Supernatural: Season 07 (2012)

Supernatural: Season 07 (2012)

23 episodes, approx 42 mins each.

My hope going into Season 07 was that it would be an improvement over Season 06,  even just enough to lift the series out of the shit-heap that showrunner Sera Gamble had put it in, but I don't feel that that happened.

A large part of the reason is the new ongoing threat, first mentioned in the season opener.

Known as Leviathans, the carnivorous bitey things (as pictured on the cover art) were created by God before even the Angels, but for reasons that I won't go into were imprisoned in a holding place that was made just for them. Naturally, they find a way through into the world  of humans. And that's as good as that particular story arc gets.

Supernatural: Season 06 (2011)

Supernatural: Season 06 (2011)

22 episodes, approx 42 mins each.

As mentioned in the Season 05 post, series creator Eric Kripke stepped down as showrunner after the show's fifth year. His successor was Sera Gamble, a long-time writer, story editor, and respected producer of the show. Her history with the Winchesters goes in her favour, but Season 06 is, on balance, a weak continuation.

Each of the three primaries have their role to play in the main story arcs, with each one impacting the others by varying degrees that are equal parts useful and / or contrived.

Without going into spoiler territory, the arcs revolve around a radical change in Sam's personality, Castiel's new plan, and problems for Dean in his newly found 'apple-pie' life.

Supernatural: Season 05 (2010)

Supernatural: Season 05 (2010)

22 episodes, approx 42 mins each.

It's advisable to skip the recaps that precede each episode of Supernatural because the footage used is more often than not a spoiler for which character(s) will appear, which ruins any carefully plotted surprise reveal that may be present, but given that it's been five years since I finished Season 04, it was a necessary evil that I watch them... and yes, it spoiled the surprise almost every time.

The theme for Season 05 is Apocalypse, which follows on from how the previous year ended. In context, that relates mostly to the prophecies of the 'end times' that have been divined from the Revelations part of the Christian Bible; i.e., the non-boring chapter. If Sam and Dean can't put a stop to the coming storm, the world will go all to hell.

The Unholy (1988)

The Unholy (1988)

Dir. Camilo Vila

A blind-buy for me that turned out to be a lot of supernatural fun. It stars Ben Cross as a Priest named Michael who gets appointed to a New Orleans parish that has been closed for a few years, for reasons that are shown in the movie's opening scene but which I won't spoil.

Inside the church is an evil presence that strives to influence the newcomer, but Father Michael is determined to resist. Yes, it's another tale of Good vs Evil, Heaven vs Hell, etc, happening on Earth, naturally, because that's where that kind of shit nearly always goes down. 

There's often a trade-off in 1980s supernatural movies — such as good FX but bad acting, or good direction ruined by bad editing — but The Unholy does well right across the board.

Spawn: The Movie - Comic Book Adaptation (1997)

Spawn: The Movie (1997)

Adaptation: Ted Adams (from an original story by Mark Dippé + Alan McElroy) | Artist: Carlos D'Anda | Page Count:48

"Each time you go out there, you come back a little more dead inside."

A comic book adaptation of the Spawn movie that in some ways is better than the shit that spawned it.

The first few pages tell of the ongoing battle between Heaven and Hell, and how a demon named Malebolgia requires a leader for his army on Earth, which is where our antihero Al Simmons comes in. A black ops killer for a shady organisation, Al develops something akin to a conscience and begins to lose control of his life.

At just 48 pages it moves stupid-fast, like a Marvel comic from the 90s, leaving a lot of potentially interesting stuff underdeveloped; e.g., the quote above foreshadows a deeply ironic quality that's barely touched upon, and we get no time to know Al before he's thrust into his second life, so the contrast is lost.

Terry and Wanda get even less characterisation. Wynn is a cookie cutter egomaniac, while Cagliostro, who seems to come from nowhere, functions as a standard 'exposition' guy.

Apparitions (2008)

Apparitions (2008)

Dirs: Joe Ahearne [1,2,5,6] / John Strickland [3,4] | 6 episodes, approx 56 mins each.

Father Jacob Myers (Martin Shaw) examines evidence of miracles for an institution that considers itself earthly protectors and purveyors of the word and will of God, i.e., the Catholic Church. His findings help determine who does or doesn't get canonised as a Christian Saint.

While investigating the claims of a young trainee [pre-ordination] priest (Elyes Gabel), Father Jacob discovers what he believes to be an actual demonic possession. His actions thereafter lead him to uncover something even more troubling, which may affect his own future role.

I watched Apparitions solely because it starred Martin Shaw, who played the titular inspector in the George Gently TV Series (2007–17) that I'd finished and thoroughly enjoyed a few nights before. Shaw was excellent as Gently, and he was good as Father Myers, too, but the miniseries didn't come close to satisfying my 'evening viewing' time in the way that Gently had.

Ju-on: Origins (2020)

Ju-on: Origins (2020)

Dir. Shô Miyake | 6 episodes, approx 29 mins each.

Despite the title, Origins isn't a prequel to the previous Ju-On films. Rather, it presents itself as something that's 'inspired by real events'.

Presumably, that's the same 'real' events that the original films were based on, which were dreamt up by Japanese filmmaker Takashi Shimizu.

The series also makes the claim that its story is "far more frightening than the movies" were.

The first falsehood enables it to benefit from the groundwork and reputation of Shimizu's works without being wholly tied to them, while simultaneously implying a level of spurious credibility by suggesting that it's more factual - more 'real world' and less 'fantasy' horror.

With regards the second half of the claim, and keeping in mind that fear is as subjective as humour, nothing in Origins came close to the horror of Ju-On: The Grudge (2002). The horror in Origins is more shock value grotesqueness than spine-chillingly supernatural happenings.

Daimajin: Film Trilogy (1966)

Daimajin (aka Majin): Film Trilogy (1966)

Dirs. Various (see below)

A kaijū trilogy produced by Daiei, which is the studio that gave us the original Gamera franchise. The 'Majin' features in all three films, but their stories are otherwise unconnected.

01. The first entry, Daimajin (1966); aka Majin / Majin, the Monster of Terror / Majin, the Hideous Idol [Dir. Kimiyoshi Yasuda], is an altogether more sophisticated breed of film than the big turtle got. It's a quality jidaigeki about clans, control, and a merciless militaristic coup. It's a male dominated tale, but the few women that do feature wield the kind of power that matters.

The creature is like a crushing force of nature or an angry god's retribution personified, punishing the evils of mankind. It takes a long time for its 'kaijū' aspect to appear onscreen, but in all probability you won't miss it because the drama that occupies the remainder of the running time is excellent and holds its own. It keeps colours naturalistic but still manages to look beautiful.

2000 AD: Mike Carey (1999—)

2000 AD: Mike Carey (1999—)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrator: Various | Credits (to date): 25 Progs

I've featured quite a lot of author Mike Carey's comic work over the years. It's mostly been his output under DC's successful Vertigo imprint. I bypassed his work for 2000 AD because the quality is variable, but I'm filling that gap now.

Besides a few Future Shock-esque anthology pieces, he co-created two original series for the magazine: Carver Hale and Thirteen, both of which received a standalone collected edition.

01. Before I get to those, his first published work in the magazine was a one-shot under the Pulp Sci-Fi banner, titled Eggs is Eggs in Prog 1145 (1999), with Cliff Robinson (artist), Chris Blythe (colourist), and Annie Parkhouse (letterer), later reprinted in a Judge Dredd Megazine supplement (#296, March 2010).

Dark Water (2005)

Dark Water (2005)

Dir. Walter Salles

Struggling mother Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) moves into a dingy apartment in Roosevelt Island with her young daughter Cecilia (Ariel Gade). The building has seen better days, but the recurring dark splodge in one corner of the child's bedroom ceiling may point to something more malevolent than leaky pipes.

Dir. Walter Salles didn't make a lazy US by-the-numbers horror film, which was a pleasant surprise, and nor did he simply replicate Hideo Nakata's superior 2002 film version wholesale, but there's no passion in any of it, perhaps least of all in Connolly.

The Manhattan setting is a clever nod to the 'island' backdrop that's relevant to many Japanese works, and attempting to tether a meaningfully sombre tone to the original story's psychological one was interesting, but ultimately it's just boring. It's also devoid of scares, which I don't think was intentional.

Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series (2007)

Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series (2007)

10 episodes, approx 6 minutes each.

An anthology of short animated tales featuring the virtual bra-busting Brit, Lara Croft, from a number of different writers and animators. See the end of post for a full list of names. [1]

Each creator puts their own unique spin on the Lara character, which range from the wonderfully inventive (Keys to the Kingdom) to the piss-poor self-parody (Revenge of the Aztec Mummy).

None of them bother to waste time giving her any back-story or history. They assume that most viewers will already have knowledge of that from the games. The short format really doesn't allow for that kind of exposition, anyhow.

Brief (and biased) thoughts on each episode are below the cut, if you care to know more.

The Ring: US Movies (2002—)

01. The Ring (2002)

Dir. Gore Verbinski

An English language remake of Dir. Hideo Nakata's Japanese language adaptation of Koji Suzuki's popular Ring novel (1991). It's good that horror fans who are unable to read or who simply don't like foreign films can experience the story, but, alas, they'll be getting a much weaker version of it, I feel.

I've known some people who've seen both and favour Verbinski's version, but I can't fathom why. It's not terrible, but it's pretty dull by comparison. That's mostly what Part 01 of this post will be, a comparison, not a standard review, so there'll be unreserved SPOILERS for BOTH versions. Please bear that in mind if you choose to read it.

Sadako (2019)

Sadako (2019)

Dir. Hideo Nakata

The Japanese Ring movies may be thematically similar but they aren't all part of the same in-world continuity. There's two separate lines, one that follows on from Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998), and one that follows from Jōji Iida's Rasen (1998). [1]

Naturally, Nakata's return to the franchise follows on from the one he established, which means it's advisable to have seen Ring and Ring 2 (1999) before seeing Sadako.

There's some parallels with the structure of the first film, although it won't be apparent for quite some time. But the story isn't memorable and the characters aren't very interesting. Its most accomplished scene is arguably a 'slow zoom with dialogue' moment that protagonist Mayu Akikawa (Elaiza Ikeda) shares with Masami Kurahashi (Hitomi Satô), the latter of whom is one of the few things that connects the work to Nakata's previous films.

Constantine: TV Series (2014-15)

Constantine: TV Series (2014-15)

Dirs. Various | Episodes: 13, approx 43 mins each.

A short-lived live action TV series based on the long-running Hellblazer comic book, but named after its main character, a spell-casting exorcist from Liverpool named John Constantine. It's more faithful to the source material than the 2005 US movie of the same name is, but does still do its own thing from time to time.

In addition to being an exorcist he's also a demonologist, an occult detective, and even a bit of a con-man, if the situation requires it.

On the surface he doesn't seem to be the kind of person it would be wise to put any trust in, but he's a humanitarian at heart. If someone is plagued by demons and they really don't deserve such attentions, he'll often go the extra mile to help them resolve the situation.

If he can smite a demon or two in the process, send them back to the hell that they crawled from, then that's all the better for John.

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Dir. Kōji Shiraishi

A crossover of the Japanese Ring and Ju-On franchises that was teased as an April Fool's joke the year before it was released. I'm sure that I'm not alone in thinking it should've stayed a joke - although, while I'm on the subject of such things, does anyone actually like April Fools on the internet? It's fake news. Why is that a good thing?

SvK, however, turned out not to be fake, which is the most praise I can give it, having now seen it. It's getting its own post only because it doesn't fit canonically in any of the other Ring or Ju-On posts that I've made. It's its own thing with its own rules, so can be completely ignored if you choose to, even if you're a fan of the two things that it brings together. You can safely put FoMO to bed.

Spawn: Director's Cut (1997)

Spawn: Director's Cut (1997)

Dir. Mark A.Z. Dippé

Even after making the usual allowances in all but story for a B-Movie production, Spawn's live action introduction is still a bag of shit.

A voiceover and montage provide some groundwork for folks who didn't read the comic book before suffering the movie, but it feels more like a rushed afterthought, a quick fix for an overlooked necessity.

Many of the events in lead character Al's life are taken directly from the comics: he's an assassin for the US government; he has a partner but no children; he makes a Faustian deal without giving it much thought, etc. The pact with Hell means we needed the clown to be there, too, but he's an insufferable turd that further sullies every scene he's in.

The Ring Virus (1999)

The Ring Virus (1999)

Dir. Kim Dong-bin

TRV is (to date) one of four 'film' versions of Japanese author Koji Suzuki's Ring (1991) novel. It's South Korea's attempt at capturing the horrors, although Wikipedia mentions that's it's a 'joint project' with Japan - but what that means specifically, I don't know.*

I'll go quickly over the story again in case some folks aren't familiar with it. A journalist (Shin Eun-kyung) investigates, for reasons both personal and professional, the mystery of a cursed video tape that supposedly heralds the death one week later of anyone who watches it. The hunt for the truth puts her onto paths that lead to supernatural happenings and alleged psychic phenomenon.

Like in Hideo Nakata's version of the story, the protagonist is changed to female, but otherwise TRV more closely follows the plot of the novel. The 'virus' part of the title is alluded to directly, and there's references to cloning, identity, and gender early on.

Perhaps unwisely, it also also recreates (i.e. steals, sometimes almost verbatim) some of the other film's more recognisable original scenes, which blurs the line between it being a new adaptation of the novel or a semi-deferential remake, ultimately lessening its distinctiveness.

The Beastmaster: Films (1982-96)

The Beastmaster (1982)

Dir. Don Coscarelli

Many of the elements that made a successful sword and sorcery movie in the 80s are in place, including a wicked high priest (Rip Torn) who uses magic and religion to keep a position of power, a banishment, a trio of scrying hags with a dangerous prophecy, a cool bladed weapon or two, a peaceful village burned to the ground, and a sympathetic hero on a quest for revenge / redemption, but The Beastmaster isn't the genre classic that as a youth I used to think it was.

It's still mostly entertaining, however, with a neat ingredient that separates it from the pack, namely the hero's ability to communicate with animals like some kind of barbarian Dolittle. Inevitably, he makes friends and allies as he journeys toward his ultimate goal, but the most memorable of them all are arguably the smallest ones.

Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (1999)

Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (1999)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Stephen R. Bissette / John Totleben / Dave McKean / Teddy Kristiansen / Sergio Aragones / Mike Mignola / Richard Piers Rayner / Mike Hoffman / Kim DeMulder | Page Count: 176

'In her dreams her fingers had become tiny snakes. When she awoke she could not feel her hands; but she could hear her fingers, slithering over the sheets and away from her in the darkness.'

Midnight Days collects together some of Gaiman's earliest works for DC. It's not of his usual comic book standard, and it's certainly not the place to start if you've not read any of his works before. He admits in the introduction that he was still finding his feet.

But it's not all bad news. Some parts of it are worthy of praise. A short piece featuring the wonderful John Constantine is creepy and unnerving, and is without a doubt the highlight of the whole endeavour.

The collection contains six stories in all, one of which came from an unused Swamp Thing script; it was illustrated specifically for the book. It's interesting.

Revelations (2005)

Revelations (2005)

Dir. Lili Fini Zanuck | 6 episodes, approx 41 mins each

A respected Harvard astrophysicist and author named Richard Massey (Bill Pullman) hops around America and Europe with Sister Josepha Montafiore (Natascha McElhone), a nun who observes and records unexplained phenomena, but her ultimate goal is stopping the 'End of Days' as prophesied in the Christian Bible.

Massey's agenda is less ambitious but equally personal; he wants to see a powerful Satanist (Michael Massee) pay for his murderous crimes.

The egotistical Satanist is the leader of a fanatical Satanic cult, a group who coincidentally want to see the anti-Christ born on Earth.

United by tragedy and a shit-ton of serendipity, the astrophysicist and the nun must solve ancient mysteries while the Armageddon clock ticks.

Written by David Seltzer, screenwriter of The Omen (1976), it sounds ridiculous, and it is.