I'm trying to pinpoint when it was that werewolves, even as a concept, stopped being scary.

"You turn into a wolf? That's nice. What's it like having no opposable thumbs and be a homicidal animal in a world of forensics and people with enough guns to down an aircraft?"

Even if silver bullets are in play, it's still just not as weird or chilling a concept as pretty much every other supernatural creature out there. The best we seem to do is to have stories where werewolves are just hairier versions of The Hulk, which still isn't scary.

This might have something to do with it, but ever since the beginning, just about every werewolf movie goes out of its way to show us every inch of transformation their budgets can accommodate, which usually not only violates the "less is more" rule of horror, it lets the audience see the zippers, latex bits, and the seams where CGI meets real-world.

Holy shit this series is a mess.

It makes True Blood look like a dense, masterfully crafted Cohen Brothers work. It is exactly what would happen if Tommy Wiseau was given a large budget and told to recreate The Vampire Diaries.

That's not hyperbole either. Every scene plays out like you're watching The Room. Just like The Room was space aliens trying to mimic human relationships, Hemlock Grove is space aliens trying to mimic a horror drama. Nothing makes sense. The editing was done by a huffer. Dialog was written by aliens.

Examples:

- Three episodes in, I realized I couldn't recall a single character's name. That's how meaningless the screen time is.

- Two characters are walking along, one says, "Did you know that walking in the snow is like listening to an old man's heartbeat?" Then they walk some more, end scene.

- The show is constantly showing flashbacks, but because the editing is so bad, you never realize it's a flashback. Also the characters never age, so you're watching what you think is just another present day scene but later you find out it was a flashback to 18 years ago. Pretty soon you'll regularly be asking "wait is this a flashback?" every other scene.

- Scene of two people driving, then it goes to a scene at a school dance for 5 minutes. Two kids at the dance sit down in a stairwell when one sees something (facing the door?) and jumps up in shock. Cut to someone crawling on the road. From the previous scene's perspective, it makes it look like the kid in the stairwell was shocked at seeing someone crawling on a wooded country road. A minute later it cuts back to the school dance being evacuated because there's a snake on the stage? The kid in the stairwell saw the snake? The snake crawled up the stairs, through the door, onto the stage? Guy crawling on the highway? What?


The real kicker though is that NOTHING HAPPENS. It sets up a Twin Peaks murder mystery and then nothing happens. It's just episode after episode of characters reaffirming relationships. It's 13 episodes and you could skip episodes 3-10 without missing a single goddamn thing. It's THAT pointless!

This transformation scene was the highlight of the whole thing.



*major spoilers for this show and Twin Peaks*



The killer ends up being the most annoying character of the show (you will know who this is by the 2nd episode). Just like Twin Peaks, they wake up one day with their hair turned white and personality totally transformed.

Should have used Mr. Anderson's reaction shots to Tito Ortiz from last week's Impact instead.

I have no especial interest in the show, but I liked seeing what appeared to be good old (if silly) practical FX work.

Why "netflicks"? Is it best that we not type the actual name for some reason?

boy oh boy do i ever wish tv shows would stop making lousy sound-a-like versions of the 28 days later theme

Ha ha ha, Wolverine Ripoff Wolf Claws(TM) GO!

I enjoyed this show. It's fucking awful, but I enjoyed it.

All that work and he just turns into a regular wolf. Hardly worth smirking at the person next to you over.