¡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.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[13 of 13]

HANNIBAL Season 3

(June-August 2015)

This really shouldn't come as a surprise, not only for the obvious reason (this is one hellavuh show!), but also because--hopefully only for the foreseeable future, but sadly, perhaps for “good”--this looks like the last we’ll be seeing of it…

It’s an idiotic state of affairs that has us in a world where there are a gajillion procedurals (and their multitudinous spin-offs) and a bazillion more “procedurals with a twist” (ugh), and only one Hannibal, and no one sees fit to pick up where NBC has left off.

What more can I say that I haven’t already said in the past two ¡Qué horror! rundowns where Hannibal sliced up a place for itself?

R.I.P. Hannibal. (At least for now…)

Parting Shot(s):

While the other shows I mentioned in last year’s Hannibal Candidate post did not seem at all interested in addressing the issues that plague them, Penny Dreadful made excellent strides away from a number of its past problems (though pacing still seems to be a bit of an issue).

Here’s hoping Season 3 continues its march towards greater heights of excellence…

Also, just in case anyone out there was thinking I wasn’t feeling any love for Bates Motel, on the contrary, it’s probably one of the more consistent shows I’m currently following.

The main reason why I’ve never mentioned it ‘round these parts before is that it’s always seemed to doggedly straddle that line between thriller and horror and never decidedly taken a step onto the horror side.

But, with Season 3 taking some of the most overt and definitive steps in its run towards all that we know and love about Psycho, I figured Bates Motel deserved some kind of ¡Qué horror! shout-out. (Plus, as a Carlton Cuse show, it’s always been light years better than The Strain.)

And finally, if old school supernatural horror is your thing, you’d do well to check out the 3 episode The Enfield Haunting, based on the book This House Is Haunted, which chronicles the Enfield Poltergeist case (the same case which is, incidentally enough, also the basis for the upcoming The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist).

… And the Wrap-Up

So there we are.

Here’s to this year’s kicka$$ crop, and here’s to next year’s…

(Hannibal OS’ courtesy of comicbookresources.com; Penny Dreadful, Bates Motel, and The Enfield Haunting OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[3 of 13]

JAMIE MARKS IS DEAD

(January 2014)

It's been six years since Carter Smith's debut feature, The Ruins (which wound up on the ¡Qué Horror! 2008 list), and he returns to these parts with another adaptation, Jamie Marks Is Dead, based on Christopher Barzak’s Locus nominated One For Sorrow.

Opening with the discovery of the corpse of the titular Jamie Marks (Noah Silver), it takes a while for the supernatural creeps to fully kick in, and when they do (at around the 20 minute mark), they’re pretty low key and actually have a lot of longing and aching poignancy in the mix.

But this in no way diminishes their unsettling and disturbing potency. (Note that the trailer is a tad misleading, seeming to suggest a fairly typical Hollywood ghost story, when the actual film is most definitely an atypical tale of the restless dead.)

Shot with a wintry melancholy by Darren Lew (his first feature work) and with Penny Dreadful’s John Logan as one of its executive producers, Jamie Marks Is Dead may not even register as “horror” for some, but there’s a gripping sadness here beneath the otherworldly elements that’s rooted in the horrors of existence and memory, of the need to belong and to be wanted, wrenching emotions that, sadly, even the quick are all too familiar with.

(Jamie Marks Is Dead OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2015

Candidate #5

JAMIE MARKS IS DEAD

(January 2014)

It's been six years since Carter Smith's debut feature, The Ruins (which wound up on the ¡Qué horror! 2008 list), and he returns to these parts with another adaptation, Jamie Marks Is Dead, based on Christopher Barzak’s Locus nominated One For Sorrow.

Opening with the discovery of the corpse of the titular Jamie Marks (Noah Silver), it takes a while for the supernatural creeps to fully kick in, and when they do (at around the 20 minute mark), they’re pretty low key and actually have a lot of longing and aching poignancy in the mix.

But this in no way diminishes their unsettling and disturbing potency. (Note that the trailer is a tad misleading, seeming to suggest a fairly typical Hollywood ghost story, when the actual film is most definitely an atypical tale of the restless dead.)

Shot with a wintry melancholy by Darren Lew (his first feature work) and with Penny Dreadful’s John Logan as one of its executive producers, Jamie Marks Is Dead may not even register as “horror” for some, but there’s a gripping sadness here beneath the otherworldly elements that’s rooted in the horrors of existence and memory, of the need to belong and to be wanted, wrenching emotions that, sadly, even the quick are all too familiar with.

(Jamie Marks Is Dead OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[12 of 13]

HONEYMOON

(March 2014)

Rose Leslie (late of Game of Thrones and who was awesome as Young Milner in the opening flashback episode of Utopia’s second series) and Harry Treadaway (currently seen on Penny Dreadful) are newlyweds Bea and Paul, off to a cabin in the woods for the titular honeymoon.

And since Honeymoon is on this year's final ¡Qué horror! rundown, it’s safe to assume that things go terribly awry. (Of course, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a single film where anything that had to do with a “cabin in the woods” turned out sunshiny bright and peachy keen.)

I won’t go into the nature of Honeymoon’s threat, but suffice it to say that Leigh Janiak’s debut feature is a disturbing cinematic experience where love and identity and terror say their “I do’s” to produce an unholy union where the inability to make French toast or coffee become terrible omens of the madness to come…

(Honeymoon OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2014

Candidate #15

HONEYMOON

(March 2014)

Rose Leslie (late of Game of Thrones and who was awesome as Young Milner in the opening flashback episode of Utopia’s second series) and Harry Treadaway (currently seen on Penny Dreadful) are newlyweds Bea and Paul, off to a cabin in the woods for the titular honeymoon.

And since Honeymoon is a ¡Qué horror! Candidate, it’s safe to assume that things go terribly awry. (Of course, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a single film where anything that had to do with a “cabin in the woods” turned out sunshiny bright and peachy keen.)

I won’t go into the nature of Honeymoon’s threat, but suffice it to say that Leigh Janiak’s debut feature is a disturbing cinematic experience where love and identity and terror say their “I do’s” to produce an unholy union where the inability to make French toast or coffee become terrible omens of the madness to come…

(Honeymoon OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2014

Candidate #13

HANNIBAL Season 2

(February 2014)

So, yeah, in a year that had some strong potential TV horror entries, no one could touch Hannibal.

True, Bryan Fuller’s exquisitely constructed mix tape adaptation of Thomas Harris’ serial killer novels was on its sophomore season, while most of the other TV horror contenders were freshman series, but hey, it managed to tie with Les Revenants for a ¡Qué horror! slot last year, and they were both freshmen shows back then…

As we inch ever closer to a third adaptation of Red Dragon and the tantalizing possibility of a television rendition of The Silence of the Lambs (with Agent Schmarice Schmarling, if MGM can’t be bothered to play nice), Fuller and company continue to stage the most elegantly audacious and horrific serial killer scenarios this side of American network television.

If you haven’t gotten a, ahem, taste of Hannibal, you really ought to…

Parting Shot 1: For the record, the other horror series I hoped would be contenders but ultimately weren’t are:

Salem – honestly, a lot better than I thought it would be. A pleasant surprise (with a kickass opening title sequence orchestrated to a Marilyn Manson ditty) that still has some issues which, hopefully, will get resolved in its sophomore run.

Penny Dreadful – I absolutely love the first two episodes (directed by J.A. Bayona and shot by Xavi Giménez), but subsequent episodes don’t quite come up to that opening, impressive level.

Again, some issues need to be worked out… having Bayona and Giménez on board for all of Season 2’s episodes would be an awesome start!

But, barring that, I’m still stoked to hear that we get more of odd duck Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle, as Simon Russell Beale is reportedly being upgraded to series regular.

Huzzah!

The Strain – this was the one that hurt. Given the pedigree of the show (Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse), I wanted this show to kick ass.

Sadly, even though the one-and-done guest appearances of some familiar genre faces (like Larry Fessenden and Aaron Douglas) were much appreciated, it’s still got a whole slew of issues that need to be fixed.

As with the above two shows, The Strain’s also got a second season renewal, so here’s hoping they make the most of it, ‘cause they’ve got lots of tweaking to do to get this show pitch perfect…

Parting Shot 2: And while we’re on the subject of television, the pilot episode for Chris Carter’s new show for Amazon, The After, is mighty interesting.

Yes, the premise is not exactly new (it’s a mash-up between the “a bunch of strangers find themselves working together to survive an apocalyptic disaster” and “a bunch of not-so-random strangers thrown together, seemingly by fate” set-ups), but hey, this is Chris Carter, so I’m über-curious where he plans to take the story.

Plus, an initially unrecognizable Jamie Kennedy and Sharon Lawrence!

And a projected 99 episode run based, at least structurally, on Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia. (And I’m assuming he meant 99 episodes past the pilot, since there are 100 cantos in the Commedia.)

Given my fascination with Dante that stretches back all the way to high school (thank you, Mr. Manny Leviste!), there was no way I was gonna pass this up.

I’m so in, Mr. Carter…

(Hannibal OS’ courtesy of aintitcool.com and impawards.com; Salem and Penny Dreadful OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; The Strain OS courtesy of collider.com; The After image courtesy of seriable.com.)