Category: supernatural

TV: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

On By filmrollerIn fantasy, horror, supernatural, tv, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Kiernan Shipka in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018)

Nickelodeon’s programming shaped much of my childhood, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch was probably one of my favourites. The new incarnation of Sabrina on Netflix borrows much more from the current trend of gothic teenage dramas like Riverdale, The Vampire Diaries, and countless others by this point. It’s a beautifully produced, creepy/fun show. Some of the characters are delightful.

The Spellman sisters (Miranda Otto and Lucy Davies) and their niece Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) prepare for her dark baptism into the Church of the Night. This is proper New England witch craft, with witches’ marks, familiars, and the goat-headed devil. The witches receive “delicious” gifts from the Dark Lord in return for signing their name in the Book of the Beast. A reference to the fantastic movie The Witch (2015), perhaps?

Spoilers ahead for the first five episodes.

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Only Lovers Left Alive Review

On By filmrollerIn dice roll: 4, drama, review, supernatural1 Comment

Only-Lovers-Left-Alive-Australian-Poster-copyDisclaimers are important I think, and perhaps never more so when writing about vampire movies. Personally, I enjoy them a lot, and have followed the vampire as a character, phenomenon and monster through half my life.

Vampires are more associated with sparkling, emo six-packs these days, but the vampires of Only Lovers Left Alive have much more in common with Anne Rice’s old pantheon of characters than Meyer’s more recent “evolution”. These are vampires who interacted with history, with the great writers, scientists and painters. Their endless, and sometimes tedious lives, punctuated by some cultural or scientific genius who can keep their attention for a few more decades.

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Penny Dreadful (HBO)

On By filmrollerIn fantasy, historical, horror, review, supernatural, tvLeave a comment

penny-dreadful-poster-2Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) are hunting dark forces in London. Soon they are aided by gunslinger Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) and Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway).

This gothic show features all our favourite monsters in new and fascinating combinations. The setting is not new, however. Most of the characters (Frankenstein, vampires, Dorian Grey, etc) are right at home in Victorian London. The style is not new, except that it is perhaps the darkest version of this type of show I have seen in some time. So how can such a classic concept feel so damn fresh?

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Fall Results: New Shows

On By filmrollerIn action, crime, drama, fantasy, historical, horror, supernatural, tvLeave a comment

There were three shows I knew I had to start watching this season: Sleepy Hollow, Almost Human and Dracula. I’ve been keeping up with them in their first seasons, and although most of them haven’t finished (and one barely begun), I probably won’t get another chance before Christmas to write about them, so here is my opinion thus far.

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Bad Horror: Blood and Chocolate

On By filmrollerIn dice roll: 3, review, romance, supernatural2 Comments

blood_4As you may know from previous reviews of scary movies, I love bad horror/scary movies, especially if they include the supernatural dating scene. There is just something inherently funny about grand speeches and lovesick looks being paired with bad CGI and plot holes. Today’s review of Blood and Chocolate, however, came about from my desire to scour the imdb history of Hugh Dancy after his brilliant run in Hannibal (go watch this right now if you haven’t seen it).

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My Two Lincolns

On By filmrollerIn action, biopic, dice roll: 2, dice roll: 5, drama, movie, review, supernaturalLeave a comment

Since most of the crew were busy catching up on work related stuff after Easter, the radio show was still on hiatus last Thursday, which meant no review from me. Instead, I decided to spend the weekend catching up on some Oscar nominations. First on my list was Spielberg’s Lincoln. I was very keen to see this since American history films is my area of study. Little did I know about what the universe had in store for me.

On Saturday, I was set to finally see Life of Pi, but my friends invited me over for a movie night and out of all the random movies our host could have picked, she decided on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Don’t worry, I have no intention of attempting any sort of comparison here. The protagonists aside, they are movies on opposite sides of the Hollywood spectrum. Instead, I’ll review them in order of viewing.

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