SEVERANCE Season 1 (February 2022)

 

SEVERANCE Season 1

(February 2022)

“The numbers were scary…”

Severance* takes the idea of work/life balance to its chilling extreme, as we bear witness to the denizens of Lumon Industries’ “severed floor,” where the employees have elected to undergo a surgical process that effectively separates the work persona (who only becomes active and awake at work) from who the individual actually is in their home life.
Work memories are not accessible when the person is out of the office, and the work persona has no idea what their home life is like (are they married? Do they have kids?).
It’s the kind of scenario that a corporation will absolutely love (no pesky personal problems to interfere with productivity; industrial espionage… what’s that?) but isn’t necessarily beneficial to the employee.
As we see over Severance’s nine-episode season, hopefully only the first of many more…
 
“I trusted you, and you abused that trust.
“Your inefficiency and free range chicken roaming is ultimately your responsibility.
“Escort him… to the Break Room.”
 
It’s odd, going over the quotes I’ve gathered here.
You read them and some are so patently absurd that the overall effect is whimsy.
And while, yes, the absurdist office humor is indeed off-the-wall, it is also, in practice, disturbing.
There are shades of Twin Peaks here, not just in a visual sense, but in the way that the crackpot, occasionally non sequitur humor serves to mask the cold, inhuman horror that lies beneath the cheery, quirky facades.
 
A worker may suffer injurious pain or ghastly dehumanization, and no workspace is without its perils. But whatever your task, dear worker, see that you perform it with love. Endow in each swing of your axe or swipe of your pen the sum of your affections, that through me they may be purified and returned. No higher purpose may be found than this. Nor any higher love.
 
So join us at Lumon, where no one quite knows what it is they’re actually doing (even in the office!).
Spend the work days with a truly excellent cast that includes Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, and Christopher Walken!
Thrill to passages of The You You Are, by the one and only Dr. Ricken (Michael Chernus)!
And watch out for the MDE!
 
Our job is to taste free air. Your so-called “Boss” may own the clock that taunts you from the wall, but my friends, the hour is yours.
 
Severance: A damning indictment of corporate culture, with all its perks and incentivizations and sudden terminations.
It’s a world where the terms “Break Room” and “overtime” are positively chilling to hear.
 
“Let’s burn this place to the ground.”
 
* Brought to us by an excellent team headed up by creator Dan Erickson, and Ben Stiller (yes, that Ben Stiller), who directed 2/3 of the season.
 
(Severance key art courtesy of impawards.com.)

30 MONEDAS / KATLA

And now, for those of you who may want a viewing commitment more substantial than just a 2 hour-or-so movie (and don’t consider the reading of subtitles an annoyance), this pair of foreign-language TV horror shows get a couple of hearty ¡Qué horror! recommendations.

30 MONEDAS

(30 COINS)

Season 1

(November 2020)

“Do you know the best way to conceal a lie? Inventing a much bigger one.”

“That’s true. It’s par for the course in politics.”

Álex de la Iglesia serves up some pulpy religious horror with 30 Monedas, which, as indicated by its title, has the very coins which were the price of Jesus’ betrayal as the series’ centerpiece.

“We all have something we can’t manage to forget, don’t we, Father? With the Internet, there are no secrets anymore.”

“That really is an invention of the Devil.”

And while the practical make-up/creature effects are much appreciated by yours truly (the huge CGI set piece, not so much), thankfully it isn’t all po-faced horror here.

Fleeting moments of comic lightness stem organically from characters and their interactions with each other so the proceedings don’t inadvertently suffocate us with constant terror-induced anxiety.

“There is a much deeper horror. We live in the midst of a hurricane of lies and deceit. There are no truths, only a furious instinct of destruction and madness, provoked by your God.  I don’t know for what reason. Maybe it’s just for the pleasure of making you suffer.”

And then, for a change of pace…

Strip away the Biblical MacGuffins and the cause-and-effect plot mechanics, swap in a grey ash-laden mood and bleakly creepy atmosphere and a tighter focus on character and emotion, and we have…

KATLA Season 1

(June 2021)

“If you ask me, nothing here seems normal anymore. I know that you scientists don’t believe things unless it can be measured with your fancy equipment, but I can tell you that something is happening that science can unfortunately not explain.”

The eponymous Katla has been in a state of volcanic unrest for a year now, and the small Icelandic community of Vik is all but a ghost town, with most of its inhabitants evacuated, and the remaining few simply “trying to survive.”

But, as if that weren’t already bad enough, some undeniably weird sh!t belatedly hits the fan…

This one revels in its central mystery, one of dread and anticipation, as we (and the forcibly dwindled population of Vik) bear witness to the impossible and inexplicable return of individuals who really shouldn’t be among us, at least, not in the manner in which they’ve returned.

And with that sentence, it should come as no surprise that there are echoes of Les Revenants in Katla, as everyday lives are impacted by the reintroduction of… well… not the dead, exactly, as in Les Revenants*, but certainly, of individuals whose very presence flies in the face of everything we know about existence.

To its credit, Katla doesn’t overly prolong the “Why?” of its mystery.

By its final, eighth episode, it’s made clear why this is all happening. Mileage may vary, however, as to whether any particular audience member will accept the explanations, given how everything shakes out in the end.

At the very least, answers are offered, while leaving matters open for any potential follow-up season.

“Nature regularly reminds us how small we are. How everything we’ve got depends on it.”

* Though there are apparently some of those.

And hey! Lookit! There’s a creepy kid here, too!

(30 Monedas key art courtesy of impawards.com; Katla key art courtesy of twitter.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #8

INTO THE DARK

Season 1 Episode 3
POOKA!
(December 2018)

“I'm tellin’ ya, this thing tested through the roof. This is gonna rip Christmas a new a$$hole.”

Well, lookee here!

Señor Nacho Vigalondo is back ‘round these parts, with Into the Dark’s third “episode,” Pooka!

Working from a script written by Gerald Olson, Vigalondo brings us the bleak Christmas tale of Wilson (Nyasha Hatendi), who’s come to Los Angeles to “start over,” only to have his “blank slate” apparently begin to be written over by the devious machinations of a disturbingly sinister-looking mascot costume.

In Pooka!, there are horrors amidst the absurdities, and absurdities amidst the horrors.

And, drifting in and out and through the festive carols and twinkling Christmas lights, we catch fleeting glimpses of the demeaning nature of the audition process and the tellingly rude reality of flash-in-the-pan success, and hear the echoing, ultimately hollow apologies of the serial abuser.

Happy Christmas?

Not so much in Pooka!

“Look at all the pretty lights…”

Parting Shot: There are mentions of Vigalondo’s Los Cronocrimenes (Timecrimes) here, and his contribution to V/H/S: Viral here.

(Into the Dark: Pooka! OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #1

INTO THE DARK

Season 1 Episode 1
THE BODY
(October 2018)

“Yeah, the one that was dressed as, ummm… uhhh… uhhh… Elsa from Frozen?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow! Marie Antoinette, you dipshit! Do you know anything about anything that’s not been made into an action figure?”
“I’m so sorry, Professor. I’m not an expert in Civil War history, okay?”

(Clears throat.)

“It has begun!” he exclaims in his best Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa*-as-Shang Tsung tones.

¡Qué horror! 2019.

And it begins here.

With Into the Dark.

In case you haven’t heard, Into the Dark is the latest horror anthology to hit the scene.

Brought to us by the unholy (but very, very welcome) alliance of Hulu and Blumhouse, what makes Into the Dark different from all the other horror anthologies out there is its structure: it isn’t one story told in serialized form over x number of episodes, but rather, a dozen distinct horror features brought to us over the course of a season.

And they’ve decided to kick off with Paul Davis’ The Body.

“I still can’t believe it’s him.”

“I know. Doesn’t he have like, 20 million Twitter followers?”

“Well… Not anymore.”

Based on his short of the same name, The Body follows a cultured and exacting hitman (Jekyll & Hyde’s Tom Bateman), who’s unfortunately inconvenienced on Halloween night, disrupting his plans of transporting the titular body of his latest victim (an apparently “famous person”) as part of his deal with his client.

Cue horror-comedy shenanigans.

“This is what death looks like, boy.”

But don’t let the word “comedy” fool you.

The Body is still very much a horror film. It just so happens to have some funny lines and some blackly comic situations baked into it.

With brief appearances by Sasha Grey and John Landis** (the Landis connection presumably stemming from Davis’ direction of the Beware the Moon: Remembering ‘An American Werewolf in London’ documentary), The Body’s a great way to kick off the Candidates list for ¡Qué horror! 2019, and if you’ve already checked out the 2018 rundown, then move smoothly onto this title for some awesome Halloween viewing.

“And why couldn’t he just kill like, Elijah Wood or someone small?”

* Who, incidentally enough, plays my hands-down favorite character on The Man in the High Castle, Trade Minister Tagomi.

** Interestingly, Landis’ An American Werewolf in London is a great example of the horror-comedy hybrid.

Parting Shot: Into the Dark presents me with an interesting conundrum. It’s a television series (or, well, “web television”) whose episodes are feature films.

So, in light of the ¡Qué horror! set-up, here’s how I’m planning to solve the conundrum:

I’m going to consider each episode as a feature film, so Into the Dark doesn’t potentially hog the TV Horror slot (since it’s going to have a dozen separate titles vying for that slot, as opposed to any other TV series, which faces the tricky and difficult task of having all the episodes in any particular season tie up into a single solid horror experience).

Considering Into the Dark as “television” here wouldn’t be fair to the other TV horror shows…

(Into the Dark: The Body OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2018

Candidate #7

THE EXORCIST Season 2

(September 2017)

"Is there, like, some... stupid Bible verse you can say, or something?”

I only now finally got around to wrapping up my viewing of the second season of Fox’s The Exorcist TV adaptation, so I’m writing this post in the wake of the series’ cancellation last month, and that’s a shame, really.

While I do think its first season was a stronger beast, there was still a lot to commend in its sophomore outing.

But, with its cancellation, we’ll never get to see the new character dynamics that the final episode sets into place, nor the content of the message Marcus (Ben Daniels) gets in the closing seconds, nor the fresh circumstances of Fr. Bennett’s (Kurt Egyiawan), errr, new calling.

Unless of course, some other network or streaming service comes along to resuscitate the show.

For now though, The Exorcist Season 2 gets the ¡Qué horror! seal of approval.

“You can start by asking God for help.”

“Does it matter if I don’t… exactly, totally believe?”

“No. No, it doesn’t matter.”

Parting Shot: As with its first season, there are a number of callbacks to the cinematic Exorcists, including one in the closing minutes of the final episode that, if you’re a horror film buff, you should see coming a mile away…

(As to whether this scene was also meant to telegraph the narrative possibilities of a potential third season--which they were clearly laying the foundations for--is anybody’s guess at this point…)

(The Exorcist Season 2 OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

The Preliminaries

"It is happening again."
The time of year for another ¡Qué horror! rundown.

Before we get to the main list, a number of titles (film and television) that, for one reason or another, did not quite cross the line into “horror,” but were nonetheless noteworthy pieces that I felt needed to be acknowledged here.

SPLIT

(September 2016)

“Rejoice!

“The broken are the more evolved.

“Rejoice.”

This one straddled the thriller/horror line, and was ultimately a slam bang run-up to the already on-its-way Glass.

(Though don’t get me started on how this, coupled with Unbreakable, seems to point to Shyamalan echoing Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run just a bit too closely.)

BATES MOTEL

(February 2017)

While Bates Motel’s final season initially seemed to indicate that it was finally going to crack into the main rundown, at long last firmly crossing the thriller/horror line, shortly after the sly and gutsy inversion of episode 6, “Marion,” the show settled into tragic, dysfunctional family drama mode.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved this final season (which is why it’s getting a mention here), but, once again and for the final time, Bates Motel stared knowingly at the thriller/horror line, and pointedly declined to cross it.

TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN

(May 2017)

Now this was something I’d never really imagined happening, but I’m so, so glad it did.

And, as with most of David Lynch’s oeuvre, while there are streaks and dollops of horror running through it, it’s a piece that really can’t be classified as “horror” (and I’m almost certain Mr. Lynch wouldn’t think of it as that, either).

And just as he did on Twin Peaks’ original ABC run, Lynch not only pushes the television envelope here, he tears it to shreds.

The a tad over 40 minute journey we take in episode 8, in which we meet the “Woodsman” (AKA Mr. “Got-a-Light?”) is the most harrowing 40 minutes of television I have ever seen.

After over a quarter of a century, Twin Peaks still remains the Best Television Show I have been blessed to have experienced, and The Return is a blistering and thoroughly welcome third season addition to it.

Oh, and good on the Roadhouse, for upping their game with the musicians they’ve invited onto their stage…

“… I don’t even know what to call it… this piece of art or… ‘cause I feel like calling it a television show… it aired on television, but it doesn’t feel like a television show for all the best possible reasons…”

--Damon Lindelof, on Twin Peaks: The Return

(Split & Twin Peaks: The Return OS’ courtesy of bloody-disguting.com; Bates Motel OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #7

THE EXORCIST Season 1
(September 2016)

After the terribly disappointing Damien--the A&E TV take on The Omen--I honestly didn’t have high hopes for Fox’s The Exorcist.

Let’s face it, The Exorcist is a much more towering presence in horror cinema than The Omen, so it stood to reason that a television version of it would have a much higher degree of difficulty.

But wouldn’t you know it, Jeremy Slater (who developed The Exorcist for the small screen) actually pulled an infernally feisty rabbit out of this particular hat, and gave us another notable reason to celebrate TV horror.

Not much more I can say without getting all spoiler-y, except maybe this: there are a whole bunch of callbacks to the original film peppered throughout the first season’s 10 episodes (you’ll know them when you see them), and there’s one apparently incredulous Mulder Moment courtesy of Geena Davis’ Angela Rance in the Pilot, my suggestion for which is, “Just roll with it.”

So, yeah.

If you’re in the mood for some excellent TV horror, then the power of Christ compels you to check this out!

(The Exorcist OS’ courtesy of impawards.com and dreadcentral.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

The Preliminaries

So yeah, you know the drill: another October, another ¡Qué horror! rundown.

I think the most notable thing about this year’s crop is, for the first time in a while, there is no TV entry, which is not to say that there was no good small screen horror in the past 12 months, but rather, that the film entries were simply much more clearly “horror” than the TV Candidates.

Now, while I just did not find the time to give these shows their own Candidate posts (apologies to all involved), I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention them here, so, without further ado, please consider these ¡Qué horror! 2016 Candidates #19 through 21…

LES REVENANTS (THE RETURNED)

Season 2

(October 2015)

There was nearly a 3 year gap (!) between the initial airing of the final episode of Les Revenants’ first season, and the premiere of its second season, and though its sophomore run did answer some of the lingering questions, it also had its own fair share of mysteries and ambiguity, all cloaked in the dreary and somber atmosphere the show has always sported.

And though it did seem to wrap the main narrative up, the second season also left certain questions unanswered. But as to whether there’ll be a third season, that would be anyone’s guess at this point.

Perhaps we need to wait another 3 years to find out…

PENNY DREADFUL

Season 3

(May 2016)

The fact that this third season also wound up being its final one was, perhaps, the biggest surprise for the show’s audience.

It was sad, and certainly sudden, to see that end title card, but those were the narrative choices made, and if the show did have to end, at least it ended on its own terms.

It was also a bummer to have the always welcome Simon Russell Beale downgraded from his Season 2 regular status to two (!) brief appearances.

That loss was partially alleviated with the upgrading of Patti LuPone to regular status, in what was also a cheeky bit of Starbucking.

And then there was Billie Piper, who continued her blazing performance as Lily, giving Eva Green a run for her money.

Sniff.

Penny D, ye shall be missed…

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Season 1

(June 2016)

“We talked a lot in pre-production about what this was going to be and I was really keen that it wouldn’t be horror. The word we used was eerie.”

It was this quality--summed up by series creator Ashley Pharoah in the above quote--that initially made me waffle on the show’s inclusion here. This wasn’t just “quiet horror” for most of the narrative; more mute or silent horror.

In the end though, the overall tone and mood throughout its half-dozen episodes, the intriguing angles from which the idea of ghosts are approached, plus some key moments where you think, “Oh, well, things will be fine now, won’t they?” when horribly, things don’t turn out fine at all, won the day, and here The Living and the Dead is.

Plus, anything that gets the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser back in the recording studio needs to be celebrated! (Fraser does the vocals on “She Moves Through the Fair” from episode 1, and “The Lover’s Ghost” from the episode 4 end credits.)

Though I’ve no word on the possibility of a second season, this one ends on an incredulous “Well, they can’t leave it like that now, can they?!” note.

“I was thinking a lot about what hauntings actually are. Are they echoes from the past or something else?”

--Ashley Pharoah

(Les Revenants & Penny Dreadful OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; The Living and the Dead DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)

STRANGER THINGS
(July 2016)

"And you know it, and he knows it, but no one ever says anything until you both start punching and yelling at each other like goblins with Intelligence scores of zero.
"Now everything’s weird.”

For anyone who knows me, it should come as absolutely no surprise that Netflix’s Stranger Things had me by the second scene of its first episode/Chapter.

The scene in question: a D&D session that’s been 10 hours running, threatened by the intrusion of… dun-dun-dun-duuuun… parental concern that tomorrow is a school day.

Set in 1983, Stranger Things is the kind of show that resonates on a very specific frequency, and should appeal greatly to Geeks of a Certain Age, those who know exactly what that scene feels like, those who’ve lived that scene, in one variation or another.

“The bad men are comiiing!”

“Mad hen. Does that mean anything to you? Like a code name or something.”

Stranger Things’ 8-Chapter narrative kicks off with the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), last seen headed home after that marathon gaming session. The search for Will draws in not just his gaming buddies, but also a bunch of adults, a bunch of teenagers, and a few other characters besides.

With Stranger Things, the show’s creators--the Duffer brothers, twins Matt and Ross--have given us a love letter to that very specific ‘80’s Amblin strain of entertainment that Steven Spielberg spearheaded. Taking that as their template, they’ve infused it heavily with dollops of Stephen King, some smidgens of John Carpenter, and then sprinkled on many of the pop culture markers of that era, from the music (Joy Division! Echo and the Bunnymen! The Clash!) to the films (The Evil Dead! The Thing! The Empire Strikes Back!).

It’s a heady (and sometimes, emotionally-wrenching) rush of geek nostalgia, Stranger Things is. (And, speaking of geek nostalgia, look! Winona Ryder!!)

Of course, the thing about nostalgia is, it works on our emotional attachments to the familiar, to the things we grew up with. As such, there are a whole slew of visuals and story beats in Stranger Things that will recall, to varying degrees, those benchmarks of our past.*

But, given the way the show takes those elements and weaves them into the narrative whole, we still end up with something new. Reminiscent of something(s) old, oh yeah, definitely. But still, in the end, something new. (Or, new-ish, at the very least.)

To a certain extent, Stranger Things does the same thing The Force Awakens does, work from the template of something old and established, and dress it up with some new elements.

In point of fact, there’s something more pure and honest about the way Stranger Things uses that particular approach.

Let’s be honest: no matter how good it is, The Force Awakens, is after all, still constructed to be a franchise re-starter, while Stranger Things appears to be simply, a new story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. (Of course, should Stranger Things suddenly explode into a multimedia juggernaut, then we can reexamine that assessment.)**

“You always say we should never stop being curious, to always open any curiosity door we find.”

“Dustin…”

“Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?”

Now, while the contingent of young actors on the show are across the board excellent, Millie Bobby Brown (who was also one of the noteworthy elements of BBC’s Intruders) and Broadway vet Gaten Matarazzo (Gavroche on Les Misérables) must be commended for their performances; Matarazzo’s Dustin Henderson is officially the latest entry on my personal Awesomest TV Characters Ever! list.

Oh, and Amy Seimetz’s got a single ep guest spot here, too! (Just thought I’d throw that out there.)

So, if you happen to be a Geek of a Certain Age, you’d be doing yourself a mighty disservice if you didn’t check out Stranger Things.

And you know what? Even if you aren’t, check the show out anyway.

Look! Even Stephen King likes it!

My only question about the Netflix series STRANGER THINGS is whether or not it will be popular enough to crash their servers. It might be.

--Tweet from Stephen King

* For the record, there are also some visuals that recall more recent titles, like Silent Hill and Under the Skin. (You’ll know them when you see them.)

** Having said that, I will still freely go on the record to say, given the way they opted to close the 8^th Chapter, please please please let there be a second season…

(Stranger Things OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)