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Tag Archives: Horror
Why The Haunting of Hill House Succeeds Where So Many Other Netflix Shows Fail
Every prestige-ish drama has to have a mystery box. Whether the cultural influence comes from J.J. Abrams or Game of Thrones or the other forces that prompt studios and creators to play follow the leader, no season of television, particularly genre television, can seem to get by without some burning mystery that you’ll have to wait till the season finale to see resolved.
The Haunting of Hill House is no exception. As I discussed on The Serial Fanaticist podcast, the horror series from writer/director Mike Flanagan actually has two mystery boxes. The series gradually ladles out the story of the Crain family — two young parents and their five children — in both the past and the present, offering parallel mysteries in both timeframes. And its puzzles and scares are each centered around the titular haunted house.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Haunted Houses, Horror, Netflix, Season Reviews, The Haunting of Hill House
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Castle Rock’s First Season Offers the Same Old Tiresome Excesses of High Class Genre Fare
CAUTION: This article contains major spoilers for Castle Rock.
When the first season of Netflix’s Daredevil came out, it felt like the series fulfilled an unmet need. The show had its problems, even in its promising first year, but it did things differently than other live action superhero shows at the time. The series had something on its mind. It had production values and grimy visuals and creatively-staged fights. It was far from flawless, but its quick success made it seem like the herald of a new phase of genre television, one that aimed for something a little deeper, a little darker, and a little realer than what we’d had before.
Well maybe it’s time to send that herald back from whence it came. As I discussed on The Serial Fanatacist podcast, Castle Rock doesn’t directly borrow much, if anything, from Daredevil, but it’s part of the same wave of prestige-aping, navel-gazing genre shows whose reach far exceeds their grasp. While briefly novel, this sort of take on geek-approved material has worn out its welcome amid the onslaught of shows that know enough to gesticulate toward deeper themes and move the camera around in faux-portentous montages, but never really master the trade, let alone the depth of character or storytelling that could make those badges of seriousness legitimately meaningful.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Castle Rock, Genre Television, Horror, Season Reviews, Stephen King
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What Makes Zombies So Frightening?
The easy is answer is pretty straightforward — because they’re walking corpses who feast on human flesh. But there’s more to it than that. Movie monsters come and go. Some are corny, some are genuinely frightening, but most are fairly transient in the popular imagination. And yet zombies have been strangely and ironically durable. There’s something about the idea of the undead, something that makes zombies both unnerving and compelling, that has made them an indelible part of American horror cinema.
The Second Breakfast Podcast (from the inestimable Andy Roth and Phil DeVaul) discussed this topic in their most recent podcast. I encourage you all to watch it in its entirety:
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_IKEfizfX4″]
The Second Breakfast guys raise a number of good points about what makes zombies frightening: First, the undead multiply very quickly. Zombie movies play on our fears about a devastating outbreak and an inability to contain a quickly-spreading contagion. Part of the terror comes from the idea that the outbreak is so sudden, and so foreign, that by the time anyone realizes what’s happening, it’s already too late.
Second, you cannot outlast zombies. They’re a continually lurching horror, one that cannot be simply ignored or waited out. This longevity adds to the looming sense of dread in every zombie film. The survivors in a zombie film are not simply waiting for the storm to pass so things can return to normal. They’re trying to figure out what kind of life they can have in a world where they’re under a constant, mortal threat.
Third, they’re your friends and neighbors. There’s something inherently unsettling about having to kill something that, whatever its level of decay and depravity, still appears human. As Andy Roth describes in the above video, zombie movies often feature characters having to kill one of their close friends or family members who’ve turned. There’s an added level of horror to the idea of having to slay a monster who still looks like someone you love, and it makes the undead unique among cinematic monsters.
But I think there’s something else, something more elemental, that makes zombies not only frightening but also compelling as monsters.
