Bookmonkey visits Hemlock Grove: Post Twelve

And here we end our visit to Hemlock Grove.

In the end, the show is a different take on a classic monster mashup, think Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man but in an updated version.

Throughout the season, the series attempts to show how these mythical beings would act and interact in a contemporary setting. In many ways it can be considered Magic realism, but in terms of a Horror, rather than a Fantastic setting.

In many ways the show is a success in what it sets out to do; the vampire, werewolf, and monster elements work in a "real world" setting.  In many ways the story works more as a thriller with horror elements than simply a classic horror story.

The pacing of the series does sometimes work against it - as the story attempts to stretch across the course of thirteen episodes, most of the episodes work, but I ended up feeling like the series could have worked at ten, rather than thirteen, episodes.

The series works best when it focuses on the growing relationship between Peter and Roman, showing how their friendship changes and grows during the course of the murder investigation, and although my personal favourite character was Shelley (the series version of the Frankenstein's monster), the human side of these characters is what worked best for me.

In the end, I'm not sure whether I'll be following up with the later seasons - but as the first season was a pretty straight adaptation of the novel, I'd like to see what the creators end up doing with these characters once the go off book.

Thanks for hanging out with me for another Ocotober!

Series Review: Millennium

One of the joys of watching classic television with my kids is it allows me to revisit personal favourites of my own childhood.  When they were younger we watched all of classic Star Trek (including the cartoon and a number of the movies), and I found the show held up extremely well to multiple viewings, and even the outdated effects didn't obstruct my kids enjoyment of the engaging story lines and characters.

For the past few years my wife and youngest daughter have been watching The X-Files together, and as they got closer and closer to the point where I stopped watching (end of season 6), the more excited I've become to finally catch up on a show I left behind years ago.

But being the orderly guy I am, I suggested that before they hit season seven, we check out the short-lived sister series Millennium (1996-99), which focused on Frank Black, an ex-FBI agent who had the ability to see inside the mind of killers and worked now as a consultant with an organization called The Millennium Group.

Starring Lance Henriksen as Frank, the show focused on both a "killer of the week" type story like many procedurals, but also chose to examine the millennial fear that existed in the era leading up to the year 2000.  What I loved about the show at the time was how Frank balanced the dark and horrible aspects of his job with a family life, and how (introduced early in the first season) his young daughter also seemed to have a similar ability to his.

Although the show ended after only three seasons, there was a finale built into the seventh season of Tthe X-Files (which I haven't seen yet), but the show works well on its own, with each season having its own distinct feel and a number of really creepy standout episodes.

Series Review: A Dream of Eagles

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Today I thought I'd take a quick look at one of my favourite Canadian authors, Jack Whyte, and his most famous series, A Dream of Eagles.


To be fair, Mr. Whyte was born in Scotland, but has been living in Canada since the '60s so I think it's fair to say as a nation we've adopted him.

The series takes a look at Arthurian legend (stories of King Arthur and his round table) and focuses on it through the lens of historical fiction, attempting to view the story behind the legend, the original story of the king, the wizard the sword in the stone and Camelot and tries to put together a framework which could one day become the legend with which we are all so familiar today.

The series is great - the novels are quite big but move quickly and are filled with action, adventure and romance (which does get a bit steamy at times).  The concepts of how all these pieces might have come together to form the backbone of the legend are incredibly clever and I can honestly say that these may be my favourite books on the topic - and over the years I've read everything from La Mort D'Artur to The Mists of Avalon.


If you haven't checked these books out before they are a great treat and I really hope you enjoy them.

Series Review: The Lost Room

As I rent all of my DVDs through a website called zip.ca, I sometimes come across stuff I've never heard of before. Take for example the SyFy mini-series The Lost Room. This little six-episode series involves a man who finds a magic key which can be used to open any door with a keyhole - the catch? Every time you open the door it leads to to a mostly empty motel room which can then be exited to pretty much anywhere.

I suggested that my kids (14 and 19) might want to check out the first episode with my wife and me and then the funniest thing happened - my whole family started enjoying the same show. The concept was pretty cool (I'd explain more but that way lies spoilers) and the story was pretty solid. Just a neat science fiction show with a pretty fun "What if?" idea behind it.

I will also note that both my kids found the lead (played by Peter Krause) to be pretty darn appealing - but I think that may have had more to do with his dreamy eyes than with his acting (which I enjoyed by the way).

Anyway - the show is pretty cool, definitely worth the watch and had the potential to lead to an interesting series.

Series Review: Falling Skies

Over the last week I’ve watched the 2011 SF series Falling Skies with my wife and youngest daughter. Two months ago I posted my impressions of the first couple episodes and now that we’ve finished the first season here’s what I’ve learned.

1) My youngest daughter likes bad boys (this does not bode well for her dating years)

2) The series is a pretty decent post-apocalyptic drama, which I’d rank slightly above Jericho (Aliens trump bombs), but slightly below Jeremiah, Survivors (2011) and my currently tied favourites The Walking Dead and the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Throughout the ten episodes which made up the first season, the stories focused on the importance of sacrifice, family, teamwork and good communication. Also I really enjoyed the references to military history in terms of fighting an alien menace. The acting was strong, the story was engrossing, and although I wouldn’t have made all the same choices these survivors did, the fact that they focused on some pretty tough ones made for good drama.

As the series was renewed for a second ten-episode season to air next summer, I definitely look forward to it.

Series Review: Todd and the Book of Pure Evil

Ever since I read my BFF Mike's review of this Canadian-made Horror-Comedy series, I've been meaning to give it a try, and as the entire series aired in a marathon format on January 3, I recorded it and then checked it out.

Todd and the Book of Pure Evil follows the adventures of young Todd Smith, who one day discovers the book of Pure Evil, unleashes its horrors upon his school, and spend the next thirteen episodes attempting to stop the book from killing most of the students and more than a few of the teachers in any number of disgusting ways (a quick word to the wise, the deaths range from funny to stomach churning - you have been warned). To do this he enlists the aid of his best friend Curtis, his crush Jenny and the girl crushing on him, Hannah. Finally, filling the Giles role of this Scooby-Squad is Guidance Counsellor Atticus Murphy, Jr., who definitely has some secrets (and an increasingly terrifying back story) of his own.

When I first started watching the series, I was confused about the lack of language - everyone appeared to be swearing but they were all using grade-school versions of swears. After complaining about this to Mike, I was promptly given his copy of the show, which includes all the original language.

In the end the show is kind of a low-budget, foul mouthed, disgustingly bloody version of Buffy the Vampire slayer, but with significantly more Heavy Metal influence. It really appealed to my inner-fourteen-year-old. I hope it comes back for a second season.

Bookmonkey's Top Five Episodes of The Avengers

So a few months back my friend Ron lent me the DVD boxed set, The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Mega-set, which contained 54 episodes of the classic '60s series, including three lost episodes of the Ian Keel years (season one) and an Emma Peel cameo episode of The New Avengers (I'm pretty sure they just used archival footage and another actress to do the voice). Anyway, after finishing this thoughouly fun show (and I recommend the entire series to anyone who is interested, I thought I would give my top five personal favourite episodes.

For a brief taste of what to expect from The Avengers, I recommend you head to YouTube and check out The Case of the Missing Corpse Basically this three minute short was created to advertise the fact that the show would now be in colour, and in those three minutes it explains the plot of pretty much any episode of the series.

5. The Man Eater of Surrey Green - Ages before Mulder and Scully took years to stop an alien invasion plot in The X-Files, Steed and Peel faced down a mind controlling plant from outer space with plans of world domination in one episode. This episode features monsters from outer space, a terrifying conspiracy and a race against the extinction of mankind.

4. The Gravediggers - This episode has everything I’ve grown to love about The Avengers, eccentric millionaires, the promise of an invading army and one of the best climaxes I’ve ever seen. To save Mrs. Peel, who has been tied to a train track, Steed must fight off three brutes and stop the train, which, by the way is one of those mini trains for little kids you find at amusement parks.

3. Too Many Christmas Trees - Possibly the creepiest Christmas themed episode of anything I’ve ever seen, it has a happy shout out to Steed’s previous partner, Cathy Gale, a very Dickensian Christmas party and the creepiest Santa I’ve seen since The Nightmare Before Christmas.

2. The House that Jack Built - An Emma Peel-focused episode, this one involves her inheriting a house from an aunt and finding out that the house is a lot deadlier than she thinks. This episode finally gave some back story to the character and had a really interesting concept.

1. The Girl From Auntie - My hands-down, favourite episode of the series, this John Steed-focused episode has an Emma Peel impostor, and rather than simply arresting her or what have you, Steed simply partners up with this girl and gets her help to find the real Mrs. Peel. The entire episode was hilarious, involving Russian agents, a knitting circle and an auction house that can get you anything you desire.

I'm really glad I got the opportunity to check out this series as I was vaguely familiar with it before hand, but can now say I've seen a lot of really great '60s television, as well as an introduction to a sub-genre of Science Fiction I had never heard of before; Spy-Fi, wherein espionage stories are told which involve science-fiction technology or concepts.

Series Review: The Walking Dead

My wife and I finished watching the first season finale of The Walking Dead about fifteen minutes ago and as a huge fan of the comic series I have to say, This show is awesome!

I love the fact that the television adaptation goes in its own way, making this surprising for fans of the comics but stays true to the key relationships in the original story, that of Rick's immediate family (his wife and son) and then his extended family of fellow survivors outside of Atlanta in the wake of a zombie apocalypse.

This series was definitely horror, giving me both tension and gore, as well as great characters and some very haunting visuals. Trying to give only mild spoilers is a little difficult, but I love how much story they packed into these six episodes. We watched the pilot, then took two weeks off and watched episodes two and three back to back and tonight we watched the final three, I like watching a lot of shows on a weekly basis, but the tension was so effective with this show I needed to pack the episodes a little closer for my own well being.

Do I want to own this show - heck yes! Do I recommend it to anyone who likes horror (or my favourite horror sub-genre post-apocalyptic horror)? Absolutely. Considering how graphic the source material is, I wasn't sure a television adaptation would do it justice, but just a few minutes into the pilot and I was blown away by how true to the source material the show was.

This show was great, my only problem is that I'm going to have a long wait until season two.

Series Review: Dead Set

On Friday I watched the 2008 Zombie/Big Brother mini-series, Dead Set with my wife and our friend Ron. As Ron had seen both series 10 and 11 of BIg Brother UK, and I've seen a whole lot of zombie apocalypse films it seemed like a good idea.

The set up is pretty simple, during a fictional season of the british version of Big Brother (a reality show in which contestants are forced to live in a house without outside contact for a few months wherein every move they make can be viewed by the home audience) a zombie outbreak occurs and as the house is set up to keep the outside world away from the contestants, that is exactly what happens - they continue to live their reality-tv life completely unaware that the world beyond them has effectively ended.

The series played with the cultural fascination with these types of shows and did a very effective job of keeping true to both its reality TV and zombie roots (I'll have to take Ron's word for the Big Brother stuff, as I've never seen the series before). The show mostly focues on a production assistant (played by Jaime Winstone, pictured right) and her boyfriend (who was away from the house when the s#*t hit the fan, but does feature many of the contestants in strong supporting roles.

In the end the series was fun - I'm not sure if I'd purchase it (although right now I can't as it's not available in Region One format), and I would definitely warn people against the gore (it was significantly more than I was expecting on regular television.) For fans of Reality TV and Zombie flicks, however, it would definitely be right up your alley.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Twenty-One

Well, having finished every book in the series, here’s what I’ve got to say about the entire Twilight Saga (The books specifically).

1) The series is a supernatural romance series. If you or your kid are old enough to deal with the sex and violence, I would recommend reading the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris instead (the basis for the HBO series True Blood)

2) The series has vampires and werewolves in it, but all of them are only sort of vampires and werewolves. If you’re looking for good books with these monsters in them I would recommend trying the classics (Dracula and The Werewolf of Paris).

3) These books sure are popular. Although both of my kids state that they are no longer interested in the series, both of them have friends who are, or friends parents who are. My personal opinion is that this comes down to a “right place, right time” phenomenon, as the franchise definitely hit a powerful chord with a huge part of the reading audience (many bookstores now have a supernatural romance section, and yes, that is due to the works of Stephenie Meyers).

As a horror fan I was mostly disappointed, although there were some scares, and as a vampire fan I could think of about a dozen books I’d rather have been reading. As a dad however, I’m glad I took the time to read the stuff my kids read – even if I am a few years out of date, as it gives us more things to talk about, and gives me a glimpse into the kind of stuff that they enjoy reading.

In the end I suppose it was time well spent – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, unless you had an equally good reason.

Also today I found a copy of New Moon on DVD at a thrift store (I got 2 DVDs for $5 – this one and Percy Jackson – guess which I’m more excited about!), so I’ll have my review of the second film early next week.

Series Review: Carnivale

Last week my wife and I finished watching the HBO series Carnivale, a dark fantasy series set in the midst of the Great Depression. We had seen season one a few years back, but even though we have owned the second season for two years, it was only during the last couple months that we've have had time to watch the second season.

I'm going to go fairly light on spoilers and simply explain what I felt about the series. For starters, yes - I really enjoyed the show, and I think that if you enjoy the fantasy genre, this show is definitely worth a look.

Set during one of the least magical times in history, the show follows two parallel story lines: a priest as he begins to build a ministry and a young man who joins a travelling carnival. Both men begin having strange dreams in the pilot that involve each other, as well as visions of the past and the future. Both men also develop certain abilities, the priest can see into the minds of others and the young man can heal people.

For me, the strength of the show lies in its strong story arcs, as well as the great acting of the entire cast. At first, both the carnival story line and the church story line seem to have too many characters and it's difficult to keep track, but as you work your way through the first season, it becomes simpler to understand what is happening, and you get to really see these characters develop.

The only bad part of the show for me is that it ends on a cliffhanger, as the original intent was to have a story that developed over six seasons and it ended after the second one, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Knowing about the cliffhanger going in, however, I was able to enjoy the show for what it was, an intriguing look at magic in a terrible time, with a focus on free will versus predestination.

Series Review: The Colony

A couple months ago I mentioned in a post that I would be watching the Discovery Channel series The Colony - a reality show wherein ten strangers would attempt to survive in a frightening post-apocalyptic world. Last night my wife and I finished the show and here's what I have to say.

The premise: A group of ten people were put into a full immersion experiment, where they spent ten weeks living in an old factory in Los Angeles, under the premise that a viral outbreak had destroyed most of the worlds population. Scavenging to survive, the colonists attempted to build machines for basic survival and learned to deal with the threat of various marauders trying to take over their factory.

The good: There were a number of things about the series that impressed me: The colonists themselves were pretty amazing, working through a very difficult situation with only a few hiccups, the fact that the curve-balls thrown in - marauders, religious groups, and even a shocking pair of visitors, felt like reasonable occurrences in this scenario. The most impressive thing for me personally was the fact that the series crew was able to create a mini-world where the colonists could exsist, including the factory itself and nearby buildings (including an abandoned hospital and a not-quite abandoned trailer park) which allowed the series to appear very realistic for the colonists.

The Bad: This is just my personal taste, but a lot of the show depended on the colonists creating various machines, from the simple (a water filtration system) to the complex (vehicles, a wood gassifier, and a radio signal), which would definitely be a major problem for me in this type of scenario. The colonists themselves included medical personnel, contractors, engineers and scientists, which unfortunately made me feel that unless I could whip together a Tesla coil, my chances in this kind of future would be limited.

Improvements I would make: My favourite examples of a full immersion television series are either the Canadian series Pioneer Quest (wherein two couples live alone on the Canadian prairie for a year) or the British series The 1900 House (where a family lives in a house retrofitted to function as it would have in 1900). Both of these series began with an episode focusing on how the crew put these worlds together - something I really would have been interested to see with The Colony. In addition, both of the other shows followed up with their subjects a month or so later to see how they felt about their time in the experiment - I would have enjoyed that as well. Perhaps these features would be made available on the DVD, if so - I'll be sure to let you know.

In the end I liked the show - it was impressive to see the kinds of things that could be put together in a disaster scenario, both mechanically and the random group of strangers that became a family. If you are into post-apocalyptic stories, it is definitely worth a watch.