The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House
November 4, 2014

An Ode to Frasier: Must-See Episodes

So it’s come to this: an passionate soliloquy to my favourite show of all time. I watched Frasier over the summer of last year in a heat haze of hard work, sporadic depression, alcohol, cigarettes, and one very posh flat. I don’t hesitate in saying that this show changed my life. Underneath all that fabulously pretentious and sly humour lies a brilliantly clever, humane heart that delivers beautiful, sometimes painful truths wrapped up in twenty minutes of comic television. It’s utterly timeless, as close to flawless as makes no difference, and an absolute must-see for anyone, anywhere. Below, I’ve hunted out my favourite episodes from every season (and believe me, it was a battle of wills choosing the best), with links so you can enjoy them too. Please read, watch, and enjoy as much as I do. Forever and ever. Amen.

Season 1- My Coffee With Niles

A brilliant bottle episode that hinges around Frasier and his neurotic brother Niles talking about Frasier’s life since he moved from Boston (read: Cheers) to Seattle, My Coffee with Niles is as much a farcical, supporting-character peppered comedy of errors as it is a meditation on happiness. Co-opting on the amazing chemistry between Niles and Frasier, it’s centred, smart, and was the perfect way to end the stellar first season. A little melancholic without getting bogged down in schmaltz, this is a centrepiece for what the show is really about.

Season 2- The Innkeepers

I think Frasier gets written off as a show for uppity people, because it spends some much time lingering on the prententiousness of it’s lead characters. But it also spends a delicious amount of time undercutting and undermining everything they do. In this positively Shakesperean farce, Frasier and Niles buy a restaurant and everything goes predictably tits up in a barrage of quotable lines (“I’m not asking you to do anything that you wouldn’t do in your own home; now, Niles, kill five eels!”) and brilliant physical comedy. One of the most outrightly humourous episodes of the series’ run, this is an episode I show to anyone I want to like the show and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Season 3-Moon Dance

A long-running thread in the show is Nile’s obsession with his father’s physical therapist Daphne and in this episode, the first Kelsey Grammar (who plays Frasier) ever directed, things come to a quiet, understated head (not that I’d know anything about quiet, understated head, but still). It’s lusciously shot, terribly romantic, and gives David Hyde Pierce as Niles and Janes Leeves as Daphne a chance to really get their teeth into that taunting chemistry.

Season 4-The Unnatural

Well, I couldn’t write a list of this nature and not include a great episode for Bulldog, the mysoginstic, creepy, innapropriate, arrogant, and utterly brilliant sports newscaster from Frasier’s radio station. Played by Dan Butler (who-and let me finish- is a Shakespearean actor by profession), this isn’t just a great episode for him, but an interesting meditation on fatherhood as Frasier faces letting his son down for the first time. With lots of great bits for John Mahoney’s curmudgeonly Martin (HOW DID HE NOT GET AN EMMY? FUCKING HOW?), it’s a sweet, carefully pitched episode (excuse the pun) that’s not short on the blisteringly quick humour you’ll be used to at this point.

Season 5- The Gift Horse

This is one of my solid favourite episodes, purely because it does that fantastic ermotional bait-and-switch that Frasier has just got down better than any other sitcom ever has. What starts out as a quick-fire, throwaway episode about the rivalry between Frasier and Niles for their father’s affection ends in a poignant gut-punch that’s sold by one of John Mahoney’s most affecting performances. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life.

Season 6- Three Valentines

The Valentine’s Day episodes on Frasier are traditionally a high point, but this remains one of their most ambitious and effective. Split into three parts- each one following the Valentine’s day of the main characters- it kicks off with a hilarious, almost-silent physicla comedy sequence that’s worth watching in and of itself thanks to David Hyde Pierce’s amazing blundering. What follows- Frasier’s panicky misinterpretation of what could or could not be a date and Martin and Daphne having what’s meant to be a nice dinner- is just as funny, proving that the show understood it’s performers and knew how to get the very best out of them, comedically speaking.

Season 7- RDWRER

A Christmas/New Year’s episode this time around, with Frasier, Niles and Martin ending up stuck in a Winnebago on a cross-country tour as the bells chime. The exploration of the father/sons relationship is one of the consistently strongest point on Frasier, and RDWRER is one of their finest episodes in that vein. Blisteringly sharp, with a warm but not soft emotional core, this is how you do family comedy on television. Take note, literally everyone ever.

Season 8- And The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon, Parts 1 and 2

Am I cheating by putting a two-parter in this list? Get used to it. In the aftermath of a Very Important Event which I won’t ruin for those who haven’t seen the series and have somehow avoided spoilers for more than twenty years, the Crane family and friends attempt to collect themselves and deal with the painful, sad, but ultimately hopeful aftermath. Can we just all give Jane Leeves a collective hug for her performance here? Frasier and Martin take a backseat in the best possible way as Niles and Daphne take centre stage, to great effect.

Season 9- Don Juan in Hell, parts 1 and 2

See, I told you you’d have to get used to it. This, the climax to a season-long arc that had Frasier questioning himself, is basically a self-indulgent excuse to climb inside the head of one of the most engaging lead characters on TV. Frasier locks himself up in a cabin, and has a chat with all the significant women from his past (including the amazing Lilith) in what has to be one of the most meta episodes ever created before meta was even a thing.
Season 10-rooms with a View
When one of the Crane clan has to face a life-changing operation, the rest of the family flocks down to support them, and find themselves relieving their significant hospital-related memories. Does that sound ridiculous? Good, then at least this is going to outdo your expectations. By turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, it’s an episode that refuses to wallow in it’s tragedy and fights through to a sweet and well-earned climax. John Mahoney kills it when he’s not even facing the camera in what has to be one of the saddest moments of the series run.
Season 11- Goodnight, Seattle parts 1 and 2
What else could be here except the finale? It’s one of the finer TV finales to ever grace the small screen; I touched on it in my How I Met Your Mother rant, but that doesn’t do it justice. It offers no real answers, but promises that whatever these characters will do once the cameras switch off for the last time they will be happy. And that’s all you want from them at this point. 
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November 3, 2014

Doctor Who: Tantalising Adventures Really Defined by Incoming Sequel

Hey, so, after the crapstorm that was last week’s episode, and a week where I speculated in dramatically wrong ways about what would happen in the Doctor Who season eight finale, I’ve come across something sorely missing in the last ten weeks: an episode that I loved almost unconditionally.

I think it’s telling that, for the first time this series, me and the Consort finished watching Dark Water and immediatley negotiated more episodes to watch. It was an outing that reminded us of Doctor Who at it’s best, and made us want to go back and wallow in the triumphs of yesteryear (we matched it with the Lake Silencio two-parter, and the Bad Wolf finale for season one, both of which are always better than you remember). This episode was tantalising, and wasn’t enough on it’s own. That’s a good sign.

I really thought Dark Water was a belter of an episode, the best and most true to form of the series so far (Listen was magnificent, but it didn’t have the fun or breakneck pace of this one). Early in the episode, Danny is killed, and Clara and the Doctor go to find him (incidentally, Jenna Coleman’s performance throughout this entire segment was jaw-dropping, award-winning stuff, particularly the scene where she explained the real tragedy of his death lay in the mundanity of it all), leaving Danny Pink in Heaven/Hell/The Nethesphere with Chris Addison as his poison-tongued tour guide. This segment had some of the best writing all season going for it, with Chris Addison’s description of our understanding of the afterlife being a particular highlight. And the offscreen screaming as Chris Addison winced that they had “left their body to science”? Masterful.

A big shout out to Rachel Talalay, one of the distressingly few female writers or directors to grave Moffat’s run of Who, as she did a cracking job on the direction. Her close-up, tight shots on Danny and Clara as they have their last conversation were heartbreaking, but not as gutting as the cut between soldier Danny realising he’d killed a child, and afterlife Danny realising he was going to meet him. C’mere, Samuel Anderson, let me buy you all the drinks for saving the series.

And then, of course, there was Missy. I’m going to put a big fat SPOILER ALERT here, which I rarely do as I assume most people coming here have already seen the episode, but the reveal of Missy’s identity was so good I don’t want it ruined for anyone here. Go away. Come back. Watched it? Are you sure? Certain? One hundred percent? Okay.

HOLY SHIT IT WAS THE MASTER! I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that I threw a bottle of juice against the opposite wall in excitement when she announced her identity. Like most two-parters though, the success of this episode will rest on how well they pull of the actual finale. Either way, Michelle Gomez is a saccharine delight and a worthy successor to the formidable John Simm. And surely we’ll be seeing more of her after this season ends, because you don’t bring the Master back as a woman then only give us one episode of her. Everything comes down to next week, and I’m hoping they do well because this episode was teeming with brilliant lines, scenes, and ideas-more than I can even touch on here- and I want it to remain as good as I think it is now.

But. Well, there’s always a but, isn’t there? This isn’t really a criticism of the episode, but you’ll have noticed that I haven’t been talking a whole lot about the Doctor. And there’s a reason for that. It suddenly struck me, in the middle of the night, which is when I write these reviews in my head and mentally paste them into the blog in the morning, that the problem is not with Peter Capaldi. Peter Capaldi is doing an excellent job playing the role he’s been given, but the problem is that role isn’t the Doctor. It’s leaning towards the sociopathic otherness of Moffat’s Sherlock, stripped down of much of his humanity and warmth. Watching Chris Ecclestone’s Doctor again, it’s so clear that a “dark” Doctor doesn’t have to be the aloof, trickster, testing personality that Capaldi’s playing to perfection right now- he is still the same man at heart(s), and doesn’t want to torture, tease, and even kill those who he comes into contact with. Anyone else of the same page here? Either way, I think that Moffat needs to hand over the reins to someone else and focus his attention on Sherlock, as it seems to be where his mind is at right now anyway. I’ll have you yet, Moffat. But if you can pull of next week, I’ll call off the hordes.

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November 2, 2014

On Twitter, Gamergate, and the Trials of an Internet Debate

Recently, I’ve become a bit more active on Twitter. I find the whole concept of it fascinating and brilliant, on many levels; that ability to connect instantly with people across the world yada yada yada you’ve very probably heard this before.

I’ve been following the #gamergate hashtag with interest over the last month and a half or so. Gamergate kicked off in August, and you can read some articles about what’s been happening at the link below. Basically, the campaign ostensibly stands for the improvement of ethics in video games journalism, which I don’t think anyone would argue is a bad thing. However, it;s become a shield for some people to viscously attack those they see as enemies, for whatever reason. It’s difficult to know for sure to what extent the people who doxx (disseminate personal information, such as home addresses and emails, about the selected victim) or throw death threats at those on the apparent other side of the fence are doing so because they believe it furthers their cause (it never, never, never does, and anyone who does use these methods should know that they don’t win arguments or prove points) or simply because having a crusade provides a comforting cover.

And that’s the problem with debating things on Twitter. There are very likely hundreds upon thousands of people, with every shade of opinion, on every matter you want to talk about. In the case of gamergate, there are, broadly, the pro- and anti- side, both of which have been caught doing reprehensible and horrible things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. It’s spun far out of control and far from any semblance of reasonable discussion, at least to the casual observer. After two months, we’re left with two extreme sides screeching at each other over the internet, while anyone trying to have a reasonable conversation in the middle is drowned out. The particularly awful screengrabs and status updates and tweets are passed around the opposing groups like porn mags, stoking more anger and annoyance and strengthening the belief that these people have to be stopped. So they respond in kind and the cycle starts again. The media cottons on to the news-worthy extremism and the scary quotes that make good headlines, and more outraged people turn up for the party with a very specific view of events. And the ball keeps rolling.

When a huge, sprawling debate like this one, and like many arguments over social media and Twitter in particular, carries on for as along as this, hundreds of thousands of people- each with varying degrees of knowledge, investment, and understanding about the cause- have chipped in. You could browse through scores of Tweets, of arguments waged across continents and months, and what you’d find there would be a mess. With a cause like this one, it’s difficult to know what individuals are really fighting for any more.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

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October 29, 2014

Doctor Who Dark Water: Wild Speculation Abounds

So, blogosphere, I’ve decided to forgo a review this week- basically, I thought In The Forest of The Night was an eye-rolling disappointment and thoroughly enjoyed listening to my dad shred it into comedically tiny pieces- and everything that I’ve been saying over the last eight weeks pretty much applies to this episode. Bad pacing, cluttered plot, a crammed-in enviromental message (I’m really, really, really not sure how to feel about the Doctor encouraging a girl on medication to stop taking it because the voices in her head were saving the world, because it seems wildly irresponsible. And seems to back up that widely-held theory that those with mental health problems who choose to take medication to control it- like me- are cutting off some brilliant part of themselves as opposed to taking control of an illness), not enough Danny Pink, oddly cold Doctor, and a cool idea thrown to the four winds of blah. So, this week, I’m going to share my theories about the season finale, a two-parter that kicks off next week with Dark Water. Take a drink for every time I get proved right. Expect to stay sober.

1. Danny Pink

I’ve been theorising for weeks that Missy and the Nethersphere are actually a big Maguffin, and the really twist will involve Danny Pink. Here’s my thinking: we met him in Into The Dalek, in the same week we spent some time with a soldier named Journey Blue who had lost her brother in a war at the start of the episode. There’s a link with the colours in their names, and Zawe Ashton and Samuel Anderson don’t look entirely different (big brown eyes). I think Danny was the brother who died, was sent to the Nethersphere, and offered a chance to live again if he brought Clara and the Doctor back with him. His past is mysterious- all we know is that he was a soldier who had “one bad day”, and that he very probably killed someone he feels an immense amount of guilt about-and, when we meet his grandson, it’s revealed that one of that man’s grandparents was a time-traveller. I initially assumed that this was Clara, but could it be Danny instead? Anyway, I think his plotline will involve him being turned into a cyberman upon his return to Heaven, and that may or may not be the last we see of Mr Pink. If it is the last we see of him, the series is going to have to do something spectacular to win me back.

2. Clara

We know there are hundreds of echoes of Clara all through time, so where did these echoes go? Did they die and….wind up in the Nethersphere? The trailer showed a lot of abrupt costume changes and seemingly personality changes too, and I think that a bunch of vengeful Claras have ended up in Heaven wanting to wreak revenge on the Doctor. In this theory, Missy is definitely one of these Claras, having orchestrated the whole thing to make sure she gets revenge. The Clara in this series has been an echo of the real Clara who remained trapped in the timeline (River said she would die, but maybe she got it wrong?), aged into Missy, and eventually ended up in heaven (see Missy’s “You know who I am” in the trailer). At this point, anything they can do to really stretch Jenna Coleman’s considerable talent and charm to make her a real match for Capaldi’s colder Doctor will be warmly welcomed. If it’s not this theory, then I think that all the cybermen will be Claras from various timestreams.

3. Missy

I wrote an article about my theories on Missy at the start of the series, and I still think it’s up in the air. However, I’m leaning towards The Rani, because it makes sense, and it would be really cool. She’s presumably evil, very likely experimenting on her charges, and has a beef with the Doc. I’m even going to go waaaay out there and tentatively suggest that Chris Addison is also a timelord, and both of them, after a timelocked Gallifrey was basically brought back, are still in defensive mode and believe that they need to defend themselves against another attack with cybermen. The fact that most of the victims have come from the episodes we’ve seen is to do with the fact that they’re able to manipulate the Tardis into a matter transporter to get them there, and has nothing to do with the Doctor’s guilt as I initially thought.

But then again, the episode is called Dark Water so it WILL be River.

2

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October 28, 2014

American Horror Story, and How Much of a Freakshow We Can Stomach

I wrote about American Horror Story: Freakshow and the treatment of Freaks therein.

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October 26, 2014

A New Companion’s Guide to Doctor Who, part 4: The Villains

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October 19, 2014

Doctor Who: Tiny Alien Regulates Destruction of Insubstantial Scribbles

I’d like to draw your attention to this. A dear friend of mine and long-time reader of my Fifty Shades of Grey recaps (so she politely claims in my presence, anyway) is currently fundraising for a trip to Ecuador where she’ll teach English to kids, and you should give her all your money because she’s excellent and because if you don’t I’ll think worse of you. But seriously, it’s a trip to give a all-round top-notch human female a chance to do real good, and any donations would be amazing. ‘Kay? ‘Kay.On with the review!

This week’s Doctor Who, Flatline, was a very solid episode. I’ve been saying for weeks now that this Doctor and Clara just don’t match up, and splitting them up- as they did here, with the Doctor trapped inside a miniature Tardis and Clara assuming his role as the roving, innovating saviour of the day- gave the episode a brisk, fun energy that’s been missing in Clara’s storylines of late. A huge shout out to Jenna Coleman in this episode, too, who did a trememdous job reminding us why she’s one of the finest assistants to ever grace the show’s writer’s room. Here, she took on the role of the Doctor- Matt Smith’s Doctor, specifically- which allowed her some great interactions with a very solid supporting cast.

Once again, the monsters this week- two-dimensional creatures who sucked unsuspecting victims into walls and floors and suchlike- were good, but basically irrelevant. Den of Geek pointed out in their review that the monsters for this series are increasingly becoming a framing device for the thematic elements of the show, often with great effect- Listen- but this often strips them of any real menace. I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that these creatures might have been all the more chilling in the hands of a different writer, a different showrunner, and a different director. Were they competent? Yes. But they weren’t scary, and they should have been.

Flatline was big on cool special effects- a moment where a train was absorbed into a wall, leaving nothing but the careful outline behind, was excellent- and fun sight gags, like the Doctor’s full-size hand reaching out of a miniature Tardis to give Clara some deus ex machina device to save the day. Aside from being terrifically short on Danny Pink (next week’s episode, which I am insanely pumped for, seems to feature him heavily), it was a strong entry into a patchy series.

There’s something I have to admit, though. For the first time ever, I’m not excited about watching Doctor Who. I watch these episodes because I’m waiting for something to draw me back in, to excite me enough that I find myself hunched over iPlayer waiting for the next episode to come on. Listen almost did it, but was followed by a bunch of episodes that were competent but not compelling. For me, at least, this isn’t must-see television. This is television that’s static. It’s stuck in this endless loop of cleverness and cool themes that were brought up years ago and still fail to be resolved; cleverness is a brilliant thing in a TV show, but it has to be backed up by the substance to warrant it.  Compare Moffat’s masterpiece Blink-which had a strong emotional throughline as well as a fiendishly clever plot- to this series. Nothing has roared through the screen in a trail-blazing mass of unforgettable television; everything is a whimper, not a bang. And this saddens me, because I feel like I’ve grown out of Doctor Who, maybe for good. Of course there will always be a place in my heart for the time-travelling madman, but these episodes aren’t rollicking or exciting or moving or stunning me the same way they used to. Frankly, there’s much better things to be watching at the moment (Vikings and American Horror Story, off the top of my head), and that’s bad when your show has such an original idea with seemingly endless plot possibilities. Is it salvageble? Probably, but it’s going to take big changes to make it so.

I’m far too sad to have Moffat yet. Someone get me a drink.

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October 13, 2014

Doctor Who: Terrific Adventure Raises Discussion of Inelegant Season

After last week’s fiasco of an episode (divisive though it was, I have yet to meet someone in real life who actually liked Kill the Moon), I was seriously putting off watching this week’s outing, Mummy on the Orient Express. For one, they’d once again added the suffix “In SPACE” to give an otherwise fine story a science-fiction twist (this week, the famous train was thundering through the cosmos despite the fact that everyone on the train was still dressed and acted like they were fro the 1920s). And for another, a big deal had been made of the villain, and that sends warning signals sparkling up and down my cynicism spine, as all the really good monsters have come with no fanfare whatsoever. Eventually, with much wincing and eye-rolling, I sat down to this week’s outing.

And I was pretty pleased with the results. For one thing, that Mummy-

mummy-on-the-orient-express

-Was genuinely scary. A great to-do was made (by me, on Twitter) about Doctor Who shifting to a half eight slot because this monster was just SO SCARY, and I’ve got to admit that it really was. A great, shambling, rotting creature that only appeared to those who it was about to kill, allowing them sixty-six seconds after it first materialised till their inevitable death. The idea was cool, as with many Who monsters- but for once it was carried off with style, even managing to stick the landing of actually finding out what the creature was and how to stop it, which has been a continual faltering point for writers this series. I’d put this up there amongst the better monsters of the show so far, and not just because they managed to work in an Empty Child joke (“Are you MY mummy?”) for all the fangirls like me who never got over 2005. If you’re going to do scary, do fucking scary; it seems my angry letters have finally reached the Doctor Who writer’s room.

So, the story was solid and surprisingly focused, proving my point about Clara and THIS Doctor working better when seperated once again. I like both this Doctor and Clara, but on screen together they come across as a stroppy teenager and a patronising parent in any combination almost permanently. Frank Skinner guest-starred, four words that can strike fear into the hearts of any British TV fan, and actually proved himself a surprisingly excellent addition. His mischievous cleverness gelled perfectly with the Doctor’s dour investigation, and Skinner acquitted himself admirably, earning a place amongst the best guest stars of the last few seasons. A grand deal was made of an appearance by singer Foxes, which amounted to a twenty-second background musical noodle. Lovely voice, though.

So ye: this was a great episode. But? The jury is still out on this season. And that’s a problem. We’ve had some blindingly good outings- Listen-some above-average exploits- The Janitor, Time Heist, this- and we’ve had some shockingly atrocious bits of television- Kill the Moon, mostly, but I think Deep Breath still has a lot to answer for regarding the all-over-the-place nature of this series. Part of that has come from the fact that Capaldi and Coleman have a very different chemistry than she did with Matt Smith’s Doctor, in a way that apparently wasn’t really anticipated by the writers or directors. They seem keen to wrap up her relationship with the old Doctor, when the new one needs time to establish himself free of the shackles of his predecessor. Broadly, this season has been a disappointment, as they ignored the opportunity to reboot what was a slightly ailing series at this point (would you rewatch any of Matt Smith’s final series out of choice?) and stuck to their increasingly scattershot guns. Watching this series has increasingly confirmed my suspicion that we need a new showrunner, and we need them soon. There’s no doubt Moffat is a genius of television, but he needs something new to breathe life into. Doctor Who fans have seen all of his occasionally impressive shenanigans, and it feels like time for someone else to have a shot at the wheel. A new day, a new Doctor, and preferably a new behind-the-scenes maven to apply electrodes to the show’s genitals. They’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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October 12, 2014

Behind The Creaky Door: A Horror Movie Rebuttal

“These stories frequently emphasise the element of horror because fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions. Horror and the unknown or the strange are always closely connected, so that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law or cosmic alienage or “outsideness” without laying stress on the emotion of fear.” –

Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

H. P. Lovecraft, 1933

What’s behind the creaky door?

When my daughter first asked me the question “Do horror movies have to be scary?”, my immediate and unthinking response was “Yes”. And then, after a few seconds of reflection, “Actually, No.” Now, that may seem strange. Accepting that different things make different people laugh, a comedy film that isn’t funny is a failure by any standards. A musical with unmemorable tunes is destined to be quickly forgotten. A bad Rom-Com is…No wait a minute, all Rom-Coms are essentially crap, so that doesn’t really count, does it? But never mind, the question of how a horror movie that doesn’t scare can still be satisfying is a valid one.

First of all: What is a horror movie? The most common definitions (and there are several) talk about films which are intended produce a negative emotional reaction. But, I don’t think that’s the whole story. True, some horror films elicit involuntary bowel movements by jump scares and the liberal use of giblets. But the best do more, playing as much on our curiosity and instinctive fears of the unknown as on trying directly to scare us. Wondering what’s causing the strange noises upstairs is a strong element in any good horror movie, even if the solution isn’t necessarily frightening. So, I’d suggest that a horror movie is one that prompts curiosity and dread of the unknown as much as overt fear or scares.

Personally, I don’t think that a film must include supernatural elements to qualify as horror. And excessive and exuberant violence isn’t enough on its own, though many good horror films contain both. But a horror film must contain or at least hint at some sort of strangeness. For example, Alien (1979) is a horror film, in my view. And it contains no supernatural elements at all. But it is scary.

That it’s set in space and in the future don’t really matter. Sci-fi and horror are genres which regularly cross-over, partly because neither are constrained by narrow conventions. In either genre, when the hero or heroine finally pushes open that creaky door at the top of the stairs/opens the rusty airlock, there could be anything behind it at all. From a time-travelling, shape-shifting zombie to a dear, sweet, little old lady (who may also turn out to be a time-travelling, shape-shifting zombie). Just like Mr Lovecraft’s Weird Fiction, these movies can explore strangeness without the “galling limitations” of most other genres.

And for me it’s that exploration of the unknown rather than the final solution that defines the horror film. Fear and the unknown are closely linked, which is one of the reasons horror films can be frightening. The first film ever to scare me rigid was The Innocents (1961). The film contains virtually no violence and no scenes that are overtly frightening. The fear comes from the unknown, principally from not knowing whether the ‘ghosts’ exist at all or are simply a product of the overheated imagination of the main character. It is, without doubt, a horror film. As is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). But Romero’s follow-up, Dawn of the Dead (1978) isn’t. Why? Because the zombies are no longer strange and unknown. They are a frightening but comprehensible external threat, a deus ex machina whose role and function is understood at the beginning of the movie. Not that Dawn of the Dead isn’t a cracking movie – it is. I just don’t believe it’s a horror film. But though it must deal with elements of the unknown, I don’t feel that a horror film has to be frightening to be effective. I believe that ultimate test of this comes from repeated viewing. There are a number of horror films which I have seen several times, and which I still enjoy. Most simply aren’t scary after the first viewing, but if they’re deftly made they can still be entertaining and satisfying more than once. I have lost count of the number of times I have watched An American Werewolf in London (1981), and I enjoy it every time. It’s certainly a horror film, but I don’t find it even faintly scary. Horror films deal with the broadest themes and those that find an echo in most people. Fear is often a part of the experience of watching the best horror films, but it isn’t essential and it’s lack doesn’t mean that a horror film can’t be engaging and effective. So, not all horror films have to be scary and not all scary films are horror. But to be a horror film, a movie must deal with the unfamiliar and the strange. And if it’s scary too, well, that’s probably because there is nothing we fear so much as the unknown. Ultimately, the nature of the thing behind the creaky door doesn’t really matter and doesn’t define a film as horror or not. It’s the journey to the door itself that makes and defines the genre.

Thanks to my Dad, Stephen MacGregor, horror buff, freelance writer, and owner of The Gun Place.

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October 4, 2014

Doctor Who: Teen Asists Radically Dull Interstellar Shenanigans

Well, we had a good run. From Listen to School space robot nonsense, we got three episodes that were, at worst, pretty good, and at best magnificent. And I must admit I was sceptical of Kill the Moon all week-it looked far too much like a cut-and-paste version of handfuls of previous episodes. Doctor and company arrive on a spaceship where they soon realise events are not going as historically planned; against-the-clock shenanigans ensue; everyone goes home. And, to be fair, that’s what I got.

But this episode bored the crap out of me. I’m almost glad I didn’t hold off on watching it till I was with my regular viewing party, as I had a lot more fun pausing the episode to play with my cat for brief periods and sighing loudly than I did actually watching those forty-seven minutes. I’m going to start from the top with a run-down of everything I think was wrong with this episode, because, aside from a vaguely cool design on the moon, I couldn’t find much to enjoy.

1. Clara

It’s a shame for Jenna Coleman, as she really has proved herself an entirely competent actress a number of times over the series. Here, however, the script threw raging inconsistencies her way that put everything off kilter. For example, it’s revealed that Courtney- the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl the Doctor whisked off into space at the close of last week’s episode- has been acting out because the Doctor says she wasn’t “special”. Courtney breaks into the Tardis, demands he take it back, and the Doctor instead offers to make her the first woman on the moon (?). Now, let’s consider that Clara and the Doctor’s adventures are, at least, quite often life-threateningly dangerous, and the last time Clara took kids in her care anywhere, they wound up with cyberman brain slugs attached to their minds. And they just went to a theme park. Why in the name of fucking hell would Clara decide it was alright to bring Courtney along on their adventure? Courtney winds up in mortal danger during her trip and Clara snaps “I HAVE A DUTY OF CARE” to the Doctor when he refuses to remove her from trouble. Not bringing your students to space with a time-travelling alien might be a plan next time, pal. It might seem like nitpicking here, but it’s these kinds of inconsistencies-purely there to drive the plot forward- that undermine the validity of her character. Why would she do that? She wouldn’t. But they needed her to so there could be a story. And that’s cheating.

2. Courtney

I must say that the wee lassie playing Courtney actually did a reasonable job, by which I mean she was a child actor who I didn’t want to cheerily throw to a pack of lions. But the script for her was jaw-droppingly bad- at once she was cowering from the evil spider monsters (who were crap and not scary at all), the next she was uploading pictures of her and the Doctor on the moon to tumblr because YOOF. She was clearly aware of and actively participated in the situation when she was in the room, but when she was placed back on the Tardis she simply whined about being bored, despite having been fully cognizant of the seriousness of the situation only minutes before. I’d also like to point out that Clara has tried for a long time to keep her life as the Doctor’s companion quiet- why would she invite ONE OF HER STUDENTS, established at the start of the episode to be feeling somewhat neglected and unimportant and with evidence of alien tech (she had the Doctor’s psychic paper), into space where she then took pictures? It won’t be fucking secret for very long if you go about like that. There was an implication, too, that Courtney just carries about a bottle of disinfectant with her at all times, which I know to be a lie. I was young once too, you know.

3. Sundry Characters

I’m not going to waste my precious time looking up their names, but the episode also featured three other characters who were sent to the moon to try and destroy it. Aside from showing no visible surprise when the Tardis and it’s occupants appeared on their spaceship (nor any explanation as to why it was crashing, either), two of them bought in via spider bacteria death, and the remaining one was barely sketched in. Usually, as in the Into the Dalek episode, we get a decent idea of the character’s backstory and motivations, but here I came away with the image of a shop window dummy in a spacesuit. She was a complete nothing. And speaking of complete nothings, the spider creatures that inhabited the moon were never properly explained and bore no relevance to the plot. And were also a bit rubbish.

4. The Story

I’ve spoken before about how interesting I find the idea of a fallible Doctor, maybe even a “bad” Doctor. This episode tried to advance this theme somewhat, with the Doctor leaving Clara with her two pals to make a vital decision- did they destroy the huge hatchling living inside the moon, or allow in to survive and possibly endanger the whole of humanity? (The correct answer here, by the way, is to destroy it- an answer so blindingly clear that it removed any of the moral gravitas the situation wanted to demand. The life of one creature versus the life of six billion people). It turned out all along that he’d known they were going to save the creature, and was basically letting Clara ride without stabilisers for the first time. When Clara confronted the Doctor about this, it was a potentially powerful moment that simply came across as pouty and stroppy on Clara’s part because of the hellish writing and the obvious lack of conflict in the big choice (I cannot stress enough how none of this is down to Coleman’s performance- even as she basically telling the Doctor to fuck off forever, Coleman kept it just about grounded). And just while we’re on the plot, too- did anyone else pick up on the weird pro-choice overtones in this episode’s central conflict? I’m on side with them, but there’s a time and a place and this was not it. The pacing was pretty dire, too- the first act was waaaay too short, with a saggy middle and an end so silly Capaldi looked embarrassed reading it.

Overall, then, I really couldn’t recommend this episode on any level. This series has had some bad episodes, sure, but they were a different kind of bad. Deep Breath had some fun introductory moments for Capaldi, while Into the Dalek had a vaguely interesting basic premise that just wasn’t that well executed (for me, at least). This was actually boring. I could have run you through almost all the basic plot after the first five minutes, because I’ve seen this before. It’s easy to fall into traps of similair plotting when your series has been running as long as it has, but, when that happens, you’ve got to distract us with something- a cool villain, interesting side characters, a sense of fun. I’m throwing it out there now by saying that Kill the Moon was one of the worst Doctor Who episodes I’ve ever seen-a flabby, scrappy, predictable story, inhabited by actors who were trying to make the best of characters who were for the time being at least, going nowhere.

And as for next week’s promo, can someone sit all the Doctor Who writers down and explain that putting a historical vehicle in space does not equal brilliant science-fiction? I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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