Horror Today: Are Our Expectations Too Low?

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1922, Alfred Hitchcock, Alien, Amazon Prime, AMC, American Horror Story, Audition, Before I Wake, Blumhouse Productions, Cinema, Film, Frank Darabont, Friday The 13th, Funny Games, George Romero, Gerald's Game, Goodnight Mommy, Halloween, Horror, Horror Films, Jigsaw, John Carpenter, Lights Out, Mother!, Movies, Netflix, Rings, Robert Kirkman, Rosemary's Baby, Saw, Scream, Stanley Kubrick, The Babadook, The Descent, The Exorcist, The Gallows, The Green Mile, The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption, The Walking Dead, Twisted Pictures, Wes Craven

The Horror genre is an established and beloved facet of film with a wide variety of sub-genres, each of which have garnered healthy fandoms. The Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Slasher and Torture Porn genres all boast classic films as part of their libraries – from mainstream hits like Halloween to less conventional movies like Audition and Funny Games – and each year a plethora of new additions hit our screens.

Shows like The Walking Dead and American Horror Story keep the genre relevant in the mainstream and provide a valuable (if somewhat diluted) gateway to more artistic and intellectually stimulating experiences in the world of cinema, but on the big screen the Horror genre is often misrepresented and abused by filmmakers, production companies and studios alike.

Narratively cohesive and visually exciting films like The Babadook and Mother! are widely disregarded by audiences because they challenge viewers and don’t rely on cheap tricks to generate entertainment, and in an effort to cater towards the masses studios produce fast-paced, surprise-heavy films with little substance by the bucket load. In doing so they inform their audience’s choices and create a lower level of expectation, facilitating a system which favours profitability over quality and doesn’t require one to ensure the other.

Audiences are consistently short-changed by companies which would rather make an empty but financially-safe movie like The Gallows for $100,000 than something ambitious, and the idea that effective jump scares are essential to the genre is constantly reinforced to mainstream audiences by these kinds of films. Movies like Lights Out are heralded as ground-breaking by casual cinemagoers because they have appealing premises and are marginally more stimulating than the standard throwaway horror that you might find at your local Cineworld, regardless of the fact that the filmmaking is middling at best.

As previously mentioned, the genre has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to variety; many of the classics come from one or two sub-genres – with movies like Scream, Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street all most readily branded as Slashers – but others are great films regardless of how they are categorised such as Alien, The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby.

Horror is a study of themes – an exploration of human psychology and our penchant for fearing that which we do not understand – so by virtue of the fact that we know as little as we do it’s a diverse and rich field to study. Yet, within this field filmmakers and audiences alike play it safe, preparing and digesting the same mishmash of clichés on a daily basis whilst ignoring the fact that the taste has faded.

This Halloween the only cinematic release to capitalise on one of the calendar’s most celebrated holidays was a tepid reboot/sequel of a franchise which should’ve died many movies ago. Jigsaw was a tired and inept attempt at breathing life into a series which at this point has about as much energy as the rotting corpse of its fictional anti-hero John Kramer, and the fact that audiences went to see it is both disappointing and encouraging in equal measure.

The good news is that Jigsaw’s commercial success demonstrates the fact that fans will still pay to see a horror film if a trailer peaks their interest. When there isn’t a recognisable name behind the film the situation is admittedly more complicated – the stars have to align and the need for careful marketing is more pronounced – but if you can find the balance between a pandering set of jump scares and a pretentious art film then there’s a lot of money to be made.

The bad news is that the majority of people can’t tell the former from the latter, and ultimately they’ll pay to see anything as long as a marketing team makes the choice for them.

The truth is that fans aren’t given an immense amount of choice. Brilliant horror films are being made around the world on a regular basis but they aren’t easily accessible to everyone and they certainly aren’t shown in every cinema across the United Kingdom. You can find them, of course, but in an age when people aren’t willing to interact socially unless their conversations are filtered through a barrage of apps, and can’t articulate their emotions without a meticulously chosen emoji, how can we expect them to make informed decisions on which films to watch? People do as they’re told – like it or not – and they’re told to watch whatever Blumhouse Productions wants them to watch.

Goodnight Mommy is a prime example of the type of movie from within the horror genre which should be made available to fans without the need for excessive research, but unless you happened to stumble across it at your local arthouse cinema it’s unlikely that it made a blip on your radar. Luckily Austria’s nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88^th Academy Awards is now available on Amazon Prime and is accessible to anyone with a subscription, but the fact remains that for every well-produced horror drama there’s a franchise-killer like Rings to tell audiences that they needn’t get their hopes up.

Streaming services like the above-mentioned Amazon Prime make lesser-known movies available to the masses, and Netflix has recently added quality to the genre with two stellar Stephen King adaptations (Gerald’s Game and 1922 respectively), but these services can only suggest which films their viewers should watch. They have extensive libraries and an abundance of quantity over quality, so for every film like The Descent there’s an eyesore like Before I Wake to balance the scales, and the latter will likely gain just as much traction as the former.

This isn’t a criticism of people’s viewing habits or a recommendation for what they should choose to enjoy – I can appreciate a bad film just as much as the next person – it’s merely a reflection on the fact that as a society we’ve been conditioned to accept movies of a certain standard simply because they’re convenient to find and consume. We shouldn’t give our money to Twisted Pictures so that they can churn out another lacklustre film in the Saw franchise – that horse is dead and it’s about time that we stopped beating it – we should collectively put more of an emphasis on quality and demand that filmmakers earn the money that we give them.

All of these points boil down to one thing, which is that Horror is an underappreciated and misunderstood genre which is unfairly categorised as niche and tasteless because people don’t have easy access to the types of movies which validate being a fan. As fans we’re as much responsible for that as the filmmakers because we fund their projects and thank them by buying a ticket when they make something which is fundamentally deficient.

Refer back to my earlier comment about The Walking Dead; it’s one of the most watched and talked about shows on television today, yet in my view it’s also one of the least compelling. The first six episodes were character driven, well-shot, and they had direction, so although the characters weren’t fully-realised there was a sense that it could become something special.

Frank Darabont started as showrunner and he cared about Robert Kirkman’s material; he got some of his talented friends on board from projects like The Mist and they helped to steer the ship in the right direction. However, by the time the second season rolled around creative differences between AMC and Darabont (director of films like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) meant that he was let go. Ever since then the show has been less of a drama and more of a soap opera, yet the popularity of the series remains intact because now people are invested and want to be part of the conversation.

Horror is an exceptional genre of film and popular culture. It plays with human emotions more than any other genre, forcing people to participate and to use their imagination in order to  answer the question – ‘what would I do in this situation?’. It’s an engaging form of entertainment and a valuable tool for growth which encourages people to face their fears and conceptualise scenarios which they’d rather avoid. It provides an avenue to explore abstract concepts and themes which are relevant to our everyday lives, and it does so through a format which allows casual viewers to enjoy what’s happening on screen even if they don’t want to consider the implications. Of the films that I’ve already mentioned The Babadook considers mental illness, Rosemary’s Baby examines ambition and The Descent explores the impact of grief, and each one does so in a considered and symbolic manner.

It’s a genre which iconic filmmakers like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and George Romero have each dedicated large portions of their lives to, and it’s one which needs to be disassociated from those films which sully its reputation in cinemas today. Horror is not a group of teens throwing popcorn from the back of the cinema or speakers turned up so high that you can’t help but jump out of your seat at the end of every sequence; it’s a study in aspects of human psychology which are too complex to consider through everyday experiences – an exploration of our vulnerabilities – and when it’s done right it can be the most emotionally effective variety of film.

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Game of Thrones: Season Seven, Episode 6 – “Beyond the Wall”

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Aidan Gillen, Arya Stark, Benjen Stark, Beric Dondarrion, Beyond the Wall, Brienne of Tarth, Cersei Lannister, Ciaran Hinds, Daenerys Targaryen, Eastwatch, Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones, Gendry, Gwendoline Christie, Hardhome, Joe Dempsie, Jon Snow, Joseph Mawle, Kit Harington, Kristofer Hivju, Lena Headey, Littlefinger, Maisie Williams, Mance Rayder, Paul Kaye, Peter Dinklage, Richard Brake, Richard Dormer, Rory McCann, Sansa Stark, Sophie Turner, Television, Television Review, The Hound, The Night King, The Walking Dead, Thoros of Myr, Tormund Giantsbane, TV, TV Review, Tyrion Lannister, Viserion, Winterfell

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“Beyond the Wall” is the penultimate episode of the penultimate season of “Game of Thrones”. After a season of middling quality it was important to move the plot forward and make a step-up in quality prior to next week’s finale, so I’m pleased to say that this episode was my favourite of the season so far.

However, the fact that I preferred it to the rest of the episodes in season seven doesn’t mean that I think it was perfect, and in fact there are numerous issues with it that are only mollified by the episode’s climax.

“Beyond the Wall” began in the eponymous location, with our band of misfit heroes venturing into the snow on a mission to capture a wight. Several conversations took place between the likes of Tormund (Kristofer Hivju), Jon (Kit Harington) and The Hound (Rory McCann), and although most of them were used as exposition I still appreciated them for what they were. Tormund advised Jon to bend the knee to Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), using Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds) as an example of where an over reliance on pride can leave you, and he also had an interaction with The Hound later on which I particularly enjoyed.

via theatlantic.com

The episode then turned its attention to Winterfell. Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya (Maisie Williams) continued to bicker despite the fact that not long ago they were laughing together in the crypts, and once again their presence brought the episode down in quality. Maisie Williams’ acting in this scene was atrocious – I don’t think I’ve ever singled her out for criticism before in a “Thrones” review because I think she’s good at her job and also quite likeable, but her delivery here was artificial and she wasn’t believable at all.

The thing that’s so jarring about the scenes between Arya and Sansa at this point is that in every conversation they have I come out on Sansa’s side, which is laughable because Arya is trying to protect Jon whereas Sansa is being influenced by Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen). We should find Arya entertaining and enjoy the fact that she’s being so ruthless, especially given that she’s doing things for the right reasons, but she’s always wrong and she doesn’t give Sansa a chance to explain herself! I couldn’t care less about this storyline at this point and the constant tease that Arya might kill Sansa makes it abundantly clear that by the time the season is over they’ll be friends again and Littlefinger will be dead.

With that scene out of the way the episode focused once again on its main attraction, with Tormund and The Hound having the conversation which I previously praised. Tormund expressed his infatuation with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), with The Hound picking up on who exactly he was talking about and thus looking mildly annoyed. I thought this was a funny moment and the dialogue worked because somehow Tormund has become one of the most endearing characters on the show.

via watchersonthewall.com

Next we were also treated to a conversation between Beric (Richard Dormer) and Jon in which they bonded over being brought back from the dead and explained that there is only one real enemy; death itself. Again I thought this was a decent interaction and I had a fun time watching it play out. I’m a fan of Richard Dormer in this role and I think that Beric is an interesting character who I’d like to see more of. For me the only issue here was that conversations continued to take place between pairs of characters rather than the whole group, because generally this is a cheap and easy way of developing characters in isolation. It’s something that “The Walking Dead” did a lot of in its early seasons and I was annoyed by it then so it would be inconsistent not to complain about it now.

Following this scene, Daenerys and Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) appeared for the first time in the episode and spoke about what it means to be a hero. Dany said that the thing she liked about Tyrion was that he wasn’t one, but she also said that he wasn’t a coward because she wouldn’t have chosen a coward as her Hand. These two work well together on screen so this was another moment that I enjoyed, but I’m not sure whether or not I can fully buy into the idea of Jon and Dany being in love after such a short period of time.

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Nevertheless, Tyrion’s logic when it came to how Daenerys should empathise with her enemies in order to defeat them was sound and I thought it was interesting that he brought up succession in an episode so close to the series’ end. What exactly this means going forward is up for debate, but it seems to me that either the showrunners were teasing the idea that Dany will die before the series finishes or more likely that she will have a child with Jon Snow. Either way this conversation was well written and it generated interest from me about where Daenerys’ character is headed in season eight.

Back beyond the Wall things quickly became perilous as the weather took a turn for the worse. In the distance a bear could be seen wandering the winter wilderness when suddenly it turned to look at Jon and his men with bright blue eyes. Whether or not they would’ve actually been able to make out the colour of the bear’s eyes in the middle of a snow storm is certainly questionable, but the idea of starting the action off with this kind of mini boss battle was a good one and I thought it was a cool scene. I was slightly confused by the fact that people ended up getting killed randomly, because prior to this scene I didn’t realise that there were nameless characters within the group. When people started dying I thought that important characters were being discarded which was made worse by a lack of visibility.

via watchersonthewall.com

My biggest complaint about this scene was that Thoros (Paul Kaye) survived the bear attack because it clearly took a major bite out of his chest. If the bear had swiped at Thoros with its claws rather than biting him then I could’ve accepted his survival, but given the nature of the attack I thought it was particularly stupid that he managed to live when the plan was to have him die later in the episode anyway.

When this was over the showrunners once again tried to fool gullible members of the audience into believing that the Arya/Sansa conflict might go somewhere. Littlefinger tried to turn Sansa against Arya and suggested that Brienne could intercede on Sansa’s behalf if Arya became volatile. This in itself was an intriguing idea, but for people paying attention it was quashed later in the episode when Sansa sent Brienne to King’s Landing in her stead.

via ignimgs.com

Cersei (Lena Headey) had requested that Sansa return to the capital, presumably to hear about the threat of the White Walkers from Jon and Dany, but being the suspicious person that she is Sansa decided to send someone else in her place. By sending Brienne the writers effectively told the audience that Sansa didn’t believe that she needed to be protected from Arya, and thus wasn’t listening to Littlefinger. This destroyed any tension that audience members may have been feeling after the earlier scenes at Winterfell and also made the last scene that took place there (which I’ll get onto later) feel incredibly contrived.

The episode continued to shine during scenes which took place beyond the Wall, as the group finally made their move to kidnap a soldier from the Army of the Dead. The cinematography leading up to this moment was quite nice and the music was also good, ramping up the tension when the time came for Jon and his men to attack a White Walker and his minions. The main takeaway from this scene was that when you kill a White Walker you also kill every wight that they’ve brought back from the dead. This was a major reveal and explained how it will be possible to defeat the Night King (Richard Brake) in the long run, but what wasn’t explained was why this didn’t happen back at Hardhome in season five.

The scene only got more exciting from this point as Jon and the others tried to tie a wight up and take it back to Eastwatch. The wight didn’t seem to appreciate being manhandled and thus proceeded to screech, alerting masses of his friends to charge on the group and leave them exposed in the middle of a frozen lake. This was a tense moment which got my blood pumping and left me ready for more from the episode, and I thought that the special effects were superb.

via vox-cdn.com

My only issue with this scene was that by sending Gendry (Joe Dempsie) back to Eastwatch the writers made it too obvious that Daenerys was going to rescue the group. I understand why this choice was made because somebody had to alert her to the situation for the climax to make sense, but it would’ve been more impactful if we knew that Gendry was on his way back but didn’t see him make it there safely.

With the group surrounded they began to wonder how they could possibly survive, particularly given the extreme weather conditions and lack of food, and to press this point home the writers decided that now was the time for Thoros to die. I know why this decision was made and I thought that it was smart to kill Thoros in order to make the rest of the characters more vulnerable – given that Thoros could’ve brought them back from the dead – but for me it would’ve been better if he’d died when the bear attacked him rather than when his death wasn’t the focal point of the scene.

via vox-cdn.com

After a brief visit to Winterfell, (which I’ve already touched upon), the action continued as The Hound threw rocks at the wights in frustration. The first rock that The Hound threw hit a wight on the jaw and shattered the bottom half of its face, but the second rock ended up doing more damage to our heroes than it did to the wights. The Hound’s throw fell short and as it hit the ice it bounced forward and came to a stop. This was followed by a moment of silence in which both the audience and the characters came to the same realisation, which was that the ice was sturdy enough to walk on and therefore the wights could start to attack.

The problem that I had with this scene, and indeed with the rest of the scenes beyond the Wall, was that the wights didn’t attack with any kind of cohesion. They attacked the heroes separately, as though they wanted the fight to be fair, when what they should’ve done was swarm on Jon and his men as a group and overrun them. There were hundreds of wights in frame at one point and yet when it came to the battle it felt like the heroes were always in control, which from my perspective was nonsensical and destroyed my immersion.

via watchersonthewall.com

Eventually Daenerys made her grand entrance and began to even the odds, but by this point any sense of tension had evaporated because it was clear that the writers had no intention of killing off any of the human characters. Daenerys’ timing was incredibly convenient, and it seemed silly to me that she didn’t immediately fry the Night King because the blue man with the spear orchestrating the battle should’ve been her first target!

However, I will concede that the effects were amazing especially given that this is a television show and not a studio movie, and Dany’s outfit looked fantastic. Once my initial frustration at the convenience of Dany’s entrance dissipated I began to appreciate what I was watching again, and I was genuinely shocked when the Night King killed Viserion. For me this was easily the best moment of the season and the only moment so far that I believe has been truly exceptional. Emilia Clarke’s acting was awesome in this scene, as it has been all season, and I think that Daenerys is as likeable now as she was back in season one.

via watchersonthewall.com

The episode then devolved slightly as the writers tried to trick the audience into believing that Jon was going to be left behind, because although this could’ve been a frightening moment it never felt as though it was actually going to happen. The fact that Benjen (Joseph Mawle) appeared out of nowhere to save the day was irritating and just didn’t seem plausible, and I was waiting for the episode to move on at this point. I also thought that it was ridiculous that Benjen stayed behind to fight the wights because he only killed about three of them before being murdered mercilessly. He could’ve easily fit on the horse beside Jon and this wouldn’t have harmed the moment in any way whatsoever!

Once Jon reappeared at Eastwatch the episode took its final trip to Winterfell for what was undoubtedly the worst scene of “Beyond the Wall” and one of the worst the show has ever produced. Sansa searched Arya’s bag and found the faces of some of Arya’s victims, which lead to Arya explaining where she’s been and what she’s become. The faces looked awful and the scene was completely devoid of tension because if Arya had actually killed Sansa at this point the reaction from the audience would’ve been disgust rather than shock. Nothing about this scene was good and I can’t wait for the season to end so that we can be done with this storyline.

via winteriscoming.net

Finally, Daenerys walked in on Jon as he was being treated at Eastwatch, seeing his scars for the first time and realising what he’s been through. Once he awoke the pair had a brief conversation about their intentions going forward and Jon agreed to bend the knee. He said that the rest of the North would ultimately see Daenerys for what she really is, leading to a momentary embrace between the two and the clear indication that they will eventually become intimate. I enjoyed this scene and I thought that Emilia Clarke was excellent, but for me Kit Harington gave an underwhelming performance.

The episode then concluded with a significant moment in the narrative as the Night King placed his hand on Viserion’s head and brought him back to life. This moment has a number of connotations, with the main one being that the White Walkers now have a one way ticket to Westeros. Viserion is capable of bringing down The Wall with fire or even carrying the wights over himself, making their invasion inevitable next season or even at the end of this one.

via hellogiggles.com

Overall I thought that “Beyond the Wall” was a fun episode of “Thrones” but it was also a problematic one. The narrative was riddled with plot holes and the scenes at Winterfell were miserably bad, with Arya and Sansa both coming across as naïve and idiotic. Fortunately the episode came into its own when it ventured further North and big moments such as Viserion’s death elevated it substantially. I had a good time watching it, but people who claim that this episode was the best of the series so far either don’t understand what made “Thrones” great or they aren’t really paying attention.

8/10

The Boy

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Annabelle, Brahms, Cinema, Diana Hardcastle, Film, Horror, Horror Film, Horror Movie, Jim Norton, Lauren Cohan, Movie Review, Rupert Evans, Scary Movie, The Boy, The Conjuring, The Devil Inside, The Walking Dead, William Brent Bell

“The Boy” is an American horror film directed by William Brent Bell, the man behind 2012’s “The Devil Inside”.

My concerns about “The Boy” were varied and many, because whilst the idea of a porcelain doll coming to life is both hilarious and horrible, the cast for this movie is pretty unknown, and how the doll could do any damage without the use of awful CGI was unclear. However, I can say with a degree of confidence that I enjoyed this film – that doesn’t mean that it was good per se, but I would watch it again and I had a fun time whilst I was in the theatre.

For anybody who hasn’t seen the trailer, I will give a brief outline of the plot. It’s a bit crackers, but it starts off in a relatively normal fashion. Greta (Lauren Cohan), a young woman from Wyoming, has taken a temporary job as a nanny in the UK to escape an abusive relationship. When she arrives at the home of the Heelshires (played by Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle) she is eager to meet their son, Brahms, the young boy that she’s supposed to be looking after. The large house is a bit eerie, but not nearly as creepy as ‘the boy’ that she is introduced to – he’s a doll. Not a little boy with an attitude problem… a doll.

via lamefilmcritic.com

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Heelshires are going away for a holiday, and they won’t be back for ‘months’. So it’s just going to be Greta, the big house, and the strange little dead-eyed doll for a very long period of time. Not a bad set-up all things considered. To make it even more fun, the boy has a list of rules that Greta must follow or… well, or else, I suppose. The first rule on that list is ‘no visitors’, so Greta is definitely not allowed a house party with all her American pals – shame, because this would also be a great set-up for a shameless comedy where the doll is defiled in ridiculous and sordid ways, only for the Heelshires to return from their holiday early and find him covered in lipstick and wearing a bra.

Greta is allowed to have contact with one person in the outside world (because otherwise how would she eat? Do Tesco delivery men count as visitors if they help you carry your shopping in?) – this person is Malcolm (Rupert Evans). Malcolm brings groceries to Greta so that she doesn’t die of starvation, and he also happens to be a strapping young man, just about Greta’s age. He’s probably the only man in a 1,000 mile radius attractive enough for Greta, so I’d say that she hit the jackpot. Malcolm probably thinks he’s hit the jackpot too because Greta sees literally no other men and won’t do for months, and she’s in a dodgy house with an even dodgier ghost doll, so she’ll probably get to a point of desperation for companionship whereby he can slime his way in. Sure enough, he does. Bravo.

There’s also a twist that I won’t get into here, but I think it’s fair to say that whilst it didn’t work perfectly in the film, it was a nice idea and gave the whole thing a level of quality that it wouldn’t otherwise have had. By that, I mean that this twist at least demonstrated that Bell had hopes for the film above the level of ‘money, money, please give me the money’. Without giving away what the twist was, I will say that I liked it, and that I was amused by it – it wasn’t particularly ground-breaking, but it made me smile and led to an entertaining finale.

The story is a little bit on the weird side, but this is a horror film so that’s to be expected. In all fairness, I liked the way that it evolved; it tried to rationalise the ridiculousness that was going on in the house by portraying Greta as a troubled person capable of making the supernatural element of the story up in her head, and it also explained why she didn’t run a mile when she first saw that Brahms was a doll, because (slight spoiler) she had lost a child in the past. There was some thought about how to make such a silly story palatable to an audience, which is more than you get in a lot of horror movies today. Of course, that doesn’t make “The Boy” a brilliant film, but it does mean that the audience is more likely to sit back and let the events happening on screen scare them, because they aren’t completely occupied by the idiocy of the characters and the inevitable horror-movie logic.

Also, it was nice that when the doll started moving and tormenting Greta, she didn’t just assume that it was out to kill her. Instead, she treat the whole experience as though it was something to marvel at; this made sense and was refreshing, because in reality she had no reason to think that the spirit of an eight-year-old boy would want to harm her, especially not through the form of a doll.

If a real person actually experienced a paranormal experience of this kind then it would be very creepy to begin with, because it is inherently unbelievable and also makes you question your mental health, but eventually you would start to see it as some kind of miracle. In reality it would provide some sort of knowledge that there was an afterlife, and if you could prove that it was happening – and that you could communicate with the dead – you’d probably end up as a celebrity! (Are you starting to wish that your toys would come to life? Because I’m sold).

Another thing that I liked about the story was that it wasn’t completely predictable – it was slow-paced for the most part and it tried to make you question exactly what was happening by never showing the doll move. You were in the same position as the protagonist, because you knew the doll had gone from A to B, but you never knew how, and thus you had to come to your own conclusions. I actually thought that it was a “Conjuring” type of situation, (because in “The Conjuring” the Annabelle doll moves, but the doll itself isn’t possessed, it’s just being moved by a spirit in the house), and that the spirit controlling the doll was going to be an evil being attempting to wear down Greta. Spoiler alert again – I was wrong.

Despite the fact that I could find the positives in “The Boy”, I did find it annoying that the dream sequences accounted for most of the actual scares; this happens a lot nowadays, and it’s always frustrating because it feels cheap and it’s hard to feel tense when you know that what’s happening will have no consequences. I know that the film is trying to pretend that certain moments aren’t actually dreams, and if you fall for that then maybe the jump scares within those moments will work, but this trick happens so often in the horror genre that for me the words ‘it’s all a dream’ may as well be written in blood on the walls.

The jump scares were a big problem throughout, because although I’m not a fan of them in the first place, I still like to be surprised at least once by a creative one over the course of a ninety minute horror film. Sadly, none of the jump scares had their desired effect in “The Boy”, because whilst I did jump, I didn’t jump because I was scared or even surprised (most of the jump scares are on the trailer for God’s sake), I jumped because people around me jumped and because the ‘scary’ moments were accompanied by stupidly loud noises! As a person I am nearly always tense, and I think it’s fair to say that I’m jumpy, so the fact that a jump scare made me jump is 100% predictable, regardless of whether or not it actually worked in the way that it was intended to.

Still, what this film lacks in fear it makes up for in comedy, although it’s true that this isn’t always intentional. It’s an incredibly spoofable movie, so much so that at several points I found myself imagining what a “Scary Movie” version of certain scenes would look like. It’s hard not to have childish thoughts of Brahms getting an erection when Greta gives him a kiss goodnight, and it’s even more difficult not to imagine him naked when he goes into the bathroom as Greta is taking a shower. I know that I should be immersed in the movie and be thinking about it from a fearful point of view, but I just couldn’t take it that seriously when it set itself up so perfectly to be a wonderful crude comedy. This might sound like a criticism, and for the sake of fairness it really should be, but I don’t offer it as one. I offer it as one of the many reasons that I genuinely enjoyed this film.

Greta gets it.

A lot of the film’s problems inevitably stemmed from poor direction, as certain scenes lost all impact when the screen would blur and time would suddenly slow down. There wasn’t really a reason for this to happen in the context of the film, because when it happened nothing was chasing Greta or closing in on her, and instead of creating extra drama it killed the little tension that had been built. Luckily, this didn’t happen very often, I think it may have occurred three times over the course of the film, but when it did it was noticeably out of place and bordered on ridiculous.

Nevertheless, I think that the performances went some way to hiding the oddities of Bell’s direction, because whilst they weren’t amazing, they were pretty decent. Most people will know Lauren Cohan from “The Walking Dead”, and I think that because it’s a popular show they will expect that she can act. However, I came into this film with the opposite perspective, because I think that the actors on “The Walking Dead” are quite weak and are ultimately only revered because fans of the show wear rose-tinted glasses. So, I was pleased that she gave what I felt was a good performance given that the script didn’t offer much to work with. She actually had some sort of rapport with the doll towards the middle of the film, and she did a good job of demonstrating that her character felt like she might be losing it when she was chatting to the doll. I thought she was more than acceptable, and I’d like to see what she can do in a better film.

via buzz.ie

I thought Rupert Evans was okay as well, although he wasn’t as believable towards the end of the film. He provided the comic relief in the film (for those members of the audience who didn’t find most scenes to be comical) and his delivery was quite good. When he put on a voice pretending to be Brahms and gave the doll a high-five I found it pretty hilarious, and I think that his performance went a long way to endearing the audience towards Greta, because the fact that he was so likeable and that she liked him meant that she seemed nice by association.

At the end of the day, “The Boy” is a horror film that isn’t very horrific, but that still manages to be entertaining. I’m not saying that it’s great or even good really, but I had an awesome time watching it. I would definitely recommend seeing it with friends and having a laugh about it, and I will probably watch it again, so who am I to criticise? In general, people go to see a horror movie because they want to have a good time – they want adrenaline to pump around their bodies so that they can simulate a high without drugs and/or exercise, or they want to be able to laugh at how crazy people act in crazy situations. So, in my view, “The Boy” offers what horror fans want, even if it isn’t very scary.

6/10

Triple 9

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12 Years a Slave, Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, Breaking Bad, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cinema, Clifton Collins Jr, Compare The Market, Compare The Meerkat, Cops, Film, Heist, John Hillcoat, Kate Winslet, Movie Review, Norman Reedus, Robbers, Sergei Meerkat, The Walking Dead, Thrillers, Triple 9, Woody Harrelson

“Triple 9” is a heist film directed by John Hillcoat; starring Anthony Mackie, Casey Affleck, Kate Winslet, and Woody Harrelson. As a film it feels very familiar; a cops-vs-robbers tale bookended by two tense break-ins. However, where “Triple 9” sets itself apart is by having the antagonists belong to the former group, as the robbers are themselves officers of the law. It’s another twist that we’ve seen before, but it works pretty well, and it gives the characters a level of duplicity which they desperately need.

The title of the film refers to the call that goes out if an officer is down, as the protagonists/antagonists (depending on who you’re routing for) need ten minutes to pull off their final heist. The usual response time for such a crime is three minutes, so they require a substantial distraction to do the job, and a 999 ends up fitting the bill. The idea is that if a cop is killed then every police officer in the city will converge on it; they want to look after their own, so that sort of crime takes precedent over every other, which allows a greater amount of freedom for the robbers to pull off their crime.

It’s actually a good story from a conceptual standpoint, because there’s already a high degree of tension in the heist premise, and the villains have to hide their intentions during the day (because they work with other cops) – they can’t just act like arseholes 24/7. There’s also the fact that the officer the group intends to kill is one of their partners, so the audience has time to become invested in that character and feel conflicted about his fate. We are supposed to care about Chris (Casey Affleck), he is the good guy after all, but we also spend a large portion of the movie with the robbers, so it’s hard to know who to route for.

via telegraph.co.uk

On top of that, the group are pulling off the job to placate a Russian mafia syndicate run by Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet). Vlaslov has a hold over the leader of the group – Michael, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”) – as he happens to be the father of her niece. If he doesn’t follow her orders then she can take the child away from him, so he’s in a very uncomfortable position. So, there’s a lot going on, and to be fair it does sound alright on paper.

However, whilst the story wasn’t bad, the script was very dull. The dialogue was extremely poor and it left a lot to be desired, because the characters didn’t interact with one another with any warmth or sense of history. The main group lacked any sort of chemistry and seemed like a bunch of strangers, which meant that it was hard to care about their individual backstories, given the fact that we only really saw them when they were together. They ended up being one-dimensional thieves squabbling like children, rather than compelling characters trying to make a quick buck.

Moreover, although the film does have its fair share of twists and turns, they lack effectiveness because they’re so obviously signposted. (SPOILER ALERT) It’s incredibly clear that Chris isn’t going to die over the course of the film, because the movie just isn’t dark enough for that eventuality. It’s also pretty damn obvious that the final heist is going to happen, because the film would be utterly pointless if it didn’t. So, with both of those things established, anybody paying attention will know that it will be Chris’ partner, Marcus (Anthony Mackie), who ends up getting shot so that the 999 gets called in, not Chris himself.

via imdb.com

“Triple 9” also drags on quite a bit – after the heist takes place and the dust settles the movie feels like it has reached its conclusion, but instead things just keep going. The idea here is that one of the robbers, Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins, Jr.), wants to kill the remaining members of the group to clear himself of any blame, so he goes around picking them off one-by-one. This isn’t completely boring in itself, but it was absolutely unnecessary in this particular film because until that point Rodriguez had been a peripheral character. Any momentum that the movie had built had already dissipated, so it would’ve been better to end things on an ambiguous note, with Chris unsure about his partner’s integrity, and everyone else’s future up in the air.

Script aside, the film wasn’t all that bad. The action is fine, and the movie actually has some pretty admirable brutal moments, particularly during the two heists. Nevertheless, “Triple 9” also suffers because the ensemble cast simply doesn’t perform. Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) was woeful, which is incredibly annoying because we all know that he can act, and Kate Winslet’s accent was utterly atrocious. She sounds more like Sergei from the Compare The Market adverts than she does an actual Russian, destroying any sense of immersion and delivering a laughable performance.

via imdb.com

Woody Harrelson and Casey Affleck aren’t much better, as the former constantly overacted, playing a clichéd cop with a drinking/drug problem, and the latter was rigid and uninteresting. Still, Anthony Mackie and Chiwetel Ejiofor were decent.

Overall, “Triple 9” is okay. There’s quite a bit of action and if you stop pre-empting what’s going to happen then you might enjoy the ideas in play. It tries to emulate great heist films whilst also bringing a little bit extra to the party, but whilst there are twists and turns aplenty, they were too obviously set-up, and overall the movie was very poorly executed.

5.5/10

Fear The Walking Dead: Season One

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Alycia Debnam-Carey, Cliff Curtis, Colman Domingo, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Fear The Walking Dead, Frank Dillane, Kim Dickens, Lorenzo James Henrie, Madison Clark, Nick Clark, Ruben Blades, Television, The Walking Dead, TV, Victor Strand, White Walkers, Zombieland, Zombies

via amc.com

“Fear The Walking Dead” is a nice idea. Everyone who watches “The Walking Dead” has wondered what might’ve started the walker/zombie apocalypse, but there’s no real avenue for discovery on that show. Having a spin-off series set at the start of the outbreak opens up a world of possibilities, such as an exploration of possible causes of the infection, and a chance to see how people reacted to seeing zombies for the first time. However, this first season of “Fear The Walking Dead” doesn’t make the most of its premise, and nothing about it screams quality.

It would be unfair to say that there aren’t a number of cool moments within the six episodes that constitute this season, but the separate elements that make up each episode – music, performances, story, etc. – don’t mesh together in a cohesive way. There was one scene in particular in episode five that really highlighted this issue for me, as Alicia (Alycia Debnam Carey) and Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) searched an abandoned home that used to belong to a rich family. Initially they had fun, as Alicia tried on dresses and Chris played with a toy helicopter, but soon they turned destructive. They broke things and generally made a mess of the house, letting out their frustration in an aggressive but playful manner.

via amc.com

The performances in this scene were quite good, and it was reminiscent of a similar scene in “Zombieland”, one of my favourite zombie movies. However, the sound playing over the top of the scene just didn’t make sense. There should’ve been a whimsical rock song to serenade the pair, or a silly pop song about being rebellious, but instead there was an eerie noise which got progressively louder – this confused me greatly, because the suggestion seemed to be that either the duo were doing something wrong, or that something bad was about to happen, but I couldn’t see either of these being the case.

Of course, the duo’s actions did mark the end of their lives in civilised society – they’d accepted this as Alicia said that the family who used to live in the house ‘wasn’t coming back’ – so there was a dark message behind what was happening. Still, this fact doesn’t stop the accompanying sound from feeling out of place. Sometimes it’s better to just let sound occur naturally in a scene: Debnam Carey and Henrie could’ve been set loose to break whatever they wished, with their laughter and the smashing of glass, along with perhaps a sombre look on one of their faces afterwards, putting across the messages of both frustration and sad realisation.

via amc.com

This was one of many strange decisions across the six episodes, which culminated in an underwhelming season. For me, “Fear The Walking Dead” doesn’t delve deeply enough into the heart of the infection, with the focus being on how the family reacts to their changing situation rather than how that state of affairs arose. The writers tried to create melodrama within the group throughout, instead of letting the audience explore the world, which is something that the main show does as well.

Personally, I can’t understand why the writers think that we as an audience want to see a melodramatic family in crisis, rather than the chaotic start of the apocalypse, and I have to wonder if the reason behind this approach is to do with the budget. One of the central issues with the main show is that it focuses on one group, a group that rarely branches out, which means that we aren’t given a break from annoying characters and we don’t see the world as a whole. The same issue crosses over to this show, which is frustrating because I feel that more of an effort could’ve been made to differentiate the two – I would’ve loved to see a host of characters in different areas finding out about the walkers, but instead I saw one place with one set of people, none of whom are really that interesting.

via wetpaint.com

Despite the problems that I’ve mentioned so far, I still see redeeming features within the season. I do like some of the characters that have been introduced so far, particularly Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Madison Clark (Kim Dickens). Strand’s approach seems quite simple; he wants to save himself at all costs, and he doesn’t care about collateral damage. He’s quite different to the other characters within the main group, because everyone else has their family with them, so they’re interested in more than self-preservation. It seems like Strand will cause a lot of conflict within the group, because he’s latched onto Nick (Frank Dillane) who has a tendency to make bad decisions, and he clearly isn’t the nicest of people. I’m very interested as to why he was locked up in the first place, given the fact that he hasn’t been bitten and he seems very wealthy, so here’s hoping that he has a leading role in season two.

Madison is a likeable character, because she displays love for her family and shows characteristics which suggest that she could adapt to a variety of difficult situations. She doesn’t take any bullshit and isn’t slow to action, and I feel as though she has been hardened by her past, which will hopefully be explored in the future.

Daniel (Rubén Blades) is also a cool character, and for me he has the best backstory of anyone on the show. I thought that Blades was great in the role from the moment he appeared on screen, and it was immediately clear that the character had some sort of darkness within him. At no point is Daniel hateable, despite the fact that he does horrible things, and he seems to have the best interests of the group at heart. Blades brought a real sense of authority and power to the role, so I hope he gets more screen time in season two.

via amc.com

Nevertheless, the strong performances on “Fear The Walking Dead” are cheapened by the ones which aren’t so good. Nick hasn’t grown on me at all over the course of the season, and I feel that this is largely down to Frank Dillane’s portrayal of the character. Dillane is playing the archetypal drug addict, the kind we’ve seen thousands of times before, and he doesn’t sell it at all. He’s a parody of his character and as a result Nick becomes less likeable every week. I would’ve really liked to see him get killed off in the finale, not only because I hate him, but also because I thought that the show created the perfect chance for this to happen. When Nick was trapped in the military base it would’ve been so easy to have him eaten by the walkers; if this had happened it would’ve upped the stakes and sent a message to the audience that anyone on this show can die.

Another character I didn’t warm to was Travis (Cliff Curtis), who was endlessly frustrating throughout the six episodes. Although Curtis is a decent actor, the way that Travis reacted to certain events meant that he didn’t feel like a real person. Nobody is stupid enough to put their loved ones in danger like Travis did over the course of the season, even if they are facing a moral conundrum. I understand that some people aren’t cut out to live in a world that calls for killing and brutality, but I think that even the most squeamish of people could adapt to the situation that he was facing.

He never had to do anything terrible himself, all he had to do was allow others to act – I don’t mean that standing idly by as people commit atrocities is morally upright, but what the people around him were doing was out of necessity, not malice. He wanted to do the right thing, but there’s a difference between what’s absolutely right and what’s correct in a particular context, and I think that in a zombie apocalypse a rational man should see that the latter trumps the former. I feel that his mistakes in the finale were there to act as a catalyst for change in both his personality and his approach to life, so hopefully he will improve as a character in season two.

via wetpaint.com

Overall, I felt that the finale was a step in the right direction for the series, as it set up both the story and the characters in an interesting way. It fundamentally changed Travis’ personality, because he’s given himself a license to do whatever is required to protect his family. It also took the love triangle between Travis, Madison, and Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) out of the equation, getting rid of some of the melodrama. Furthermore, Strand’s boat gives the audience a reason to come back next year; firstly because of how it might be used as a plot tool, and secondly because I think that we’ve all wondered why the idea to go out to sea hasn’t been explored on the main show – surely the walkers aren’t smart enough to swim.

However, I’m not saying that the finale was perfect. Multiple plot points were poorly executed, and massive flaws could be found within certain scenes. For example, a trio of soldiers fleeing the base towards the end of the episode needed transport, so they dragged Alicia and Chris out of the car that they were hiding in and commandeered it for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself – it showed that it’s every man for himself in this world, and ended the charade of the military acting as protection while things got back to normal.

The issue with this moment was that the soldiers were portrayed as volatile and unnecessarily aggressive, both physically and sexually. It was clearly implied that the soldiers wanted to take Alicia away with them, probably not for a friendly chat, and when Chris stood up to them he was knocked out. I know that this was in keeping with how the military was portrayed throughout the season, but they were trying to establish order before, whereas in this scene they were being downright disgusting.

via tvafterdark.com

This scene would’ve made far more sense if the soldiers came across as ordinary people wanting to escape with their lives – they didn’t need to be assholes about what they were doing, and it didn’t add extra tension to proceedings. Moreover, it didn’t make sense that they left Alicia alone once Chris was out for the count, because they were made out to be horrible human beings. The reason that this scene was included was to show that Chris could man-up in the face of adversity, and probably to set up a romance between him and Alicia in season two.

Lastly, I’d like to point out how ridiculous things were in every scene that the group was in the parking lot. When the group left Alicia and Chris, Travis said that if they hadn’t returned in half an hour then the pair should think about driving off, presumably because that was a long enough amount of time to signify that things had gone tits-up. This alone was incredibly stupid, because the place was huge and although Travis had a vague idea of where Nick might be he couldn’t be 100% sure of his location!

via collider.com

This wasn’t where the idiocy ended. When the group left Alicia and Chris it was night time, there was a hoard of at least 1,000 walkers outside, and it was estimated that the group would be in and out of the building in less than 30 minutes… yet when the group returned it was light outside! It wasn’t sunrise, it was midday – bright and vibrant without a walker in sight. The group proceeded to walk into the parking lot to find that the car was gone and they seemed visibly shocked, yet Travis had explicitly told Alicia and Chris to run for the hills should they be gone for 31 minutes or more!

The writers would have you believe that less than 30 minutes passed between the group getting to the cages where Nick had been held, actually finding him, and heading back, with a couple of walker kills in the process… AND, during this time there was a magical shift from the dead of night to the middle of the day! That, my friends, is what I call bad editing, directing, and writing, all in the space of ten minutes of television.

I think it’s fair to say that “Fear The Walking Dead” is miles away from being perfect. In spite of its issues, I still believe that the series has the potential to be entertaining and I don’t actually dislike it all that much. Nonetheless, this season was riddled with oversights. An abundance of bad decisions were made, and whilst some of the performances were okay, others were utterly terrible. I’d like to say that “Fear The Walking Dead” is worth watching, but right now I think that I’d be lying to myself if I was to do so – stick to the main show, it actually has zombies in it from time to time.

4.5/10

Fear The Walking Dead: Season One Premiere

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Alycia Debnam-Carey, AMC, Fear The Walking Dead, Frank Dillane, Kim Dickens, Lexi Johnson, Maestro Harrell, Melissa McBride, The Walking Dead, Twitter, YouTube, Zombie Apocalypse

“Fear The Walking Dead” is the kind of series that I wish didn’t exist, not just because it feels uninventive and cash-grabbing but because I can’t help but watch it despite knowing that this is the case! “The Walking Dead” is an incredibly lucrative show for AMC so it’s only natural that they would want to cash in by creating a companion series, but it feels a bit manipulative to have a show with “The Walking Dead” in the title when in actual fact it has very little to do with the flagship series. I would personally much prefer that a new show was created with gifted young writers and actors because AMC is already making its money with “The Walking Dead”. Instead, we have “Fear The Walking Dead” which is basically a knock-off of “The Walking Dead” but with cheaper actors and less decayed walkers.

The reason that I’m tuning into “Fear The Walking Dead” isn’t just because I watch “The Walking Dead”, it’s also because I want to know how the zombie apocalypse began. How did the world react to the world coming to an end when Twitter and YouTube were still prevalent? When did the dead start turning into walkers? Like when exactly – everyone is infected in “The Walking Dead” so if Nick (Frank Dillane) had died when he was hit by the car in this episode would he have turned into a walker? When did the process begin?

My interest in “Fear The Walking Dead” is clearly tied to the main show which is why I’m a bit frustrated at both AMC and myself. I don’t actually like the cast and this premiere was pretty appalling, so the fact that for some reason I’m invested is incredibly annoying.

via amc.com

In all fairness this show has a lot going for it; it could go in a number of interesting directions because, after all, we’re witnessing the start of a zombie apocalypse! There’s so much going on in the city and there are so many people for the walkers to feast on, so the show could actually end up being pretty good if the writers can be bothered to try. Sadly, from what I’ve seen so far I have to imagine that the showrunners will take whichever road is the most travelled so that they can do as little work as possible.

This season premiere began with a typical zombie cliché, as Nick searched a creepy looking building for a girl named Gloria (Lexi Johnson), only to find that she was a walker. The sound was ominous (although clearly artificial), the lighting was dim, and shrieks of panic could occasionally be heard in the distance. What could possibly be the matter?

I was so disappointed with this opening because we’ve seen it before hundreds of times, and there’s no surprise when a walker appears at the start of a television series about the walking dead! Why bother trying to build suspense at all? If you’re going to immediately reveal your cards then there’s no point in bluffing. Surely nobody was actually scared by this sequence.

via amc.com

I’m not a massive fan of jump scares, because most of the time they’re designed to shock rather than scare which gives the name a bit of a false feel. However, in this instance I would’ve been quite pleased if the opening had paved the way to a comedic one, with Gloria playing a trick on Nick rather than simply being a walker. This would’ve established that although the show isn’t going to be original, it will be fun and try to play around with genre conventions. Alas, the showrunners don’t seem to have any intention of thinking outside the box, so I don’t expect to see anything new or exciting.

I don’t want to linger on the opening scene too much, but it really is infuriating that the showrunners couldn’t have thought of a better way to introduce the story and one of the show’s main characters. The showrunners could’ve done hundreds of different things with the setting of the church whilst still establishing that this is a show about zombies. They could’ve started with a drug bust, which would’ve been interesting because the sounds of panic could’ve still made the audience think that a walker was about to appear. Alternatively, they could’ve had a walker banging at the door trying to get in, with Nick believing that it was a dealer and thus leaving the area. He could’ve even seen the walker that was knocking on the door from a distance afterwards and made a joke about it looking messed up, given that from a distance it might just look like a person on a large quantity of drugs. This would’ve let the audience have a glimpse of a walker and also established some sort of personality within the show.

via ajc.com

The characters, like the opening, were completely clichéd – Nick is the stereotypical screw-up junkie and as usual he’s the only person in the main cast who knows the truth to begin with. But who would believe a junkie? Wow, how original. On top of that, he’s part of a dysfunctional family. Madison (Kim Dickens), the mother in this family, seems pretty well put together, although her son is a junkie so we’ll have to wait and see. She seems to wear the pants in the relationship with her new husband so she’ll probably be a badass like Carol (Melissa McBride) is on the main show. There’s also a daughter, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), who has a boyfriend, Matt (Maestro Harrell) – that’s going to be her character development right there. The boyfriend dies and hey presto she becomes another lost soul hardened by the world.

Now I may be being slightly cynical and also a tad sarcastic, but come on, are the folks down at AMC joking? These characters are a disgrace! There’s nothing to any of them – they’re straight out of the ‘Writing a Zombie Film/TV Show for Idiots’ guide book.

Beyond the issues with the writing, characters, and general lack of ambition from AMC, the performances across the board were poor. I don’t want to condemn any of the actors, because the fault isn’t really with them, but they didn’t elevate the material they were given. Frank Dillane wasn’t good at all and he didn’t show half as much emotion as was necessary when he was explaining what happened in the opening scene. He whispered through his lines and tried to make his eyes water, but the rest of his face didn’t move and he flittered from sad to indifferent like a child in a school play.

via culturefly.co.uk

Maybe things will get better, but right now “Fear The Walking Dead” seems like nothing more than a mediocre attempt to piggyback on the success of “The Walking Dead”. Whilst the idea of gaining an insight into where the zombie apocalypse began is potentially interesting, what I saw in this premiere leads me to believe that nothing creative will be done with the premise. Overall, this premiere was incredibly dull and extremely disappointing, with very few positives to speak of.

3/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five

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Alexandria Safe Zone, Andrew Lincoln, Breaking Bad, Chandler Riggs, Comics, Corey Brill, Danai Gurira, Daryl Dixon, Game of Thrones, Graphic Novels, Hannibal, Horror, Jon Bernthal, Lauren Cohan, Lennie James, Melissa McBride, Rick Grimes, Robert Kirkman, Ross Marquand, Sarah Wayne Callies, Seth Gilliam, Sonequa Martin Green, Steven Yeun, Television, Telltale Games, Terminus, The Fast and the Furious, The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead Season Five, The Wire, TV, Zombie Apocalypse

via collider.com

“The Walking Dead : Season Five” has been a mixed bag for me. I liked the first half of the season because there was a certain brutality to it all, and the showrunners weren’t trying to be overly artistic or take themselves too seriously. Some of that did return in the latter half of the season, but at times I was frustrated by the fact that the people in charge thought they were visionaries again, and started to try to make the characters more complicated and layered than the quality of the writing allows them to be. Nonetheless, it’s been a good season, and any annoying aspects towards the end were mollified by how great the finale turned out to be.

“The Walking Dead” is to television what “The Fast and the Furious” is to film. It’s not a high standard of acting or writing, but at times it’s very entertaining, and that’s enough to get people with their bums on seats. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your limits, and there’s nothing wrong with being mediocre if what you’re delivering is still enjoyable, but there’s something very wrong about trying to make a work of art and ending up with something that’s barely worth sticking on the fridge.

Some of the writing in the latter half of the season has been truly dreadful, and the new characters have often felt very one-dimensional as a result. Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) are ridiculously dull, and the overacting on show from both of the actors playing the roles has been laughable. Furthermore, the group from Alexandria are all very predictable and lack real depth, particularly Pete (Corey Brill), who was just there to move the story along by getting under the skin of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Carol (Melissa McBride), and was less of a character than a plot device.

via collider.com

However, it hasn’t been all bad and I’d be lying to myself if I said that I hadn’t been excited to watch each episode, it’s just that sometimes this show lets itself down when it comes to character development. Having said that, Carol is a layered character now, and the season has seen Melissa McBride flourish in the role. A lot of people were already saying that after the mid-season finale, because she had undergone a transformation which saw her turn into a fighter rather than the victim. At that point I disagreed, because I didn’t think that the change was gradual enough, or that it was done with enough care. I felt as though a switch had been flicked and she’d gone from being one person to another, which wasn’t entirely believable.

I’m glad that she’s still being developed and that the show is persisting with giving her a greater role, because now that we’ve seen her be a powerful and pragmatic member of the group for a few more episodes, I think that it suits her quite well, and I’m able to buy into her transformation now that she is more careful with her decisions. Melissa McBride has really grown alongside the character, and when I’m watching her I’m more immersed in the story than with any other character.

via nerdishgeekweb.files.wordpress.com

Glenn (Steven Yeun) has also developed this season, and now that he’s within a community of weak people he shines as someone who’s battle-hardened. When “The Walking Dead” began he was a runner for the group and he was brave, but he wasn’t a strong and intimidating person. Now he comes across as though he’s in control, and he’s really come into his own. Steven Yeun is a good actor and I wouldn’t have said that before this season, so that’s a big plus for the show going forward.

This season has had a compelling arc, and there’s been a clear underlying theme that’s made things better than they seem in isolation. The whole season has been about how the group, but mainly Rick, can’t go back to the way things used to be, and this has constantly been reaffirmed as things have progressed. Season five began with the group escaping from Terminus, and ended with their infection of the Alexandria Safe Zone. They’ve gone from chaos and near death to what should’ve been a civilised and normal life, but they clearly haven’t adapted as well as they might have hoped.

This season has told us from the start that there is no going back, and Rick stated it again in the mid-season finale, but there’s been other moments that are slightly less explicit which have given off that same impression. Just before the group were approached by Aaron (Ross Marquand), Rick told the group that the world wasn’t going to change, and said ‘we are the walking dead’. That’s a great line just by itself, but it wasn’t just a nod to the comics, it was a foreboding warning to the audience that the group aren’t an unlucky bunch of travellers anymore, they’re vicious when they need to be and they bring destruction with them wherever they go, just like any other zombie horde. They’re as broken as the world around them, and just like that world, it might be too late for things to get fixed.

via amcnetworks.com

When the season began the group were being tortured at Terminus, but it ended with them acting as destructive invaders. They did to the Alexandria Safe Zone what the unnamed group from the first episode flashback did to the people at Terminus, although not in such an intentional or evil way. They’ve torn the place apart and left the people wounded; that’s what happens to people who try to live in this world as though nothing has changed. People can’t change the world back to the way it was, rather, this world changes people – the group are past the point of no return, and to try to go back is to face annihilation from someone else who doesn’t want to.

Rick was turning into a bit of a psycho by the end of the previous season, after all, he did rip a person’s throat out with his teeth and gut a man like a pig! But he did that for all the right reasons and although the means were excessive, the end was necessary. This season he’s gone a step further and almost lost what was left of his humanity, so again it doesn’t look as though he can go back to the way he was before the dead took over the earth. He’s still made out to be the good guy, but good guys don’t act like he does; in my opinion he’s causing all the problems right now, so he shouldn’t get any brownie points for eventually solving them.

The theme was clear from the first half of the season, but the way that the season ended definitely re-established it. Morgan (Lennie James) appeared in the very first episode of the first season, and is a reminder of who Rick used to be, so for him to appear just as Rick reached his lowest moment demonstrated to the audience just how far gone the character actually is. Morgan is a beacon of hope for Rick as a character, and I could see his introduction sparking a change in the group whereby the theme of this season gets turned on its head, because he had slipped into craziness the last time we saw him, but it seems like now he’s as right as rain (or at least as sane as a man can be in a world filled with walking corpses).

via tribzap2it.files.wordpress.com

I could definitely see Morgan acting as a catalyst for Rick to change into something like a normal human being again, reminding him of the man he once was, and making him realise that he owes it to Carl (Chandler Riggs) and the memory of Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) to take a step back and regain his humanity. Morgan can tell Rick about how much he misses his son and his wife, and how it’s not too late to change, and because he’s a lot like Rick, or at least the man that he used to be, I could see him getting through to him. I think that’s got to be his role going forward, and I thought that could be seen through the line that one of The Wolves said at the start of the episode; ‘everything gets a return’.

Either way, I’m glad that Morgan is back on the show, because he reminds me of a time when “The Walking Dead” was still exciting and promised so much. Morgan is still one of the show’s most memorable characters, and part of one of its best moments, in which he couldn’t shoot his wife, even though she was a dangerous and lifeless zombie.

The season has ended in an interesting place, not only because the Alexandria Safe Zone is a great setting, but because the characters are all in the balance as far as their mental states are concerned. It’s been really fun to see how the characters have reacted to being thrown back into a functioning society, because they’ve been wandering a living Hell for so long. I had my reservations initially, because to me it felt like Woodbury all over again, but I think it’s different enough that those comparisons die away. There have to be plenty of places like this left in the world, so the fact that the group has come across another isn’t sufficient to warrant criticism, and it’s from the comics so it’s fine with me.

via comicbook.com

The Wolves are lurking on the horizon and by the look of it they could be a formidable foe. I hope that it doesn’t take too long for season six to get going and for them to try to take the Safe Zone, if that’s the direction that the series is going to go, but I also hope that if things have to go badly in the Safe Zone, it doesn’t just get destroyed like Terminus did. I don’t want the group to move on straight away next season, I want them to have time to build before everything gets ruined again.

All in all it’s been a pretty decent season, but one problem that’s been apparent from the very start of the series is that none of the important characters have been killed. A couple have bit the dust in the past, most notably Shane (Jon Bernthal) and Lori, but in this season there wasn’t a single death that I actually cared about. This takes a sense of urgency out of the show and makes it seem less realistic. I don’t mind that some of the bigger characters in the show get a pass, because I want to see my favourite characters live on; I don’t want Carol, Rick, Glenn or Daryl (Norman Reedus) to die, and the shock value wouldn’t be worth it to have them gone. However, I think that the show has to do away with Carl, Michonne (Danai Gurira), or Maggie (Lauren Cohan) next season, or it will start to lose credibility (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – please let it be Carl! He’s such a waste of a character it’s time to let him go).

I enjoy “The Walking Dead”, and this season is no exception. I like creative zombie kills (not the pinpoint headshots), and I like the melodrama between the characters when believable performances are given. I don’t think that it’s worthy of a fraction of the praise and attention that it gets, but it’s a guilty pleasure that I’ve stuck with for a very long time. This season has been good, maybe even great at times, but the quality of writing often lets it down. If it were perhaps half the length then I think it would work much better, but the producers like money, and that’s just that. Overall, it was a well-crafted season of television, but it wasn’t up to the standard of other big name television shows like “Hannibal”, “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad”.

6.5/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Mid-Season Finale – “Coda”

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Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Beth Greene, Breaking Bad, Chandler Riggs, Christine Woods, Coda, Comics, Danai Gurira, Daryl Dixon, Emily Kinney, Game of Thrones, Josh McDermitt, Lauren Cohan, Maximiliano Hernandez, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Robert Kirkman, Seth Gilliam, Sonequa Martin Green, Steven Yeun, Television, Terminus, The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead Season Five, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies

via postapocalypticmedia.com

This season of “The Walking Dead” started with a bang, as the group took on Gareth (Andrew J. West) and his team of cannibals with brutality and aggression. Things didn’t just stagnate at Terminus, as we might’ve seen in previous seasons, and the story quickly evolved into something very interesting. There’s been a lot more action this time around than we have seen before, and from my perspective that makes this show a whole lot better, because it doesn’t have (and never has had) amazing writing or acting week in week out. Along with this new focus on action we’ve seen some really impressive makeup on the walkers, and with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) almost in full-Shane mode, I’m actually looking forward to each episode ahead of time.

The mid-season finale, entitled “Coda” typified both the good and the bad aspects of this season so far, and despite a few underwhelming scenes, it was quite entertaining on the whole. As with most of the episodes so far, there was always something going on to keep you invested in what was happening on screen, which hasn’t always been the case on this show. It wasn’t a slow burning or boring episode, even though a lot of what occurred was clearly intended to build tension, leading up to what I’m sure was intended to be an emotional climax.

Nevertheless, because this is “The Walking Dead”, there’s only so many positives you can find before running into a negative, and in keeping with the rest of the season, how the characters behaved in “Coda” was both strange and slightly idiotic. Rick could’ve been a completely different person at the end of the episode than he was at the start, given that his actions in these moments were clearly in conflict. He begins the episode as a cold blooded killer, showing no mercy to an innocent man, but just hours later he’s offering sanctuary to his enemies!

via wetpaint.com

In the opening scene of this episode we see Rick chase down the runaway police officer who Sasha (Sonequa Martin Green) so foolishly allowed to flee in the previous episode. As we watch the attempted escape play out it’s clear that Rick has the upper hand. The police officer, who happens to be called Bob (Maximiliano Hernandez), still has his hands cuffed together, and as such he can’t really make the swiftest of getaways. Eventually Rick decides it would be fun to run him over, and with absolutely no regard for the value of human life he does so, incapacitating Bob and soon after killing him with a bullet to the head. It was an interesting way to show that in the zombie apocalypse no one is really the good guy, it’s just survivor vs. survivor, and the last man standing takes the spoils. I really liked how this was portrayed to the audience with a clever nod to the first episode, as Rick uttered the words ‘you can’t go back Bob’, which Gareth had so fatefully said right at the start of the season.

Despite the fact that this was an enjoyable scene to watch, it wasn’t the finest moment in the first half of this season when you think about it more carefully. The fact that the issue was dealt with so quickly after the events of last week’s episode made the final scene of that episode seem pointless. The dramatic tension built by that scene was knocked down in an instant, just as Bob was by Rick’s reckless driving. That might not seem like the biggest of issues right now, because that tension carried over from last week to this week as everyone emotionally involved in the show had so much time to think about what could happen next, but to me it felt like a kick in the teeth, because I was expecting a much more worthwhile pay-off.

Also, I’m not sure that killing Bob was the best thing for Rick to do in the first place, and I don’t believe that he would’ve actually done it, given the fact that it didn’t really make his life any easier at all. He could’ve easily given Bob a little push with the car once he reached him, and that would’ve been enough to knock down a man who was running desperately with no regard for his balance whatsoever. Rick could’ve then picked him up, taken him back to the group or simply left him in the car (presuming it could be locked), and he would’ve had more to trade with Dawn (Christine Woods) at the end of the episode, possibly avoiding the untimely demise of Beth (Emily Kinney). In short, Rick is completely and solely to blame for Beth’s death.

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Rick wasn’t the only character acting irrationally in this opening scene, Bob’s decision making skills were clearly affected by the need for his character to service the plot, because there was absolutely no good reason why he would run from Rick and the others. He had more than enough time to think about his next move, and frankly he thought SO wrongly.

His reasoning for attempting to make a break for it was that, in his own words, ‘I don’t know you’, but if he lived his whole life so wary of stranger danger then he must have been an extremely boring character in the first place! Not knowing a group of rational human beings is not a good enough reason to leave yourself at the mercy of a larger group of irrational and murderous zombies! If it were me I would probably take my chances with a group of people that want to use me as a bargaining tool, rather than run outside into a world filled with hungry zombies, tail between my legs and hands tied behind my back. If you have to choose between a rock and a hard place you might as well choose the rock, at least with that you know exactly what you’re up against, the hard place might just be a bigger rock with much more ragged edges.

The convenience of Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) return was extremely frustrating. This convenience was two-fold and it was annoying on both counts. Glenn and Maggie’s initial return served one ridiculously well-timed purpose, which was to save Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), Michonne (Danai Gurira), and Carl (Chandler Riggs) from certain death at the hands of the walkers. What really got to me about this scene wasn’t just the timing, but it was the fact that I didn’t care what was happening on screen because I knew that there was definitely going to be something which saved the day.

via twdenthusiasts.com

I didn’t believe for a second that Carl or Michonne would get killed off, and by extension I knew that Gabriel would probably be fine as well. This is a massive failure on the part of the writers, because when you stop believing that anyone important is going to die on a programme about the apocalypse, you know things are far too tame. The show already loses credibility from the fact that none of the characters can swear, which is clearly a feature of everyday dialogue which would carry over into the zombie apocalypse, so to make them invincible as well just makes the show itself quite redundant. Why should I care about the characters being created if I know that only a select few of them are dispensable?

The second way in which this scene was convenient for moving the plot along was that, not only did it get the entire cast back together, but this reunion happened just in time for Maggie to see her dead sister being carried out of the hospital in Daryl’s (Norman Reedus) loving arms. How is it possible to have timing that good? Maggie should constantly carry an umbrella because she’ll always put it up just before the rain comes! The scene in which Glenn, Maggie, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) etc., first return to save Gabriel, Carl, and Michonne, was an initial convenient plot point to set up an even more convenient plot point! Fantastic writing guys, keep up the good work!

The last thing I want to criticise from this episode was Beth’s death, which wasn’t really all that surprising, because it seems that whenever a character gets a bit more screen time on this show they are likely to be killed off. If a fringe character suddenly gets a more integral part in the narrative you can almost guarantee that things aren’t going to end well (so good luck Carol (Melissa McBride)).

via yellmagazine.com

However, I did like how it happened, because although a lot of people have said that it didn’t make sense, (and in a way I agree because she gave up her life for someone she barely knew and left her sister and friends to mourn her death), she did the heroic thing and at the end of the day maybe she’d just had enough. There’s only so much you can take from people before you snap, which must be even more true when every day is about survival and you can’t turn a corner without wondering what could kill you on the other side, and she was almost suicidal at the end of Season Two, so this could just have been the final nail in the coffin.

All in all this was a solid enough episode by “The Walking Dead’s” admittedly low standards, and I did enjoy it; it was tense and exciting, even if it was slightly ridiculous and altogether predictable. Things certainly weren’t as action packed as I would’ve hoped from the mid-season finale, but there are plenty of avenues to explore when the show returns in February, and at least a ‘main’ character was killed off, as well as there being some resolution to the stories we’ve seen so far. “Coda” wasn’t earth-shattering or fantastic, but it was fine, and that’s about as much as I can allow myself to expect from this show.

As far as the mini-season is concerned (because at the end of the day these mid-season breaks come at the end of eight hour-long episodes and bring a reasonable amount of resolution to the storylines at play, so they aren’t the middle of a season at all, they are seasons in themselves, or at least that’s how I see them. The first season was actually shorter than this half-of-a-season pretender!), it’s been a decent improvement in quality as opposed to the last season of “The Walking Dead”.

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However, “The Walking Dead” feels like it should be subtitled “Character Development For Dummies”, because the way in which characters evolve is so obvious and mundane that you have to wonder whether or not the writers have ever actually seen another television show. Having seen “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad”, how can you allow yourself to create such stereotypical and generic characters?

Carol is suddenly strong because she no longer has her husband and has found freedom in a world where no one is left to abuse her, haven’t seen that before! Daryl has become kinder and less angry because he no longer has his brother leading him astray and he finally feels as though he’s found a place and a purpose in the world. Rick has become cold and bitter towards the world because his wife has died and he has seen the evil people can do. Nothing about how these character’s reactions to their situations is original or exciting, they’re all incredibly plain.

Things could be easily rectified if the writers had some guts and let one of their characters just lose it! If you want Rick to be this broody, vicious person, go for it! We’d all like to see it! Make him the anti-hero. Have him hit Carl and hate himself for doing it, have him get in a new relationship with another character but it become destructive, have him find drugs and start taking them, going off the rails. Have him do something. But if you are going to skirt around the issues and just hint at possible changes in character’s mentalities then don’t bother, because most of your target demographic isn’t paying attention anyway, they just like to see Daryl shoot his crossbow and think Rick is cool because he has a base level of authority over a tiny group of ‘heroes’.

via needtoconsume.com

This isn’t the best series on television, and I don’t believe it ever will be. However, I feel as though it’s starting to realise that it works best when things go boom and it doesn’t try to overstep its mark. For that reason I’ve enjoyed the first half of this season a lot more than I did the latter half of last season, and I’m hopeful for more action set pieces and violence in episodes to come. Still, I get incredibly frustrated by the failure to realise potential on the part of the writers of this show, because they have a great platform to build off of in the form of Robert Kirkman’s series of graphic novels, and there are a lot of interesting stories to tell about people who are desperate to survive a zombie apocalypse.

This season has dealt with cannibals, rape, salvation (Eugene (Josh McDermitt) playing the role of a saviour, and Gabriel worrying whether or not he is damned), abuse, and loss, but it still feels incredibly hollow, which is a real shame because this show has a large audience and exploring those themes more carefully could create a programme really worthy of the popularity that “The Walking Dead” has right now.

Episode Eight, “Coda” – 6/10

The first half of Season Five – 6.5/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Premiere – “No Sanctuary”

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Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Chad Coleman, Christian Serratos, Daryl Dixon, Josh McDermitt, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, No Sanctuary, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Television, Terminus, The Walking Dead, TV Review, Walkers, Zombie Apocalypse

via geekchicelite.com

“No Sanctuary” is the best season-opener of “The Walking Dead” since the first ever episode. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the writers managed to fit so much action into one episode, because one of my biggest problems with the show in the past is that it’s just been incredibly dull. This episode was certainly not boring, it was fast-paced, dark, and worthy of being part of a television show about a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies outnumber humans. There was very little melodrama in the episode and it definitely took a step away from the soap-opera-like feel of previous seasons.

(SPOILER ALERT) The title of this season opener refers to the fact that Terminus isn’t the safe haven that it had been claimed to be, as well as to the sign which Rick (Andrew Lincoln) alters at the end of the episode. The scene takes place after Rick and his group escape Terminus and are reunited with Carol (Melissa McBride), Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and Judith. Rick sees one of the signs which members of the group had previously read, a sign which suggested that Terminus was a place of refuge from the horrors of the outside world. In an effort to aid future survivors Rick uses blood to cover what had previously been written on the sign, leaving all but one word and then adding his own above it. As the camera turns towards the writing we see that it reads, (yes you guessed it), “No Sanctuary”.

Season four ended just as the finale seemed to be picking up steam, something which really frustrated me at the time because I was enjoying the episode, so the fact that “No Sanctuary” picked up right where the show had left off made a lot of sense. The feeling of excitement at the end of season four carried over into this episode and brought us back into “The Walking Dead” universe seamlessly.

via onionstatic.com

(SPOILER ALERT) The scene in which Rick and the group are getting themselves ready for an all-out battle with Gareth and the rest of the cannibals from Terminus is a very clever way to begin the season, as we see our heroes arming themselves with whatever they can find, and this scene demonstrates that for the rest of the season they are going to be a lot more ruthless. The group aren’t cowering in the corner of the storage container scared for their lives, they are suiting up, preparing to face their foes head on. They are going to fight to survive and that will surely make this season a lot more interesting than many previous seasons, as Rick is no longer a mourning farmer, and Carol isn’t a broken woman lacking in self-confidence, she’s a completely new character and has made a huge transformation.

The more gory moments in this episode were really satisfying, and the lack of remorse shown on both sides of the battle was very refreshing. I’m not easily put off by blood and guts, so nothing in the episode really bothered me, I enjoyed seeing the way in which the Terminus inhabitants went about their business and then I also enjoyed how they were destroyed in a sea of walkers, bullets and fire. What’s not to love?

However, I did have a couple of problems with the special effects in the episode, as I felt that the huge explosion (seen on the trailer for the season) was pretty ridiculous. The damage it caused in relation to the blast didn’t seem to match up, and how Carol aimed her firework at the gas canister was quite miraculous. That particular scene didn’t look all that realistic, as I mentioned on the preview, and I was acutely aware that I was watching a television show at that point.

via geeklegacy.com

Nevertheless, the effects were impressive in other areas, and I was particularly enthused by the makeup on the walkers, because it actually seemed as though an effort had been made to make them look threatening and true to what you would expect if such a creature were to exist in real life. Furthermore, it was pleasing to see walkers make a significant appearance in the episode, because the way in which Woodbury, Terminus, and the prison acted as walker-free zones really made me wonder why walkers are even a part of this show if they are going to be ignored for the majority of each season. I am aware that “The Walking Dead” is designed to be a show about how humans would react to this kind of worldwide catastrophe, but it is set in a zombie apocalypse, so to remain credible it has to feature a lot more walkers than it has done in the past.

In this episode, both groups seemed as though they had found their home in this world after the world, and the fact that the show runners weren’t afraid to show what the vicious folks at Terminus had been up to since the outbreak was both surprising and very welcome. I loved the way that the people at Terminus dealt with our heroes as though they were just meat, or ‘cattle’, and I felt that these individuals had the potential to be very interesting villains. (SPOILER ALERT) My only issue here is that I wanted them to be around for a much longer period of time, because you can really get behind your heroes when they’re fighting murderous cannibals, and it was a shame to see most of these characters die so early on. However, I’m sure that we’ll see Gareth (Andrew J. West) again in the not too distant future, and that he will prove to be an extremely hateable antagonist.

After seeing this episode I would say that my biggest error in the preview was claiming that the group would stay at Terminus for much longer than they actually did. After seeing the trailer, I was expecting the group to stay at Terminus for at least three or four episodes, and I thought that we would see the group sway Gareth into escorting them to Washington in order to rid the world of walkers and bring things back to the way they were before the dead roamed the earth, but instead we see that Gareth doesn’t really want to go back, or at least he doesn’t think he can, because it’s just too late for that. (This notion is definitely an ongoing theme of the show and I think we can expect to see this be carried through to the end of the storyline with Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt), Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz), and Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos). I was pleased that the show proved me wrong because it demonstrated that it can still be unpredictable after airing for so many years, and because I feel that what actually happened in this episode was much more believable than what I was expecting to occur.

via theflickcast.com

In regards to the rest of the season, I don’t really want to watch the group as they make their way to Washington or as they forage for supplies, just because it’s pretty awkward that they are happy to play follow the leader with Eugene and Abraham. However, I’m hopeful that the group won’t spend too long travelling to their destination after things accelerated so quickly at Terminus, and I do think that it will be interesting to see the end point of the storyline, because either the world will return to the way it was (which is clearly not going to happen) or Eugene is lying and we’ll get to see him pay the price for that deceit. I really dislike Eugene as a character, so that possibility fills me with glee. There’s no way that there is really a cure to all this trouble, even the show runners themselves don’t seem to know how “The Walking Dead” will end (or how the apocalypse started), so I definitely don’t believe that Eugene knows as much as he is claiming to.

(SPOILER ALERT) I wasn’t happy with the fact that nobody significant was killed in this episode, because in such a chaotic and heated battle there would have been casualties on both sides; someone should’ve strayed from the group and been attacked, or at least been taken hostage by Gareth as some sort of bargaining tool to get revenge on Rick and Carol for slaughtering his people. The fact that Gareth is still alive and well means that he is sure to reappear at some point, which I’m not complaining about because he is an interesting character, but this means that when he does finally come back there will be no surprise on my part. When this kind of thing happens in a television show you start to lose faith with the writers and never really believe that anything truly interesting will happen, because the story telling is clearly lacking.

Gareth got shot to feign death, so that less involved viewers would think that he wasn’t going to appear again, but anyone who has watched as much television as I have can recognise a cliché when they see one. The best way to deal with Gareth’s character would’ve been to just ignore him for the latter half of this episode, because then the majority of the audience would forget about him until his reappearance. I may be wrong again, because as a series regular we may continue to see Gareth in each episode (which would be great), and in that case I rescind my criticism, but I was frustrated that we saw Gareth take a shot which was never actually going to end his life, and then we were left to ponder whether or not he would appear again in the near future. Obviously he will, it is a well known fact that Andrew J. West is a regular cast member for this season, so why did you waste your time filming this scene?

via blogspot.com

All the performances in “No Sanctuary” felt believable, and the actors playing the villains at Terminus did an exceptional job of making me despise them in such a short period of time. They were vicious, ruthless and extremely blasé about the horrendous things they were doing, which gave off the feeling that they had been doing this for a very long time, and that killing meant very little to them. I wasn’t as thrilled with Carol’s appearance in this episode as other reviewers have been since the episode aired, because I don’t believe that her character would change this drastically, or that she would have lasted this long in the first place. Nonetheless, almost all of the returning characters remained likeable, and the actors did a good job on the whole.

The ending of the episode frustrated me slightly, because it felt too optimistic and did venture into the realm of the overly campy. Given the fact that the group has nowhere to go and no means of getting there, and the fact that they have just gone through something so traumatic, they should probably be less joyous and focus on the task at hand. I did appreciate the fact that they got the group back together, because seeing them forming separate relationships did get pretty annoying, and I feel that the show works much better when we see the group struggle to come to a consensus regarding a moral decision, or when they are working together to try and overcome a much stronger enemy. Still, they have scarce amounts of food and water, nowhere to sleep and no means of transportation, so if it were me I’d worry about that rather than having a group hug.

“No Sanctuary” was a very promising way to begin season five of “The Walking Dead”, because it had the right amount of action to keep the audience interested, and brought the group back together just as things were becoming slightly tiresome. It seems as though the writers have taken some of the criticisms of the show on board, and have attempted to include more walkers and more violence in this episode. I welcome any change to the formula at this point and I was pleased that instead of talking about what they were going to do, Rick and the others actually took charge of their situation and acted for once. This episode was thoroughly enjoyable, and now I’m very optimistic for what lies ahead (please let there be a Carl-related death soon… please!).

8/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Preview

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Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Chad Coleman, Chandler Riggs, Daryl Dixon, Dead Island, Emily Kinney, Glenn Rhee, Jon Bernthal, Lauren Cohan, Lost, Maggie Greene, No Sanctuary, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Robert Kirkman, Sarah Wayne Callies, Scott Wilson, State of Decay, Steven Yeun, Television, Terminus, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Walkers, Warm Bodies, Washington, Zombie Apocalypse

via amcnetworks.com

“The Walking Dead” is a source of great revenue for AMC, and the popularity of the television series (following Robert Kirkman’s ongoing collection of graphic novels), has led to more than one game and the suggestion of a future spin-off series. Furthermore, the renewal of “The Walking Dead” has already been announced, with a sixth season in the works before the fifth has even begun to air! With that kind of popularity and commercial success you would think that this show would have to be a bona fide masterpiece, with amazing writing, stunning performances, and fantastic special effects. However, in actual fact “The Walking Dead” is so successful because it capitalises on the fact that currently the world is obsessed with the possibility of a zombie apocalypse, with “The Last of Us”, “Warm Bodies”, “State of Decay”, “Dead Island” and many more titles, being released recently in order to profit from the genre.

I don’t feel that this series contains any noteworthy acting performances or unpredictable story-arcs, and the characters don’t interact with each other in organic or meaningful ways, they just bicker and moan, as if human interaction is one big hardship now that the world has effectively ended. The characters themselves don’t have any depth, and after four seasons they still aren’t properly developed; I know nothing about their pasts or who they truly are, all I know is that they are survivors, and they all have a pretty good aim. Each time I watch “The Walking Dead” I am acutely aware that I am watching actors attempting to play their roles, and so I am never genuinely immersed by the action happening on screen. Nevertheless, I’m still watching the show, which may seem surprising given the criticisms, so it’s only right that I explain why that is the case.

Firstly, I started watching “The Walking Dead” while I was still in school, so for at least a couple of seasons it gave me something to talk about with my friends beyond the generic, ‘how are you?’ of everyday conversation. Once that routine starts it’s hard to break out of, and I am guilty of watching far too many shows simply out of habit, and the urge to know how the whole thing will end. Without seeing the final ending of a series, the last episode there will ever be, how can you really decide whether or not you enjoyed it?

via collider.com

“The Walking Dead” has also had, and does have, its moments. In each season the show is able to deliver in about four of its episodes, and I stick around for those episodes because they provide a sense of satisfaction, as you see something finally get resolved between the group, or a hated villain meeting his grizzly end. I don’t really have an issue with watching bad television, but from what I’ve just said, it would seem that the past three seasons of “The Walking Dead” have only been interesting for about a quarter of the time, with plenty of time reserved for filler.

The good episodes of this show are usually the ones which the series has been leading up to for the last eight hours of the season, and tend to give you about twenty minutes of action as a reward for sticking around. Strictly speaking these moments aren’t even worth the wait, but I’m a sucker for punishment and I have really enjoyed at least some of the more thrilling moments in this largely dreary show’s lifetime. As Shane (Jon Bernthal) was finally done away with, and it was revealed that everyone, yes everyone, becomes a walker upon death, I couldn’t help but enjoy what I was seeing. I had read the first couple of comics by that time and was aware of Shane’s fate, but I still enjoyed the tension of Rick and Shane’s final showdown.

The first season was a much shorter series than its successors, and as a result it was very enjoyable, because the cast weren’t standing around, twiddling their thumbs, for the majority of the run time. In season one the tone was a lot darker, and the series felt as though it was going in an interesting direction, focusing more on how people would react to the end of the world, rather than on brutal zombie violence. However, the tone of that season has been lost in recent times, as the increase in episodes has lead to a soap-opera like television show, polluted by generic female characters who are given no real substance, and a frustrating amount of squabbling between the group. The show is still about the characters but it isn’t actually about fleshing them out or giving them interesting personalities, it’s about where they are going to go next and how life is so unfair to them, despite the fact that they are still alive in a world which is largely owned by the dead (talk about ungrateful).

via collider.com

“The Walking Dead” would benefit from the kind of flash-backs we have seen in great shows such as “Lost”, because we know nothing about this show’s characters other than how we have seen them react to situations relating to a zombie apocalypse. In “Lost” we saw how the group handled a dire situation on the island, and then we also saw the contrast in their attitudes and characters during their lives before the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, usually gaining genuinely interesting insight into who they were as people and how that has led them to their current situation. We are teased with minute details about certain people’s pasts in “The Walking Dead”, but we never actually gain any knowledge as to who they really are as people, meaning that we can’t form any meaningful connections with them. I would love to get to know a bit more about the characters lives before the outbreak, and I would also really appreciate some kind of explanation as to why walkers came to exist in the first place. It’s amazing how little this lack of clarity is highlighted in the media or by fans!

The writers of “The Walking Dead” seem completely determined to have the characters stay in one place for the majority of each season, presumably in an effort to save money on building sets. In doing this, each episode can become incredibly boring, as we watch each member of the group go about their daily routine, and hear all about their insignificant worries and complaints. Why not use the time you are wasting to actually develop your characters? I hope this is not something which continues in season five, and from what I’ve seen I may be in luck, as I believe that for at least the first eight episodes of the season the group will be attempting to make their way to Washington, along with their captors from Terminus.

via collider.com

There are multiple other aspects of “The Walking Dead” which can make it extremely tedious:

1) Carl (Chandler Riggs) is possibly the most insufferable character in television history. He is a bratty little twerp and adds nothing to the show, his only purpose is to be a pesky plot-device, getting Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the others into sticky situations.

2) Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) relationship is one of the most lacklustre love affairs of all time, and their feelings for each other often seem incredibly forced and completely unnatural, given the short length of their relationship.

3) The fact that the entire group manage to shoot the walkers in the head every time they fire their guns can be extremely annoying, especially considering the fact that they have a seemingly unlimited supply of ammo.

4) We never see any damn zombies!!! When we do they don’t actually pose a threat to any of the important characters, because those characters are seemingly impervious to damage, or possibly because no one would stick around to watch just Glenn and Tyreese (Chad Coleman) meander through the desolate zombie wasteland alone. Even Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) didn’t succumb to a walker, she went down to child birth (two seasons too late!). I hope that this is another thing which season five will rectify, because on the trailer we do see a lot of walkers, and this suggests that at least some of them will get their fill of human flesh in the episodes to come.

via ibtimes.com

Having said all this, what are my expectations for season five? Do I think that the show will suddenly become worthy of its success? Or will it stick to the tried and trusted formula that the show runners love so much? Well, the first thing I’m predicting for season five, perhaps just because I want it to happen so badly, is the death of one of the main cast. I’ve been waiting four seasons for “The Walking Dead” to actually take itself seriously and show some respect to its audience, because when I say main cast I mean Rick or Daryl (Norman Reedus), not Lori and Hershel (Scott Wilson)!

Nobody significant has ever been killed off on this show and it’s just ridiculous; Lori is probably the most high-profile character to have died so far, but she was just a plot device around which Rick’s character could be built, just like Carl is now, and once Shane was out of the picture there was no need to keep her around. I want to see my favourite characters facing real trouble, fighting for their lives in situations which I believe are genuinely life-threatening, but that can only happen once one of the leading characters is viciously and unexpectedly ripped apart by a hoard of angry walkers. If it was me I’d kill Carl off right now and save the hassle, he’s a poor child actor who is no longer a child, and it’s time to give Rick a new dimension and shake the monkey off his back.

Nonetheless, I think the much more likely death, given what I’ve heard through the grapevine, (SPOILER ALERT), is Glenn. I’d welcome a “Walking Dead” without him in it, and I think it would be a good way to spice things up a little. No enjoyment comes from watching Glenn and Maggie’s schoolyard love affair, and if he was to die we may finally see Maggie’s character become at least somewhat interesting, as she tries to overcome the pain of her beloved’s death. Despite this, I feel that even if “The Walking Dead” did lose Glenn, or Maggie for that matter, they would be replaced by another equally frustrating character, and the love story element of the series would most likely be passed on to a different set of characters.

via ziffdavisinternational.com

Finally, I expect Beth (Emily Kinney) to get a lot more screen time in season five, which I would welcome because too many of the supporting cast are neglected by the writers, particularly the female characters, and I don’t see why the show runners would go to the effort of giving Beth a separate storyline just to have that particular segment cut down to five minutes per week. I don’t expect that what she goes through will be a highlight of the season, in fact I will predict right now that it will be one of the more trying aspects of season five, however, at least it will be something fresh and could potentially introduce one or two interesting new characters to the series.

The trailer for this season is largely uneventful, and it doesn’t get me excited for what is to come. The explosion in which walkers are sent flying into the air looks to be quite low-budget, especially for a television series which makes as much money as “The Walking Dead” does. The action showcased in the trailer features Rick Grimes looking awfully distressed, holding a rifle as several walkers surround him. As this ‘action’ unfolds we hear Gareth (Andrew J. West), the leader of Terminus, telling the group that he will allow them to be escorted to Washington in order to reverse the effects of the zombie outbreak and give the world back to the living. It’s a very noble pursuit and one clearly worth trying, but why the folks at Terminus would agree to escort the group to Washington is beyond me. They all seem to be having a pretty good time and have a reasonably safe home, with all the human meat they’ll need to keep them going for quite a while, so why make a change? If the world of walkers, cannibalism, and anarchy suits you, why change it?

If I had to grade this season of television purely based on what I’ve heard will be involved, the trailer, and my past experience of the show, I would probably give it 6/10, as again I believe that it will have its moments but bore for large periods of time. I have neither seen nor heard anything relating to this season which leads me to believe that wholesale changes will suddenly be made to a financially beneficial formula, and although I want to be wrong, I don’t expect this season to be the revival of “The Walking Dead” as a genuinely impressive television show. All will be revealed in just a few days, as the first episode entitled “No Sanctuary” hits our screens, hopefully with a bang.