Archive for Sam Neill

The Reassessment Files Look at EVENT HORIZON (1997)

Posted in 1990s Horror, 2013, Compelling Cinema, Ghosts!, Outer Space, Paul McMahon Columns, Reassessment Files, Science Fiction, Space with tags , , , , , , on March 20, 2013 by knifefighter

EVENT HORIZON (1997)
A Reassessment File
Review by: Paul McMahon

eh - poster two

There was a stretch of time after I got my own place that I reveled in free weekends. Such weekends didn’t happen often, but when they did I would celebrate by hitting the video store to load up on movies. Usually I crammed six movies between Friday night and Monday morning. I first saw EVENT HORIZON during the last of one of those marathons.

The movie didn’t stand out for me back then. It struck me as excessively weird and illogical in its execution. I’ve always regarded it as a broken film that should’ve been a whole lot better. The production values were impressive, however, and though at the time I wasn’t filtering my cinematic opinions through a ratings system, I imagine that if I had been, I’d have given it half a star. At the time, I walked away and didn’t give it another thought.

Fans of the movie exist, though. I’ve met a few of them. One or two were quite rabid in their defense of it, which made it a prime candidate for a reassessment. I toyed with the idea for a while, and recently stumbled across a copy buried in a $5.00 MOVIES box at the front of my grocery store. I took it as a sign that the time had come.

(Disclaimer: As with other Reassessment Files columns, this movie came out so long ago that I feel no need to avoid spoilers. If you haven’t seen it in the past fifteen years, I recommend you check it out before reading on.)

The movie kicks off with a text backstory detailing the history of the space ship EVENT HORIZON. She was launched in 2040 to “explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy,” but disappeared just beyond Neptune. We’re told it’s 2047.

Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill—star of one of last year’s Reassessment subjects, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, 1994) suffers a nightmare featuring the EVENT HORIZON and awakens surrounded by dozens of photos of the same woman. “I miss you,” he tells one of the pictures, and we know immediately his mental train’s running with at least a few wheels off the track. He boards a rescue ship, the Lewis and Clark, and the movie’s characters begin tucking themselves into stasis for the long trip to Neptune.

To float in stasis grav tanks, perchance to dream.

To float in stasis grav tanks…perchance to dream.

Once “the Clark” reaches its destination and the crew awakens from their grav tanks, Captain Miller (played by Laurence Fishburne, who recently completed a stint as Dr. Langston on CSI, and is cast as Perry White in the upcoming MAN OF STEEL, 2013) calls a meeting so Dr. Weir can fill the crew in on the real story behind the Event Horizon. “… it’s the culmination of a secret government project to create a spacecraft capable of faster-than-light flight.” Making this impossibility possible is Dr. Weir’s “Gravity Drive,” a device he himself designed and built. Problem was, when they activated it back in 2040, the Event Horizon disappeared without a trace. Now, apparently, it’s back and stuck in a decaying orbit around Neptune.

The Clark attaches to the Event Horizon and some of the rescue crew board to search for survivors. There are none. In some areas of the ship there are greenish blobs floating in the zero gravity. “There’s been a coolant leak,” says Justin (Jack Noseworthy, U-571, 2000) as he makes his way toward the engine to restore power. The Gravity Drive, a spinning gyroscope of metal plates, seems to liquefy and then sucks Justin inside. This causes an explosion that rips through the Lewis and Clark’s hull, compromising its atmosphere. The entire crew is ordered to suit up and board the Event Horizon. Meanwhile, Justin reappears from the gravity drive unconscious and unresponsive, though his vital signs remain stable.

The Gravity Drive:- round and round and round it goes, and when it stops, you're in hell.

The Gravity Drive:- round and round and round it goes, and when it stops, you’re in hell.

Work begins on trying to repair the Clark for the trip home, but when the gravity drive begins draining power from the Event Horizon, Dr. Weir climbs into the bowels of the machine to attempt a repair. As he tries to locate the problem, he hears a woman’s voice calling his name, and then the lights go out. “Captain Miller? I’ve got some problems here!” he yells. The lights blink back on and the woman from all the pictures at the beginning of the film is only inches away from Dr. Weir. “Be with me, Billy,” she says. “Forever!”

The cast is impressive. Laurence Fishburne is a former Oscar nominee for his portrayal of Ike Turner in 1993′s WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT. He gives a stellar performance here, as you would expect. Kathleen Quinlan (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 2006) plays Med Tech Peters. She is also a former Oscar nominee for her work in 1995′s APOLLO 13. The rest of the cast includes Joely Richardson (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, 2011, as well as the TV show NIP/TUCK), Richard Jones (COLLATERAL, 2004 and SUPER 8, 2011), Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER series), and Sean Pertwee (DOG SOLDIERS, 2002). All of them give great performances.

The movie is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson of RESIDENT EVIL and ALIEN VS PREDATOR fame. Apparently, Mr. Anderson turned down the opportunity to direct 2000′s X-MEN, opting instead for this “The Shining In Space” tale and the chance to deliver an R-rated horror movie. He handles the material very well, building suspense throughout while delivering subtle homages to popular haunted house movies, including THE HAUNTING (1963), Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING (1980), and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979).

For my part, I accepted that re-watching the film with an eye toward glimpsing what people like about it would create the possibility that I would change my mind. I did not expect that my opinion would change as much as it did. I have completely re-written this column five times now. Every time I think it through, I find that I like the movie even more. I’ve watched it three times in the past week, letting other chores and expectations fall by the wayside.

I do recognize where EVENT HORIZON fell apart for me fifteen years ago. By the time Weir enters the workings of the Gravity Drive, other members of the crew have been reporting strange occurrences. Weir has scoffed at all of them, insisting that their experiences are imaginary. The moment fear enters his voice inside the Gravity Drive, we get that “Told You So” tingle because the skeptical fool is being confronted with the same phenomena he’s been discounting all along. In the very next scene, though, he’s back to insisting that nothing unusual is happening. Such an unexplained and illogical character turn leads to questions, such as: Has Weir been taken over by the ship? Has he been driven completely mad? Has he suffered such a traumatic shock that he’s blocked out the experience altogether? Or, remembering the nightmare that woke him in the opening shot, does he have some kind of psychic link with the ship? I think this psychic link is what the writer and the director were going for.

Also, with today’s technology it doesn’t take much to pause the film during the “glimpses of hell” montage so you can gape and squirm at the brilliant and intense practical make up effects that zip past the screen. Much of it betters horror images being released today.

This film surprised me completely. I remembered it as something very different, and I find myself wondering how I missed so much goodness back in the day. Maybe cramming so many films into a single weekend wasn’t the best choice after all. Be that as it may, I’m changing my rating of the film to an embarrassing degree.

Original assessment: half a star.
Reassessment: 3 and a half stars.

I’m not ashamed to say that I’m going to watch this at least once more before I move on to the next film.

© Copyright 2013 by Paul McMahon

eh - poster one

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“The Reassessment Files” Take a Second Look at John Carpenter’s IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)

Posted in 1990s Horror, 2012, Ancient Civilizations, Cult Movies, Demons, John Carpenter Films, Lovecraft Movies, Lovecraftian Horror, Monsters, Paul McMahon Columns, Reassessment Files, The Distracted Critic with tags , , , , , on August 14, 2012 by knifefighter

The Reassessment Files:
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
By Paul McMahon (The Distracted Critic)

John Trent: You’re waiting to hear about my “them,” aren’t you?

Dr. Wrenn: Your what?

John Trent: My “them.”Every paranoid schizophrenic has one; a “them,” a “they,” an “it”. And you want to hear about my “them,” don’t you?

****

Maybe that’s where this first “Reassessment Files” should begin, eh? My “them.”

John Carpenter’s IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS came out in 1994—almost two decades ago. I rented the VHS from a mom and pop place called Lake Ripple Video near where I grew up. The store itself was a bit of a sore spot with me, because before the video people moved in that shop was The Yankee Bookseller, and it’s where I spent every lawn-mowing and snow-shoveling dollar I earned. Lake Ripple Video has also long since closed. But I digress. Before I’ve even started, I digress.

The timing of the movie was such that I was on the verge of being unemployed because my job was closing. (Seeing a trend here? The mid-nineties sucked for that sort of thing.) I had a lot on my mind. The end result was that IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS came across as disjointed and incoherent, a blatant mess with logic holes and dropped plot strands. It looped endlessly and ended abruptly, leaving far more questions than answers. The kicker was, I really wanted to like it, having seen a CNN filler interview in which Carpenter promised this movie would have more and better monsters than had ever been seen on the silver screen before. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for a monster story, so naturally I took that promise to heart.

Carpenter’s movie disappointed in a huge way. For the guy who brought THE THING (1982) to the big screen, I expected a hell of a lot more. Frankly, I got a much better view of the monsters during the CNN interview. I grumbled all the way back to Lake Ripple Video and tossed the whole IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS concept onto my mental trash heap and moved on.

Over the past few years, though, I have heard repeatedly at cons and on Facebook and from friends whose opinions I trust that IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is one of the very best H.P. Lovecraft homages that exists. I’ve always used my skeptical eyebrow when dealing with these crazies. It’s a strategy that has worked well in the past, but lately there are more and more of these loonies to contend with, and my eyebrow is tiring. It seemed my best option was for me to give the film another look.

Since the movie is just shy of two decades old, I’m going to reveal spoilers if they come up. If that’s going to bug you, go watch the film before you read another word.

The movie opens with John Trent (Sam Neill, JURASSIC PARK ,1993) being thrown into a padded cell in a very busy lunatic asylum. Once his raving subsides, he’s visited by Dr. Wrenn (David Warner, THE OMEN, 1976) and is coaxed into telling his story. He reveals that he was an insurance investigator, and he was sent to investigate a claim by a big-time New York publishing house that their star author—Sutter Cain (Jurgen Prochnow, most notably DAS BOOT, 1981) —has disappeared with his latest manuscript. As Trent reads and studies Cain’s books to familiarize himself with the case, we learn he’s anti-horror, most likely anti-fantasy, and probably anti-fiction of any form. Waking from a nightmare featuring repetitive disturbing images, he discovers strange lines on the covers of Cain’s paperbacks. He cuts them out and pieces them together. They form a map of New Hampshire, revealing the exact location of Cain’s fictional town of Hobb’s End.

To him, this means that the whole “disappearing author” thing is a publicity stunt and not a real mystery. If Trent seems more than a little disappointed by this, he seems positively put-out that he’s sent to find the town with Cain’s editor, the sultry Linda Styles (Julie Carmen, FRIGHT NIGHT II, 1988). Styles insists that the only person to have read the entire manuscript, Cain’s agent, went crazy. Turns out the agent is the same nut that attacked Trent with an axe in broad daylight and was shot dead by police earlier in the movie. Eventually, Trent falls asleep in the car and Styles manages to find the town after experiencing some haunting activity on the road, including a weird sequence where the car seems to be flying. Trent wakes when they arrive and they investigate the seemingly deserted town, finally discovering that Cain is living in the town’s church.

I came to the writings of Lovecraft after I saw the film. I’d say that has a bit to do with my not ‘getting it’ the first time. This time, I was surprised to find a veritable smorgasbord of creepy Lovecraftian images and events. There were many quick, indirect images of things that could be defined as “unnamable” and “unspeakable.” A lot of the horror happened indirectly and was hard to identify. On the two occasions that Styles reads Cain’s work aloud, she actually read passages of Lovecraft’s work, most notably “The Rats In The Walls.”

Things get complicated as Styles’ personality is swallowed by the town, resulting in her becoming more of a hindrance than an ally. When she disappears one evening, Trent finds her in the dark old church, watching Cain write. Trent watches as well and with a flourish Cain finishes the last page of his manuscript. The same Cain’s agent already read, which is why he went mad in the first place. If the book wasn’t finished until now, how could that have happened?

Driving people insane is the whole point of Cain’s book, by the way. Cain wants to drive his readers mad. Once a high enough percentage of the population is crazy, the Old Ones who sleep beneath the skin of the Earth can arise and rule the world.

Ah, the Old Ones...

This brings us to my biggest complaint, and the main reason I gave the film such poor marks all those years ago. The Old Ones are loosed before Trent has delivered the manuscript, so before anyone has read the thing. They, in fact, chase him through a mystical tunnel out of Hobbs End and into reality, and at no time do we get a clear shot of the things. Yeah, there are images of parts– a few drooly teeth here, an angry looking eye there, a pair of sharp talons on a scaly, deformed foot– but never a really good look at the monsters. I realize this was in keeping with Lovecraft’s style, but it definitely bucks Carpenter’s promise of “more and better monsters than had ever been seen on the silver screen before.”

“More and better monsters than had ever been seen on the silver screen before!” – Enjoy this screenshot. It’s the best look you’re going to get.

They are “onscreen”– used a stopwatch to time it– thirty seconds out of a movie 5,700 seconds long, and a lot of this segment is Trent running, falling, and screaming. Even crap movies have more monster than this. If you absolutely insist on counting Mrs. Pickman’s “reveal” and Styles’ “transformation,” the total monster-on-screen ratio is two minutes out of 195.

Hardly “more and better monsters” at all.

Watching the sequences on freeze frame, it’s obvious the “Wall of Old Ones” cost a lot of money to pull off. We’re talking a dozen to twenty puppeteers just to make the creatures seem alive. To spend that kind of money and then not show the damn things… suffice to say that it’s one of the rare instances where if I’d been producing I would’ve stepped in and enforced my will that there be more– and clearer– shots of the creatures. “Put my money on the screen,” I’d have said. “Lovecraft used the terms ‘unnamable’ and ‘unspeakable’ because he dealt with the printed word and couldn’t fully convey the unusual monstrosities he was seeing. You, John Carpenter, are a filmmaker who has hired the wildest creative imaginers in the business today (The KNB effects group of Robert Kurtzman, Gregory Nicotero and Howard Berger), so you have no excuse to hide your vision from the viewer.”

Anyway… I went into the movie this time expecting to be let down. Without the pressures that were dragging me down the first time I watched it, and with having read most of Lovecraft’s body of work in the interim, I was able to get into the spirit of the movie a lot deeper and it meant a lot more to me. The homages and tributes were recognizable and fun, and I had a good time, even though the monsters are few and far between.

I still think the film would’ve rocked with a THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)- type montage, where each monster is seen mutilating people in a different city. That would’ve been “more and better monsters.”

First viewing: 1 out of 5 stars

Reassessment: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Best Lovecraft homage ever? I remember one I liked better.

Stay tuned.

© Copyright 2012 by Paul McMahon

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Remote Outpost: LOST AND FOUND

Posted in 2012, JJ Abrams, Mark Onspaugh Columns, Paranormal, Remote Outpost, Supernatural, TV Shows with tags , , , , , , on February 8, 2012 by knifefighter

REMOTE OUTPOST
LOST AND FOUND: ALCATRAZ AND LOST GIRL
Television Reviews by Mark Onspaugh

(NOTE: There are some SPOILERS ahead. It’s difficult to convey the mysteries and conundrums of these shows without giving away some of the material covered in the pilots—be properly warned, ye be.)

Ah, it’s like Christmas morning here at the Outpost… Two new genre shows debuted recently and we all got our chores done early – herded in the banths, milked the vermithrax and harvested venom from all thirteen gorgons. Then, we microwaved Orville Redenbacher (I don’t mean the popcorn, laddie) and brewed some Irish coffee and huddled around the ol’ viewscreen.

The shows in question are ALCATRAZ from J.J. Abrams and (his production company) Bad Robot, and LOST GIRL, from Showcase—now on the SyFy Channel (A note of warning – if you have friends that have been watching LOST GIRL online, they are into season 2 or 3, and they are FULL of spoilers!)

To be honest, I was very excited about ALCATRAZ and was going to leave LOST GIRL in the dust. However, the Council of Elders at Cinema Knife Fight sent two hulking bruisers to my home to convince me of the error of my ways. If you think it’s easy typing with two black eyes and one unbroken finger (left pinkie), you are mistaken. Pardon me, I have to lie down as another blackout descends…

# #

I’m back. Like I said, ALCATRAZ is from J.J. Abrams (ALIAS 2001-2006, LOST 2004-2010, FRINGE, which is still on the air, and the most recent STAR TREK movie (2009)), and Bryan Burk (ALIAS, LOST, FRINGE and STAR TREK). These are, by any yardstick, heavy-duty creds. I came into LOST late into the game (Season 3) and had to do a massive marathon viewing to get up to speed. I love FRINGE and I loved LOST—even the finale so many hated, which I felt took some chances and, while maybe not entirely successful, did explain some mysteries and give us closure. So Bad Robot and company have a lot of credit with me.

The pilot starts beautifully in 1963. Coming in over the water is a major cliché these days, but here the water looked eerie, threatening. A detail bringing over more prisoners for “The Rock” finds the entire facility deserted. Prisoners, guards, civilians and families (guards lived on the island with their families) are gone. The younger guard, we come to find, is Emerson Hauser, and will grow up to be Sam Neill. Now, Sam Neill has tons of genre cred – his eyes are a’twinkle with mischief and/or malevolence. He was Damian all growed up in OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981), Merlin in MERLIN’S APPRENTICE (2006), Dr. Alan Grant in the JURASSIC PARK franchise (1993, 2001) and Lovecraftian protagonist John Trent in John Carpenter’s eerie IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994).

Emerson is the brains behind the program to collect all the Alcatraz missing as they return. There’s lots he not telling his two cohorts, not the least of which is he has a giant, state-of-the-art prison hidden underground in the middle of the woods where he transfers captured escapees—living and dead. The doctors who attended staff and prisoners before the disappearance are either not aging or are time-traveling from 1963 to the present… And, as seen in the pilot, at least one inmate had money and fake ID’s waiting his return…

Joining Emerson is a plucky cop, Detective Rebecca Madsen, played by Sarah Jones. I thought Sarah looked familiar—she played the daughter of Adam Arkin’s American Nazi character on the FX series, SONS OF ANARCHY. Rebecca’s cases come into conflict with Emerson’s secret agenda. In fact, she had a grandfather who was a guard on Alcatraz… Rebecca soon learns that isn’t the truth, nor is the old man dead… Hell, he’s not even old. In addition, “Gramps” is often seen in the infirmary when other inmates visit, and seems to know a lot more than he should about a lot of things.

If Emerson is our brains, and Rebecca our courage, the last part of the OZ formula is supplied by Dr. Diego Soto, played by Jorge Garcia, who was so wonderful as Hurley on LOST. Dr. Soto is the world’s expert on Alcatraz, and he got his hands on lots of documents and personal effects no one else ever did. He’s also a comic book geek who owns his own store. He’s not very brave, yet is willing to risk life and limb for Rebecca or an innocent.

Sam Neill, Sarah Jones and Jorge Garcia are the stars of ALCATRAZ, the new show from JJ Abrams.

The trouble with ALCATRAZ is two-fold—its “hook” is to feature a different inmate’s return each week, and dribble in some more details on the mysteries it has laid out. While the mysteries are interesting, the criminals may not always be, and this formula may grow tired very quickly—I noticed that the second hour of the pilot seem to move much more slowly than the first. It’s early, but it hasn’t become a show I have to watch. Unlike LOST, it’s not one I feel compelled to discuss with friends. In addition, even if LOST didn’t always give us buckets of mystery every episode, the characters and their situation were compelling enough—Sawyer hogging supplies to barter with, Hurley trying to be the peace-maker, Locke and his “noble savage” abilities, etc. ALCATRAZ depends heavily on its three main characters, and so far they just haven’t been very interesting… However, I do have faith in J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and figure that things will heat up very quickly… My wife has given them 5 episodes… Sometimes I will stubbornly stick with a show I had faith in, wanting it to redeem itself or go down in flames (X-FILES [1993-2002] and SMALLVILLE [2001-2011] are two examples). Whether ALCATRAZ becomes “must viewing,” a guilty pleasure, or something I escape, we shall see.

# #

Apparently someone passed out a memo to television and movie execs a few months back and declared fairy tales the genre flavor of the moment. Why else have two Snow White movies, mash-ups of Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast and shows like GRIMM (which I like), ONCE UPON A TIME (which I gave up on), and now LOST GIRL?

SyFy apparently read enough talkbacks to see they were becoming synonymous with cheap, laughable movies about tornados that dump alligators on galas presided over by C-list actors and has-been pop stars from the 80’s. Taking their cue from HBO and Showtime, SyFy is going for more adult programming, meaning that after 10pm one may get more mature content in the form of language, nudity and gore.

LOST GIRL is, I believe, the vanguard of this new face on the “Y” channel (really, does anyone prefer “SyFy” to “SciFi” that capitalized on the fact that the latter contains “if”?). Our heroine is Bo, played by Anna Silk. Bo is a beautiful woman with a terrible secret – she is capable of seducing anyone with a mere touch and feeds off their life-force. She is, in fact, a succubus, one of the many species of Fae, or Faerie Folk. The Fae live in our world and may even hold jobs as cops or teachers or that peculiar goat-footed balloon salesman in the park. Somehow Bo has escaped the notice of the Fae until now. Her undoing is helping Kenzi, a pickpocket and thief played by Ksenia Solo. Bo sees Kenzi has been “rufied” and can’t help getting her out of a jam –plus the would-be rapist is a tasty snack. Enter two cops to the crime scene who are actually Fae: Dyson, a sort of werewolf or shape-shifter and Detective Hale, whose singing can make one forget or do his bidding. Dyson is played by Kris Holden-Reid (UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, 2012) and Hale by K.C. Collins. Dyson has taken an interest in Bo, and seems impervious to her succubus energy-sucking, so romantic possibilities are in the offing…

The cast of the Syfy Channel series, LOST GIRL.

Rounding out the cast are Zoie Palmer (DEVIL, 2010) as Lauren, a human doctor who knows about the Fae and how to treat them (and who is noticeably attracted to Bo) and Richard Howland as Trick, a gnome or little Fae (leprechaun?) who runs the only Fae bar in town—a place that is neutral ground for Dark and Light. Trick is the character who seems most familiar with whatever prophecy involves Bo.

In the pilot, Bo was introduced to the Fae and found out they are divided into Dark and Light. She was set against two nasty creatures as a test, then, once she survived, told she must choose between Dark or Light. Bo chose neither, wanting instead to stay a part of humanity. This did not go over well with any of the Elder Fae, but also seems in keeping with a prophecy of a very powerful Fae either uniting or wiping out the whole Fae race.

Bo and her plucky human sidekick have taken up residence together, and have formed a sort of Fae X-FILES—they investigate strange and weird crimes with the intent of helping people, and Bo hopes to learn more about her Fae parents, who apparently abandoned her when she was a baby.

Anna Silk plays Bo in the new series, LOST GIRL.

LOST GIRL is a bit of a cross between BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) and the aforementioned GRIMM, with plenty of wise-cracking and clever riffs on old tales and well-known characters from legend, folklore and fairy tales. It’s nice to have a female protagonist who is not only attractive but confident in her sexuality, and her flirting with Dyson is a nice spin on the old “beauty and the beast” trope. My wife loves this show, and several of our female friends love it, as well—both for the wisecracking Kenzi and the “dreamy” wolf Dyson. I’m more a fan of the Blut Bad (Big Bad Wolf) in GRIMM, but I was a big fan of BUFFY—it’s doubtful this will reach Joss Whedon inventiveness or greatness, but one can always hope…

# #

NEXT UP: Just started watching a terrific new miniseries from the BBC called THE FADES, and will be watching the premiere of THE RIVER, a new ABC series from Oren Peli (director of the 2007 hit movie, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and AREA 51, now in post-production) and exec produced by Zack Estrin, who co-exec produced PRISON BREAK (2005-2009), another show I stayed with until the very end, long after it had left the twin cities of Rhyme and Reason far behind… But oh, those characters!

Well, gotta go—we’ve got mutants in the sand pit again, and no amount of D-Con or poisoned crackers keeps them at bay. They are hell on the lawn and my guests, leaving little tell-tale antennae sticking out the back of folks’ necks, and making them all cranky and anti-social and cannibalistic in the bargain.

See you next time. Outpost… out.

© Copyright 2012 by Mark Onspaugh


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HAPPY TOWN!

Posted in 2010, Horror, TV Shows with tags , , , , , on May 6, 2010 by knifefighter

HAPPY TOWN. (TV show, now airing Wednesday nights at 10pm (Eastern Time) on ABC.)
Review by L.L. Soares

Like newcomer Henley (Lauren German), when we first drift into the town of Haplin, Minnesota, thing seem a little off. Maybe it’s the way the town sherrif, Griffin Conroy (M.C. Gainey, who you might recognize as one of the “Others” from LOST) occasionally starts muttering about “Chloe” for some reason, and then he denies it when questioned about it. Then there’s the death of the town perv, Jerry Friddle, who we see early on, in a shack by an ice pond, being questioned by a mysterious stranger, just before he gets his skull ventilated by a hammer and chisel.

A bread factory overlooks the town, owned by a family that hires many of Haplin’s residents as employees. Oh, and five years ago, a possible serial killer called the “Magic Man” took his last victim and disappeared. Is he dead? Retired? Or is he just waiting for the time to start his collecting again?

As the real estate lady tells us, people who live in Haplin call it Happy Town, but we’re talking irony here.

There are the obligatory weird/quirky characters, including a quartet of widows who stay at the same boarding house Henley does, the landlady, Mrs. Meadows, who informs her she better never go up to the third floor if she wants to continue living there (which just makes us want to know more about the third floor). There’s also the man who runs the bread factory, John Haplin (Steven Weber), of the Haplin family who named this town,  whose daughter was the Magic Man’s last victim. And some menacing redneck brothers who seem to be the cause of most of the town’s problems.

Another main character is Tommy Conroy (Geoff Stults), the sherrif’s son and the husband of Rachel (the terrific Amy Acker, best known from the Joss Whedon’s shows  ANGEL (where she played “Fred”) and the more recent DOLLHOUSE (where she played Dr.Saunders).

Perhaps the oddest duck of all, though, is Sam Neill as Merritt Grieves, another stranger who has decided to open a movie memorabilia store in town. He seems to know a lot about the history of the Magic Man, and seems happy to open his shop in a town where the locals will probably have no interest in his wares. Is Neill’s character somehow tied in with the murders and disappearances – or is he just a red herring? It’s too early to tell.

We do find out at the end of the first episode, during a cell phone call, that Henley’s real name is actually “Chloe,” which makes us wonder about her link to the Sherrif, who has just cut off his own hand while blathering on like a madman in his office about “Chloe.”

The second episode shows us some new mysteries, including a hammer with a goat’s head, a stranger who drugs a girl’s coffee (is he the Magic Man?), and lots of birds, including one that smashes through the windshield of Henley/Chloe’s car, driving her off the road. We also get one mystery solved – who killed Jerry Friddle?

The show has set things up to deliver an interesting storyline, but whether it lives up to its promise or loses its way is yet to be seen. There are moments when the show comes off like a riff of David Lynch’s classic television show TWIN PEAKS (which ended well before its time). TWIN PEAKS was also on ABC, and is celebrating the twentieth anniversary since it first aired. HAPPY TOWN seems like it’s trying to be as quirky as Lynch’s show, but it’s definitely not in the same league. Yet.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t be an entertaining show as it develops.

I, for one, plan to keep watching and find out more about this strange small town.

© Copyright 2010 by  L.L. Soares

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