¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017
The Preliminaries
"It is happening again."
The time of year for another ¡Qué horror! rundown.
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.)
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