Category Archives: Television

Spooky Movie 4: Hellraiser (2022)

 

Full disclosure I saw the original Hellraiser when it was released in theaters, and I left the screening disappointed. So much so that I never watched any of the numerous sequels. This is no shade thrown at the fan base who have embraced this franchise, but it simply did not work for me.

Hellraiser 2022 centers of Riley McKendry a woman battling drug and alcohol addiction as she lives with her brother Matt, his boyfriend Collin, and roommate Nora. While on a burglary with his hook-up friend Trevor, Riley discovers a mystical puzzle box which can summon twisted and Spyglass Media Groupmutilated demons, the Cenobites, that offer twisted rewards and gifts often in the form of extreme physical torment. When her brother vanishes and with her own recollections fouled by her drugged mind Riley embarks on the quest to discover the truth of the puzzle box and find her brother.

I very much enjoyed Hellraiser 2022, much more than I did the original. The cast performs well, the atmosphere and mood of this version is quite well captured by director David Bruckner and cinematographer Eli Born. While the extensive Hellraiser franchise robs the cenobites of mystery and surprise this story, entirely distinct from the original film and novella, has enough mystery and twists within itself to satisfy. This set of characters are also more appealing and easier to enjoy with then the original ’87 movie. The production also benefits from a much higher budget, more than 30 years of advancement in special effect, and a more experienced director helming the feature, yielding a far superior product. No shade to Clive Barker and his production. Given the budget it must be viewed as a success since it inspired such a long-lasting fandom, but talent in one art, writing, does not necessarily translate to another.

From certain segments of fandom, a great deal of noise has been generated over the casting of a transactor, Jamie Clayton, as the iconic leader of the Cenobites, Pinhead. As with other sound and fury signifying nothing concerning the race of actors plays elves, dwarves, and Norse gods, in the end all that really matters is the performance and Clayton’s was perfectly adequate. That is not damning with faint praise. The script calls on Pinhead do to little more than appear and intone theatrically and this requirement Clayton fulfills quite well. To see more from the performance required more on the page than is present.

All in all, Hellraiser 2022 is an acceptable horror film for a late night’s viewing. It shan’t become one of my favorites but nor does it rank among those that wasted my time.

Hellraiser 2022 is currently streaming on HULU.

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Not Quiet “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”

In Stoppard’s play and film adaptation Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead the central conceit is that we follow these two minor characters from Hamlet, occasionally witnessing their scenes from that tragic play but mostly seeing them ‘off stage’ and using that device to explore the meaning of life and art.

Stoppard produced in the play and in the film a piece that uses comedy to interrogate serious question of life and coming next month to Hulu a comedic film uses the same trick for what appears to be purely comic effect.

Rosaline like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead uses a minor character from one of Shakespeare’s plays to create a new point of view from which to watch the tragedy unfold. This time the play is Romeo and Juliet. This time the minor character is one who was mentioned but never actually seen in the text, Rosaline, the girl Romeo professed to love and adore before his ill-fated meeting with Juliet. Now spurned by her Romeo, Rosaline conspires to win her love back.

I don’t hold out hope for high art, but I’ll watch it on streaming for amusements sake.

 

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Quick Thoughts: House of the Dragon and Rings of Power

Two new shows arrived recently, House of the Dragon a prequel series for Game of Thrones on HBO and Rings of Power a prequel series for Lord of the Rings streaming on Amazon Prime.

Both shows are following in the footsteps of massively popular that also made mistakes and missteps of their own. Lord of the Rings had it’s disappointing if financially successful Hobbit trilogy and Game of Thrones fell off the narrative cliff with its final two seasons.

House of the Dragon, set just over a hundred years before the events in Game of Thrones is concerned with a civil war among the ruling houses of the seven kingdoms and so far, has failed to emotionally engage me or cause me to care about any of the characters. Unlike Game of HBOThrones there are no characters to root for or identify with and the characters as presented are far too bland to be engaging as interesting characters. The series feels more plot than story with events pushing the characters about rather than being driven by their choices. I don’t dislike the show but neither do I like it.

Rings of Power is much more engaging. While it is set thousands of years prior to The Lord of the Rings, due to the immortality of the elves we actually have character continuity between the properties. Character have much clearer and well-defined motivations and personalities that Amazon Studiosmake the series easy to emotionally care about. I know just enough of Tolkien’s lore to see some of what is happened but not so much as to be offended by any liberties taken with the text. And as to the ‘controversy’ over the casting of some of the characters? Piffle. Elves and Dwarves are not real and therefore it is immaterial the race of any actor in the part.

I like and I am enjoying Rings of Power and look forward to where the show may take us.

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Series Review: The Sandman

 

Sorry for the lack weekday updates this week. Tuesday evening, I got to experience something new to me, a gout flare. Wednesday was spent in quite a bit of pain and many hours at the kaiser Urgent Care, and by Thursday night it had nearly all passed. So now when I watch the musical 1776 and Franklin is wishing that King George felt like his big toe, but all over, I fully understand the kevel vitriol he is throwing in the crown’s direction.
Last night my sweetie-wife and I completed the Netflix series adaptation of Gaiman’s The

Netflix Studios

Sandman. The 10-episode series follows Dream/Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) one of the Endless, personifications of enduring concepts interregnal to humanity. Morpheus is the Lord of Dreams and some of the other Endless are Death, Desire, and so on. Following a century long imprisonment when human sorcerers were attempting to capture Death, Morpheus embarks upon a quest to reclaim stolen items of power, rebuild his decayed kingdom of The Dreaming, and recapture escaped nightmares of major Arcana who has in his absence troubled the waking world.
I have never read the original Comic run from which the series is adapted and as such I cannot speak to the quality of transformation but merely react as it is currently presented.
I like the show. It’s fantastic elements meld with the reality of the ‘waking’ world quite nicely and rarely does the show lose itself in deep lore and heavy bouts of exposition. (Always a tricky balancing act with genre fiction.) The cast Are quite engaging and well placed in their parts. (There has been controversy over the gender-flipping nature of some of the parts but I found no issues with any of the cast.) Sturridge had a particularly difficult task; he is the show’s lead and central character, and he must carry the show while playing a withdrawn and more silent than not personification. The part required that subtle tics and posture inform the audience to the character’s inner turmoil and crisis a challenge that Sturridge proved equal to.
The story slides easy between sweet fantasy and disturbing horror, particularly in episode 5 which centers on the horrific events over a single day and night in a diner where a troubled man lifts the veil of lies that often makes life bearable to terrible consequences.
Over all the series is well worth a watch and here’s hoping that it is successful enough for Netflix to engage another season.

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Movie Review: PREY

1987 saw the release of Predator itself inspired by the 1980 wholly lackluster low-budget movie Without Warning, both films used the premise of an alien hunter come to Earth for the sport of hunting humans. Unlike the 1980 movie Predator exploded at the box office quickly becoming a massive success spawning 4 direct follow-on film and melding it with the studio’s other Sf/horror franchise Alien.

Prey, the latest franchise entry, is set in North America during the early 18th century as a band of Comanche deal with a predator-hunter come to Earth. The film’s central character, Naru, (Amber Midthunder) a young woman skilled in healing arts but with a burning desire to a tribal hunter, finds herself struggling to survive the alien’s stalking while navigating the difficult waters of both her tribal politics and the further encroaching of the Europeans into the continent.

There are many who are praising Prey as not only a great sequel but superior to the original 1987 film. This is overly enthusiastic. Granted compared to the lackluster Predator 2, The Predator (2018), or any of the Alien v Predator entries Prey stands out as solid, enjoyable filmmaking. Only it and 20103s Predators took the central premise and did anything more than simply copy the form with cut-and-paste caricatures. That said I think none of the subsequent movies surprise the surprise, tension, and thematic depths of the original film. Predator’s commentary of the emptiness of bravado, and as Lucifer in Sandman might say, the traps of tools, is something that rings true today 35 years later. Prey like all the other films in the Predator franchise has its moments that shatter disbelief. However, it does not layer these issues repeatedly and thus audiences can recover their acceptance of the story as it unfolds. The incongruity that has stayed with me is that any herbal concoction that lowers your body’s temperature to background is simply lethal. No mammal gets to survive that experience.

That is not to say that Prey is a bad film, it is not. Prey boasts interesting characters, who act and react with authenticity. Something that is far too often lacking in popular genre media. (Yes, I am looking at you X.) The tribal characters are engaging, realized human beings with the writers avoid both the cliche of the ‘noble savage’ wise in all things, and the ‘brutal savage’ untamed and untamable. Little can be said for the French fur trappers that who make a brief appearance in the film as all of their dialog is un-subtitled and your humble reviewer speaks no French. Jeff Cutter’s cinematography capture the scale, scope, and beauty of Canada doubling as the American wilderness reminiscent of the fantastic vista often found in John Ford’s best westerns. Director Dan Trachtenberg, previously best known for 10 Cloverfield Lane a tight, confined thriller with a fantastic performance by John Goodman, delivers on the action and tension inherent in a Predatormovie. Naru’s escape and refuge in a beaver lodge is a particularly powerful if short sequence that displays both the character’s quick intelligence and Trachtenberg’s confident directorial skills.

The visual effects are competent and largely invisible. (That pun fully intended.) With CGI creatures and beast flawlessly integrated into the picture. The grizzly is particularly well executed. Prey unfortunately has no theatrical release, and it is possible the VFX would not survive on massive screens but on my 55″ 4K television is worked perfectly.

Prey is well worth watching and is currently streaming on Hulu.

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Series Review: Light & Magic

Disney+ unveiled a new documentary recently Light & Magic a series exploring the history of the groundbreaking special effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM.)

Founded because no studio effects department was capable of meeting Lucas’s vision for his upcoming space opera Star Wars, ILM quickly became the industry’s premier special effects

Disney Studios

company, producing the special and visual effects not only for Lucasfilm’s productions, Star Wars, Indian Jones, but also the company others turned to when they needed outstanding effects for their films.

While it is important to remember that this documentary series is produced by a studio closely tied to ILM and its products and therefore cannot be considered unbiased there is at least some dirty laundry and less that admirable moments shared in the show. The episode steps us through ILM’s life chronologically from its founding as a rag tag group of artists who dared not dream of real cinematic heights to the creation of the defining effects of our time, CGI.

Light & Magic streams on Disney+.

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Final Thoughts: Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes

My sweetie-Wife and I have finished watching the Netflix Norwegian series Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes, which presented a fresh and novel take on the Vampire story.

Set in the isolated rural community of Skarnes Norway the series follows the troubles of a family-owned funeral parlor facing bankruptcy due to the lack of business. The daughter Live is found dead in a field but reawakens on the autopsy table kicking off the supernatural/vampire plot, along with the mystery of who attacked and killed her.

Post Mortem avoids overt displays of the supernatural stripping vampirism of many of its flashier powers and abilities revealing a much more humanistic story that serves as an analog for addiction. The vampires of this setting do not required blood for sustenance and as such can endure avoiding the harsh consequences of not obtaining any with far less than would be needed as ‘food.’

Begin Rant

I’m going to digress for a moment and state I have never liked supernatural vampires that burn in sunlight and flee from crosses substituting cow’s blood for human as an alternate food. These revenants are not consuming blood for the fats, carbs, and proteins floating in the flow, it is a magical fluid that sustains them and plasma from bovines does not fit that bill.

Rant Over

The characters inhabiting Skarnes, the local police chief Judith, the annoying yuppie-like businessman, the eccentric attendants at the forensic morgue, and more are all entreatingly sketched and performed giving the series a vitality. As with all successful stories it is the characters, their problems, and their humanity, even as vampires, that pulls you in and keeps you watching.

The series answered all the major questions it posed, completed the plots it started, and left enough open that a second season would fit nicely, or it can be considered resolved and complete with just these six installments. I approve; I detest cliff-hangers.

Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes is worth your time.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel, Vulcan’s Forge, available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and is the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and his desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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Series Review: Ms. Marvel

Disney plus this week completed its latest MCU limited series Ms. Marvel. The shows centers on Kamala Khan, a 1st generation Pakistani-American high school student, her friends, family, and obsession with the MCU’s real-life superheroes, particularly Carol Danvers AKA Captain Marvel. When a mysterious artifact from her grandmother unlocks hidden powers within Kamala, she is thrust into a conflict that will set her against agents of the government, extra-dimensional beings, and that will propel her back the traumatic partition of India.

Iman Vellani does a good job portraying Kamala Khan which just the right balance of immaturity appropriate for a teenager but with potential that should bloom as she matures. The multi-ethic cast overall is well portrayed with the diversity within the Islamic faith is displayed without being shoved into a spotlight like a lecture.

Ms. Marvel’s tone is light with an emphasis on comedy but not fully goofy, but rather a character-based humor with just enough stakes to give the series some dramatic heft.

What appears to be the central threat and conflict is actually dealt with in the penultimate episode leaving the finale for a different and not entirely satisfactory complication. That said over all I enjoyed the series, while it was not a bold as Loki nor as experimental as WandaVision the show was entertaining, well written and acted and presented a likeable main character that was easy to empathize with.

Mild Spoiler Follows

IN the final episode Marvel Studios used the series as an opportunity to introduce a long-awaited fan addition to the MCU — mutants, complete with a musical cue from the 90s animated X-Men series.

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Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 1

When someone says Star Trek because I am an older fart my mind immediately flies to The Original Series with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and its ropey effects. When Next Generation arrived, I watched and enjoyed the series through about season five and after that I just sort of dropped off. Deep Space 9 I watched the first two seasons, Voyage I managed 3 episodes before switching it off in disgust and Enterprise lost me at the pilot, and with Discovery I managed 8 episodes before ‘space sonar’ drove me away. I had really liked Discovery but the hard drift away from the series history made it difficult to integrate with my existing fandom and eventually the rupture was too much ignore. Still, I had hope for Strange New Worlds despite having dropped out of Discovery before these actors had stepped into the series playing these iconic cannon characters.

Strange New Worlds has justified that hope.

Anson Mount brings his own spin, quite different while still honoring Jeffrey Hunter’s, to the character of Christopher Pike. The same can be said for Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. There are echoes and resonances of the original portrayals enough to

Credit: Paramount Pictures

respect the prior actors but fresh enough for current styles and trends. The actor most divergent from the original portrayal is Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel but it is an unfair comparison as Majel Barret-Roddenberry was given very little to do with the character beyond pining for Spock. The cast is large, and I am not going to cover them all, not even the pair of legacy characters with Uhura and M’Benga other than to say the entire cast is a delight and I do not think a single wrong has been miscast.

The ten episodes run of season one has finished airing. (A strange phrase as the series is only available via networked streaming.) The approach the show’s creators have used is not the sprawling tightly interconnected chapters of a ten-hour movie that has become so common with television of late, but rather a more episodic nature with each episode a self-contained story with continuing plot threads woven throughout the season. This comes close to the original series format allowing the show’s writers to have episodes that explore different styles that would likely clash in a more tightly plotted season, such as having comedic episodes, space battle episodes, and stories turning about a single moral question. Not all of these episodes land on target, I found the humor of Spock Amokforced but the beauty of a truly episodic series is that the next episode can turn things around.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed Strange New Worlds, both the legacy characters and the new ones have a sharp chemistry that make watching a pleasurable and engaging experience. I look forward to season 2.

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Nordic Noir/Horror: Postmortem No One Dies in Skarnes

In the isolated rural town of Skarnes Norway the body of the funeral home director’s daughter is discovered in a field. Perhaps not to her good fortune, Live (pronounced Liva) is discovered to be alive before the police budget busting autopsy is performed. Grappling with fragmentary memories of the attack that left her for dead in the field Live discovers that not only has she developed a compulsion for blood but that dark familial secrets present new dangers from unexpected quarters.

Postmortem: No One Dies in Skarnes is billed as Nordic noir/horror/comedy though from the first two episodes I would say the show’s emphasis is horror/noir with only occasional touches of humor serving as counter point to the bleak tone and setting. Produced in Norway and currently streaming as a Netflix Original the show has a distinctly Nordic noir aesthetic, presenting the fantastic premise with grounded realistic performances and cinematography. While the story has one foot solidly in its own unique vampire lore the other remains planted in a world of overdue bills and heartless banks so familiar to the audience giving the fantastical a realism necessary for the audience suspension of disbelief.

This commitment to a realistic approach continues to its casting, hair, and make-up with the production eschewing the ‘cover model’ look for its female performers but a more grounded sense of attractiveness that avoids glam for a relatable appearance. The performances themselves are balanced to small emotes with a restrained quietness in keeping with the Nordic noir tradition and that serves the story better than loud overly expressive gesticulations.

Having watched just two of the six episodes of the first season it is difficult to say if the show succeeds. I am of the personal belief that ending are essential to artistic success of any film or series and that a bad one, looking at you Game of Thrones, can critically damage the good that came before. That said I am hopeful that Postmortem: No One Dies in Skarnes will stick its landing.

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