Desire Machine Household are packed with TV.  Our poor DVR can barely handle the load, to be quite honest.  I'm not sure why Thursdays are the days most of the good shows are on, but it's kind of annoying.

Yes, Sundays are bad, too.  But it's Thursday that causes the most blockage in our viewing schedule.

I mean, we've got The Office, Parks and Recreation (when it returns), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Fringe, and my guilty pleasure, The Mentalist.  The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack was on Thursdays, but I'm afraid it was too weird for kids to latch on to, and is now gone.  I hope I'm wrong about that, though.

Thursdays are also home to Nikita, a show I sampled and found to be okay, but so lacking in personality and innovation that it was just boring.  And I haven't been even remotely tempted to try The Vampire Diaries.

Please don't mention Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, or Community to me at this point.  I've tried them and they never even made me chuckle.  I just don't think they're funny.  And if you mention Survivor, then you're dead to me.

But, as you can see, there's a plethora of stuff just begging for attention on Thursdays.

Anyway, after catching up with this week's Thursday night crop, I wanted to mention one of my absolute all-time favorite television characters: Dr. Walter Bishop from Fringe.

SUPERNATURAL IN HD!!

I was late to the Supernatural party.  I admit it.

I thought the show looked stupid and I really wasn't interested in another Monster-of-the-Week show when it debuted.  And much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel before it, I skipped it and was forced to go back and catch up once my dumb-ass realized I was missing out on something good.

Hmmm.  I'm noticing a pattern developing in my TV Viewing History.  Nearly all of my favorite all-time shows are shows that I sampled in their first season, or just dismissed without trying.  Then, when some trick of fate forced me to sit and pay attention, I was hooked.

That might be why I'm more lenient towards shows over the past few years during their debut seasons.  Not that I'm averse to quitting a show if it gets annoying (See: Bionic Woman, Dollhouse, and The Event), but if the core concept is innovative or imaginative, I'm more likely to stick out that first season and see what shakes out (See: Surface, Threshold, and Caprica).  Unfortunately, the shows tend to get canceled after one season anyway.

Anyway, back to Supernatural.

TV SCI-FI RUMINATIONS

After watching this week's STARGATE UNIVERSE, I felt compelled to sit down and write up some thoughts on the current crop of Sci-Fi Television.  I've already touched on some of these shows over in my contributions to Comicsbulletin.com's What Looks Good column, but I only write for that every third week.  Here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

(By the way, I'm experimenting with the format of the blog this time out, and hiding the long text beyond the jump, below - Click on the Read More to, um, you know, read more)

NEW UK HORROR Day Seven (Finale): THE REEDS (2009)

The Reeds (2009)
Directed by Nick Cohen

Our Halloween Horror Festival winds to a close a few days late (thanks to poor planning, a lazy mail carrier, and life in general), with The Reeds, a tale of six friends (3 couples) who have rented a boat for a weekend, um, somewhere.

It's never really all that clear just where they plan on going, other than to a pub and maybe a hotel where they have rooms booked?  That vagueness is, I think, intentional and comes into play as we reach the gory end of our story.

Sort of.

As with most of the other films reviewed over the past week or so, this is very nicely shot.  In fact, except for Wild Country, every one of the films we've watched for this festival has looked great.  Even when the story left something to be desired.

Unfortunately, this is one of the films with a less than spectacular story.

For the most part, it's pretty boring and kind of what one might expect from a low-budget slasher film.  But, with that said, there was enough visual and narrative flair to keep us interested.  At first we thought we were getting a Ghost Story.  Then it seemed like it might be a Monster In The Shadows story.  Then there's a hint of Scary Teen Killers thrown in, along with a healthy dose of Crazy Old Murderer added, to boot.

My biggest complaint about the film is this, actually.  It never seems to settle on just what kind of story it wants to tell.  By the time we realize that it really is a Ghost Story, we're at the climax, and that's when Cohen and writers Chris Baker and Mark Anthony Galluzzo decide to go for broke and really start throwing ideas at us.  There's a surprise revelation that's completely out of left field, a weird torture scenario that implies some sort of supernatural curse, there are weird things going on with time and space, and before you know it, we're back at the beginning of the film.

Sort of.

The best thing about the film is the look.  The Norfolk Broads is a very moody, atmospheric setting and as the boat struggles to make its way along the winding river it becomes more and more claustrophobic.  The actors all give functional performances, even if they don't have much to work with by way of character.  They all have distinctive looks, even the creepy teens, and don't really fit the generic molds one might expect to find in the casting.

In the end, though, the film was disappointing.  There were a few good scares and gorgeous riverscapes, and one very nice surprise burst of gore, but the story wasn't great and it just seemed to be trying too hard when it was all said and done.

I'd still recommend taking a look, but I wouldn't go building an evening around it.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.01 Review

THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) 1.01 "Days Gone By" Sunday 10:00
A group of survivors led by police officer Rick Grimes travel in search of a safe and secure home after a zombie apocalypse.


(With the news over the past day or two that AMC's The Walking Dead was the highest rated show EVER on AMC, and that it beat out just about everything else on TV Halloween night, I figured I'd go ahead and share my take on the pilot episode, as originally presented over on Comicsbulletin.com last week)

If you've ever read anything on this blog (especially around Easter), you know that I consider myself a connoisseur of zombie cinema. My tastes are distinctively my own, I admit, and what I look for in a zombie film may not be what you look for. For instance, gore is appreciated, but not a game-changer for me. A film with fantastic gore but little story, isn't going to make it high up my list.

I look for three things in a good zombie film. A unique approach to the medium and the concept of zombies. This is why Pontypool is one of my favorites. The idea of a zombie virus spread via language is something I'd never seen nor heard of before. It's also what makes Night of the Living Dead an uncontested classic. It changed the game. Hell, it invented the game.

Secondly, I appreciate a sense of humor, but not humor that overpowers the emotional impact of the horrific events going on. This is why Shaun of the Dead beats out every other film on my list as the favorite. And it's why Dead Alive lands in my top three. In both cases, the humor serves to illuminate character and emphasize the absurdity of each film's respective narratives. The humor humanizes the characters. But both films also bring the horror, and that's essential.

Lastly, we need characters and stakes that are presented realistically enough for them to matter. We need to care about these people and we need to believe that the threat is real. This is why the remake of Dawn of the Dead charts so highly for me; That sense of impending doom. When I left the theater after seeing that film for the first time, I could have easily walked right back inside and watched it again. It was invigorating. And oddly enough, it was the same with Shaun of the Dead. I cared about those characters.

They were, quite simply, the most believable characters I've ever seen in a zombie film, reacting in ways that were equally believable. Dead Set had something of that, too, with characters reacting in ways that I could see real people reacting. Any acts of heroism were as equally motivated by self-preservation as they were by any sense of morality. It made the characters hard to like, but fascinating to watch.

Plus, as I mentioned above, Dead Set gave us time to really get to know the people and explore their situation.

All of which brings me to The Walking Dead.

NEW UK HORROR Day Six: MONSTERS (2010)

With NEW UK HORROR-FEST on hold, Dr. Girlfriend and I settled in last night for a sneak peek at MONSTERS.  (Thanks, Kelvin!)

Monsters (2010)
Directed by Gareth Edwards

15,000 Dollars.  That's how much this movie cost to make.

That alone makes this a film worth watching.  If only to drive home just how much more can be done with low-budget films that we normally see.

But even with the low-budget, what we get here is a nicely-paced love story set against a backdrop of alien invasion.

For those not familiar, Monsters is the story of two people, trying to make their way back from Central America to the US, through what is now a quarantine zone making up most up Northern Mexico.  It seems that six years ago, a space probe crash landed, seeding alien life throughout the region.  Now, giant quid-like monsters roam the countryside, occasionally running rampant in Mexican cities.  Luckily, the US built a giant wall to keep them out.

Or will it?

But all of that is really background.  Setting.

The real story is about two people who slowly fall in love as they make their way through the quarantined area, in an attempt to get back to the US.

It's not a great story.  It's not much of a story at all, really.  And there's some sort of political subtext about US/Central American relations where the giant wall serves as a metaphor for an ultimately pointless attempt to keep "aliens" from entering the States.

But what it does have is heart.  The characters are natural, with a great deal of improved dialogue.  The threats are interesting.  And the monsters are gorgeous.

Yes, it's a little slow, but this is an attempt at a beautiful, thoughtful film with a very nice sci-fi setting, and in my opinion succeeds far more than last year's District 9 - which is the film I've most heard compared to this one.

District 9 was more entertaining, don't get me wrong.  But District 9 was a pretty stupid film at its core.  Monsters has a bit more intelligence to it (despite some cringe-worthy moments) and doesn't fall back on gore and slapstick to keep the audience entertained.  Here, the entertainment comes from the actual film-making, cinematography, and effects.

This is well worth a look.  More satisfying than District 9, but not as entertaining.