This moves the classic horror tale from old gothic Europe to a pre-civil war American plantation. Marie (Ione Skye) is bored and lonely as her father Leo (Roy Dotrice) is a smothering paternal figure. Her mother allegedly ran off with a Yankee so Marie has only her kitten and dollhouse for company.

Then there is a carriage wreck and Carmilla (Meg Tilly) comes to stay. This is spooky and gothic as Carmilla wears Marie’s mother’s very low cut dress and glides around being a charming decadent parasite serial killer. Marie is only too eager to pose prettily in her billowing white dress as her vampire friend feeds on her. Remember how in ‘Moonlight’ Josef turned Mick into a vampire in a very sensual way? It’s like that.

The death of a beggar child and a maid causes Amos (Roddy McDowall) to show up to investigate. Leo and Amos plot Carmilla’s destruction as Marie and Carmilla do slo-mo running and plan to run off together. Leo is appalled at the idea of his daughter being a vampire and bellows: “She can’t have you.” It all leads to a bloody climax and an ambiguous ending. This was good and very memorable.

Best Lines:
“The bodies have to be buried or they’ll rot in this heat.”

“There are stories of sickness in the south.”

“Some friends are good for you and some are not.”

“I’d like to examine the body.”
“If you’ve just eaten, I would suggest that you wait.”

“Plague does not bite.”

Family

Eben has Faye. Charles the cut price Jeremy Renner decides to atone for all his evil with the help of his mother (Stepfanie Kramer of ‘Twin Sisters’). Diana, Cassie and John create the crystal skull and unbind the circle. Binding the circle was a dumb idea in the first place.

Diana and Jake need to shut up. John reveals himself as a creepy dad. Melissa, Jake and Faye are nearly burnt at the stake (indoors) but Dawn saves them. Eben is got rid of. John’s evil plan is revealed and he has a lot more kids then he let on.

Someone maybe dies, someone runs off, some people party, someone gets an odd gift, someone’s fate is uncertain, someone likes dark magic and someone appears to be going evil and/or possessed. This was good and ends with a group of people posed dramatically on a hill. Season 2 could have been great. Sigh.

Best Lines:
“A circle of broken, vulnerable, easy to manipulate witches.”

“Burn the weak blooded.”

“Evil princess number two.”

~
Brave New World part 2

Bell is a loon. Jessica (Rebecca Mader and her terrible acting) is a baddie and has an Observer in a trap. A dead person is questioned. Bell is foiled or is he? Walter shows a unique problem solving method. Also Etta has been conceived, does Olivia have fine birthing hips? Fringe Division gets an upgrade and Broyles offers Nina a job. Doesn’t she run Massive Dynamic?

Is the reason for Etta’s uniqueness in 2036 because when she was a foetus, her mother was ‘activated’ and her father resonated at a different frequency? Also has the future seen in 2036 about to be set in motion? This was goodish.

Best Lines:
“It’s just tech that essentially lets them move very very fast. Now this gun is an invention of Doctor Bell’s; shoots faster.”

“Every rant you ever went on made perfect sense.”

“I think this is his ark.”

“They are coming.”

“Is that lemon jello?”
“These are urine samples.”

~
Gray Matter

Jesse tries to get a job but ends up cooking meth with a loser buddy. Skyler and Walt go to a party given by a rich former colleague of Walt’s. Skyler and Walt are hideously badly dressed. If Walt’s colleague went on to such huge success, why is Walt teaching a dead end job in a cruddy public high school?

Walt finds the party uncomfortable and will not accept any money or a job offered by his former college. It has something to do with a relationship with the colleague’s wife. Walt Jnr is arrested for tying to get adults to buy him beer.

Skyler, Hank, Walt Jnr and Marie hold an intervention to get Walt to go for treatment. There is yelling. Walt decides to cook more meth. This was dull and I’d rather be watching ‘Caged’.

Best Lines:
“I look like I’m wearing a prom dress from 1985.”

“I’ve got the talking pillow now.”

I enjoyed the book but this film isn't as good. It is 1954 and US Marshals Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck (Mark Ruffalo of ‘The Avengers’) arrive at an island loony bin in their baggy ill fitting suits. They are there to find an escaped patient while an overwrought score blares.

The doctors are creepy, the nurses are unhelpful, the patients are wary and Teddy has visions of his dead wife. There is endless rain and Teddy confides his fears that Shutter Island is being used for evil mind control experiments and that he was lured here. This was okay and leads to an obvious revelation.

Best Lines:
“Most people don’t kill their husbands with an axe.”

“Valid fears are paranoia.”

‘Do No Harm’ preview clip
This looks AWFUL.

‘Revenge’ 1x21 promo
“You’re dead to me.” – If only ‘Everwood’ had been like this.

‘Bedlam’ series 2 promo
I didn’t watch series 1 but is that John-Paul from ‘Hollyoaks’? I’ll give this a try.

~
I wonder if the creators of ‘Sherlock’ saw that Peter Serafinowicz skit on Holmes?

How was ‘Touch’ renewed?!?

Ben&Jerry’s ‘Oh My! Apple Pie’ ice cream is yummy.

Read up on ‘Elementary’, the US rip off of ‘Sherlock’ and it sounds American and naff. I’d give it a try though.

Coming Soon: reviews of ‘Revenge’, ‘Thor’, ‘The Lost Stories of Sherlock Holmes’, ‘The Nightmare Thief’ and ‘The Book of Blood and Shadow’

Reviews of ‘The Divide’ and ‘The War of the Worlds’ season 1 are delayed.

~
Cleared out a 1997 tape. It began with a ‘Xena Warrior Princess’ ep ‘A Comedy of Eros’ in which Cupid (Karl Urban and his orange bleach job) doesn’t watch his son Bliss allowing the baby to steal his love bow and arrows. So Bliss flies around making random people fall in love with each other. Joxer annoys. This was dull.

Then came a ‘Dark Skies’ ep ‘The Warren Omission’ which was a clip show centring on John testifying to said Commission and being dismissed as a loon. M12’s sole female agent Juliet (Jeri Lynn Ryan of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’) shows up to glower. RFK and his overdone accent annoys. Hoover is blackmailed. John needs to shut up. Albano sneers and Bach justifies. This was okay.

Then came a season 1 ‘Earth: Final Conflict’ ep ‘Through The Looking Glass’ in which Taelon’s are experimenting on people. Wendy Lyon of ‘Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou’ shows up as Boone’s sister. This was boring. Then came an ‘X Files’ ep ‘Chinga’ which was co-written by Stephen King and saw Scully take on a killer dolly. This bored.

Then came the movie ‘All Tied Up’ which saw Linda (Teri Hatcher) cry over her worthless cheater boyfriend Brian (Zack Galligan of ‘Waxwork’). So she breaks up with him so Brian breaks into her house to make her take it back. So Linda’s housemate Kim (Lara Harris) ties him to the bed as punishment.

Linda, Kim and the other one (Tracy Griffith) giggle and torment the sleaze by making him watch the shopping channel. Brian is disgusting and a common little trollop. He’s not sorry for the cheating or the fact he did it with Kim years earlier and forgot all about it. This is not a horror movie BTW, it is a comedy. A really really crappy unfunny comedy.

The acting is bad, the hair is big and Teri Hatcher displays the same annoying acting tics. Brian is let go, so the walking STD abducts Linda and ties her up until she forgives him his constant cheating and agrees to marry him. That is really creepy.

~
‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ Quotes:

So where is our next adventure of the great detective, his living emotional crutch and the sexual undercurrents between them?

“Don’t you have a goat that needs worming?”

“Bad people do bad things because they can.”

“He’s nothing like as slow witted as you’ve been leading me to believe.”

“They’re dangerous at both ends and crafty in the middle.”

“Why is my ankle so itchy?”
“Because you have a large piece of wood sticking out of it.”

“I shall endeavour to find the most creative of endings for the doctor.”

“You really think you’re the only one who can play this game?”

“We both know how this ends.”

Evil Dark: An Occult Crimes Unit Investigation by Justin Gustainis

This is the follow up to ‘Hard Spell’. A series of murders are taking place in Scranton. Stan Markowski investigates and uncovers nutters, demons, mercenaries and a whole host of bizarreness. This is a good enjoyable read.

Best Line:
“The wizard had better hope the demon never got out of the circle, or he was going to be a long time dying - and death would only be the beginning.”

~
Twins of Evil by Shaun Hutson

A novelisation of the 1971 Hammer movie. Identical twins Maria and Frieda arrive in Karnstein to live with their aunt and her fanatical witch burning husband. Maria is docile and good while Frieda is wild and untamed. Frieda seeks out the decadent Count Karnstein for adventure and gets more than she bargained for. The Count and Frieda cause mayhem until they are brought low.

This is an enjoyable pulpy tale but questions remain. Who was the vampire killing people before the Count became one? If the twins are 21 why are they at school?

Best Lines:
“Have you ever thought that you might have helped to beat the devil into her?”

“The way you appeared, ranting and raving, I was fearful for her state of mind.”
“Woman, in what state of mind do you think I was?”

~
Communion Blood by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Set some time after the events of ‘Mansions of Darkness’, Saint-Germain is called to Rome by Niklos Aurilios. Niklos was Olivia’s loyal servant and inherited her fortune after her death in ‘A Candle for D’Artagnan’. But now a man claming to be the long lost true heir has shown up.

Niklos and Saint-Germain work to prevent Olivia’s vast estates being stolen by a fraud. Meanwhile elsewhere in Rome, a debauched family are about to come into Saint-Germain’s life and wreck havoc. This is a very good tale of 17th century baroque Rome.

Saint-Germain is as long suffering as ever as he deals with yet another woman-as-noble-burden and has a flirtation with a silly opera singer. He also mourns Olivia as he restores the old house he lived in back in ‘Blood Games’. It is however not made clear if Olivia’s remains were recovered or what became of them.

This comedy ran for two series and was overlooked. Series 1 was very good but series 2 was bad. Joyce and Jeremy Hazeldine move to the village of Little Stempington. Jeremy is the new police chief and Joyce is forcibly befriended by two rival gangs of housewives. The bad gang led by Camilla are into crime, protection rackets and violence. While Barbra and her good gang are into making teenagers clean up graffiti at gun point, keeping out low cost housing and foiling Camilla’s evil plans.

Joyce is press ganged into joining both gangs. Jeremy is blissfully unaware of what is going on. While the Hazeldine's himbo son Bill (Tom Hiddleston of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Thor’) is stalked by Camilla’s daughter Jewel, Jeremy and his sidekick PC Haines (Tom Ellis of ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘The Fades’) do nothing all day but sit in their patrol car as Little Stempington has no crime that they are aware of.

The good and bad housewives clash. Jeremy can’t believe his eyes when he sees Little Stempington teenagers listening to a boom box that is blasting classical music while some other teenagers clean up dog mess. Joyce is horrified as Jewel and Bill hook up. Jewel and Bill inadvertently steal some of Camilla’s ill gotten gains.

Camilla has a plan to import and sell 60,000 industrial strength oestrogen patches. When a 24 hour ale house opens she decides it is a perfect place to deal from. The good housewives want the ale house gone.

But the French drug lord she stole the patches from is angry about being ripped off  the money Jewel and Bill stole was for Camilla to buy the drugs with) and he shows up in Little Stempington to collect payment. A charity auction turns violent, one housewife goes to jail and the feud goes on. Jeremy remains blissfully unaware of the housewives with Uzis. This was enjoyable fun.

Best Lines:
“Do that again and I’ll piss in your petrol tank.”

“What’s that?”
“World War II mortar bomb. Highly unstable. We’re peppering the topsoil with them.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Low cost housing Joyce. We can’t allow that sort of thing in Little Stempington.”
“Ever seen what a mortar shell can do to ten ton JCB digger Joyce?”

“What was that?”
“Probably just doggers or the town perv.”

“My house is smelling like Fred West’s patio.”

“Breathe a word and I’ll hack your knackers off with a trowel.”

“Why would two rough arsed teenagers be cleaning up dog turds?”

“We’ve replaced their book money with a pile of your dad’s old caravan magazines.”

“We need to blend in. We need to think and talk like stupid common pub people.”

“I fell in love with the place.”
“Oh, because it’s clean? Because there’s no graffiti? Because there are no delinquent teenagers sniffing toilet duck in the arcade?”
“And how do you think it stays that way?”

New Moon (2009)

Edward (the fugly Robert Pattinson) and his bad make up and irritating manner of expressing himself abandons Bella (the expressionless Kirsten Stewart). She mopes endlessly until she is distracted by Jacob (Taylor Lautner of ’My Own Worst Enemy’) and his ratty wig. Jacob has issues but Bella does not really pay attention until he takes his shirt off.

CGI wolves run around. Jacob and his man-buddies are werewolves. Bella runs off to Italy, Michael Sheen lurks as some big wig vampire and Bella turns her back on Jacob to get back with the abusive Edward. This was boring and the acting is on par with ‘Fair City’

Best Line:
“We chased her all the way to the Canadian border the other night.”

~
Event Horizon (1997)

Liberate Tutemet Ex Inferis

As Hollywood is remaking everything, they’ll probably get to this creepy Lovecraftian horror at some point. In 2040 the secret government project spaceship Event Horizon vanished. In 2047 it returned and its creator Dr Weir (Sam Neill of ‘Daybreakers’) joins the crew of a salvage vessel to recover it.

The crew Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne of ‘CSI’ and ‘Contagion’), Peters, Starck (Joely Richardson of ‘The Tudors’), Cooper (Richard T. Jones of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ and ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’), Justin, DJ (Jason Isaacs of ‘Awake’) and Smith (Sean Pertwee of ‘Dog Soldiers’) are unfriendly and hostile to Weir

Weir is patronising and a jackass as he explains how the Event Horizon travelled via gravity drive which creates an artificial black hole to achieve faster than light travel. The Event Horizon’s crew is dead and Peters recovers the ship’s log on cd and the rescue team see what became of them. Miller takes one look at the log and declares: “We’re leaving.”

Weird unpleasant stuff happened to the Event Horizon crew and now it is happening to the rescue crew as Weir goes all Joey Barton. There is no escape and this is a good creepy horror.

Best Lines:
“Where’s she been for the last seven years?”

“Well thank you for that scientific analysis Mr Smith.”

“You said the ship’s drive creates a gateway.”
“Yeah.”
“To what?”

“Who knows where it’s been, what it’s seen and what it’s brought back with it?”

“The reality is much much worse.”

“I created the Event Horizon to reach the stars, but she’s gone much much further than that.”

‘Awake’ has been axed. Well, that didn’t take long did it? ‘Ringer’ and ’The Secret Circle’ axed, oh come on that is not cool! Siobhan has to get her’s and Adam has to go evil. ‘CSI: Miami’ also axed - WTF is the world coming to?!?

Reviews Forthcoming for: ‘Black Opera’, ‘Head Rush’, ‘The Grass King’s Concubine’, ‘The Eternal Tide’, ‘Ring of Fire III’, ‘Exit Sherlock Holmes’, ‘Honor Blade’, ‘Brinkmanship’, ‘Masque of the Red Death’, ‘New Girl’, ‘The Hunt’, ‘Outlaw’ and ‘Case 39’.

I won’t be reviewing: ‘1.4’ or ‘Hart of Dixie’ (ugh)

I like butterscotch chocolate vanilla fudge.

I am reading ‘A Dangerous Climate’.
~
‘Happy Endings’ Quotes:

“I haven’t see anything that unnecessarily complicated since the third season of Lost.”

“You look like a hooker I slept with in Korea.”

Pilot

After a car accident, Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs, who looks really different without a bucket of bleach on his head) experiences two duelling realities. In one his son is dead, in the other his wife died. He does not know which is real and which is the dream. He does not care; he does not want to lose either. So he deals with two realities, two shrinks with cheesy self important voices and two different work partners.

In one reality his son is alive and surly and plays tennis and he has a new partner (Wilmer Valderrama of ‘That 70s Show’) because his old partner was mysteriously reassigned. Michael and his new partner hunt a crazy shooter while in the other reality his wife is alive and wants to move. He still works with his old partner as they investigate an adduction.

Michael is confused as odd connections between the two cases crop up. Which world is real? Or is this a ‘Fringe’ type deal? Does he ever actually sleep? What caused the accident? Isaacs goes a bit large ham as his shrinks warn him that the situation is “far from benign” and that “this situation will eventually become unsustainable.”

Michael is not in a good place. This is okay, it is no ‘Lost’ but it is better than ‘Touch’ or ‘Smash’.

~
Cancer Man

The DEA are looking for crazy 8 and whoever made the 99.1% pure meth. At a BBQ, Walter’s illness becomes public knowledge. Meanwhile Jesse does meth with his druggie friends and has paranoid hallucinations. So he runs home to his parents and little brother.

Skyler gets Walter to see a top doctor. It costs them $5000 just for the appointment and treatment will cost $90,000. Walter gets a crazy paranoid. Walt Jnr annoys, Jesse’s parents throw him out. This was so very boring.

Irenicon by Aidan Harte

This is a bizarre tale in an alternate universe where Christianity was very different. In Italy of 1347, the city of Rasenna defies its conquerors – Concord. But religion and bizarre technology seem set to destroy Rasenna. The reader is introduced to various characters who have unexpected roles to play in the conflict to come.

This is the 1st in a trilogy but reads like book 2. This is readable but at times I had no idea what was going on or who I was reading about. Also the level of technology on display is bizarre for 1347. This is a bizarre oddity.