Reading/Watching Log #59

This is essentially the second half of my Halloween viewing, featuring several horror movies and shows, though I evened it all out with a glut of children’s books. It was a mixed bag this month, with some stuff that I really didn’t enjoy and only absorbed because of my annoying need to finish everything I’ve started – and once again, I ended up watching some stuff that didn’t strictly adhere to my New Year’s Resolution.

But there’s some good stuff too. I revisited the Scream trilogy for the first time in years, as well as Pan’s Labyrinth, once of my all-time favourite films. I finally watched Over the Garden Wall and Fleabag, highly rated television that I’ve been meaning to get to for years, and finished several books series by Robin Stevens and Cressida Cowell that I’m going to remember fondly.

Plus, I went to the ballet, which is always a treat.

Sleeping Beauty (Isaac Theatre Royal)

Every year for the past three years I’ve been to see a ballet as the Christmas season approaches, and it’s always something to look forward to. It’s almost therapeutic actually, just being able to sit in an auditorium and enjoy something that exists for the sole purpose of being beautiful.

As an extra bonus, I’ve been going with a co-worker that had never been to a ballet before seeing The Nutcracker with me in 2018, and now she’s a devoted fan. As it happens, I bought these tickets a year to the day of the actual performance, and so spent most of the pandemic worrying that we would all still be in lockdown by November (not helped by the fact that there was meant to be two Sleeping Beauty ballets this year, but the Russians had to cancel. Not knowing this, I was under the impression our production was postponed, and it was a library patron of all people that informed me the New Zealand Ballet was still going ahead).

Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty is naturally going to be compared with Disney’s considering the latter borrowed the score of the former for several crucial scenes, and it’s always a bit disconcerting to hear familiar melodies in such a different context. Once Upon a Dream is the film’s central love theme, whereas in the ballet it’s just a non-essential dance to reintroduce the court’s lords and ladies. Even stranger, the haunting strains that mark Maleficent luring Aurora away from safety and towards the spindle was originally set to… wait for it… the dance of Puss in Boots and his paramour at Aurora’s wedding.

But this was definitely a beautiful ballet, made all the more special by the fact a live orchestra was playing. Perhaps my favourite creative choice was that each of the four acts was marked by a change in the weather: Aurora’s Christening is in spring, her sixteenth birthday and fulfilment of the curse in summer, Princes Désiré (yes, that’s really his name) approaching the castle during a hunting party in autumn, and the wedding between Aurora and Désiré taking place (surprisingly enough) in winter.

This was captured in the set design and costumes, with colours going from pinks and greens, to autumnal shades of green and brown, to the white gowns of the bridal party. It was beautifully done, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a seasonal cycle play out in reverse before, with winter as the triumphant conclusion (the closest I can think of is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which ended in summer, but depicted that season as dangerously hot and acrid thanks to the Fire Nation).

All the dancing was beautiful obviously, and we were close enough to the stage to actually see Aurora trembling when she balanced en pointe for a prolonged period of time. Carabosse was fantastic, being first introduced on a chariot that was wheeled around the stage, and dramatically impaled by Désiré’s sword while carried through the air on her minions’ shoulders, with a glittery black dress and on-point eyeliner.

But my favourite performer would have had to have been the Bluebird of Happiness. A lot of dancers are called upon to dance in bird-like roles, but she was the first I’ve seen that managed movements so quick and precise that she really did seem like a bird, and a genuine sense of joy in what she was doing (which is to say, her smile wasn’t plastered on, but seemed very natural).

I suppose I better also mention that along with a bluebird and the aforementioned Puss in Boots, little Red Riding Hood was also in attendance at Aurora’s wedding, along with the Big Bad Wolf. Talk about Unexpected Characters.

And as ever, I’m always intrigued by the variations that each adaptation brings to the fairy tale. Rather than Aurora being lured to an isolated location in order to have her finger pricked, this ballet depicted one of Carrabosse’s minions take the place of one of the suitors and hand her a spindle himself (the other suitors give her roses, à la The Bachelorette, which made me laugh, especially when she threw them aside).

I just love the ballet. This one had everything I wanted: beautiful dancing, great costumes, a familiar story – even amazing effects in how they depicted the bramble-forest growing up around the castle: a sheer screen that had projections of vines climbing up its surface. I went home and felt invigorated and relaxed and wishing I could see a ballet every night.

The Wolf’s Secret by Myriam Dahman and Nicolas Digard

An atmospheric, albeit very short fairy tale about a wolf that visits the house of a young woman in the depths of the forest. It has many of the tropes you’d expect: transforming animals, magical taboos, a quest for one’s heart’s desire, but manages to sidestep some of the more familiar storytelling tropes that would otherwise be apparent in a book such as this.

Namely, any love story between the wolf and the girl is kept largely subtextual, and since the wolf itself never transforms into human form (the two simply gain the ability to communicate with each other) you’re left with the assumption that they remain platonic companions. Which I appreciated, given by current exhaustion with Beauty and the Beast tales.

The real drawcard of the book is the evocative illustrations by Júlia Sardà Portabella, with dark autumnal colours and details that make it clear the story takes place in Eastern Europe, with particular care taken in the rendering of the forest’s flora and fauna. It’s a book that just wants you to soak in its ambiance.

Scarlet and Ivy: Books 4 – 6 by Sophie Cleverly

I think I’m incapable of not finishing something I’ve started, even if I’m not enjoying it that much. I read the first three books in this series last month, and continued mostly because the titles of the remaining three were so enticing: The Lights Under the Lake, The Curse in the Candlelight and The Last Secret.

On paper, the premise sounds amazing: it’s essentially a Gothic Romance for kids, starring twin girls called Scarlet and Ivy Grey, who solve supernaturally-tinged mysteries, have an evil stepmother and distant father, spend most of their time in a creepy boarding school, and gradually uncover family secrets about their mother. It sounds fab, and the books are certainly flying off the shelves at the library.

But in practice there’s a lot of clumsy stuff, from the complete lack of period-appropriate setting (it takes place some time in the 19th century, but all the characters talk like modern teenagers) to some genuinely absurd plotting (the first book had an evil headmistress make one of the twins impersonate the other in order to cover the other’s disappearance. I’m pretty sure someone would have noticed they were down a daughter sooner or later). The prose is pretty bland despite Gothic novels giving any author carte blanche to dive headfirst into a swimming pool of purple, and the characterization of the villains is… just silly.

I liked the emphasis on female friendship (there’s seriously no boy talk whatsoever) and the fact that I can now have discussions with young library patrons about these books, but for the most part they were a missed opportunity.

At The World’s End by Catherine Fisher

Having recently read Darkwater Hall by the same author and realizing (or remembering) what a great writer she is, I grabbed this solely on the basis of who had written in. I suspect it was a commissioned work as part of Barrington Stoke’s range of dyslexia-friendly publications (yellow pages, sans serif font) as the story itself is so light and inconsequential that it can be read in one sitting and forgotten immediately afterwards.

Caz has spent the last nine years of her life in Murphy’s Department Store, never seeing the sky or anything else of the outside world. This is due to what’s implied to be a nuclear holocaust, though tensions within the store have risen to such an extent that several people have already been forcibly evicted in order for others to maintain their power within the building.

Now it’s Caz’s turn to be cast out, leading her on a journey involving icy wastelands, feral dogs and subterranean tunnels to find other settlements. It’s not really as exciting as it sounds, as it’s over in about fifteen minutes. Ten if you speed-read.

The Wizards of Once: Never and Forever by Cressida Cowell

The fourth in final book in the Wizards of Once quartet wraps up most everything pretty nicely, though with a strange epilogue that reveals the likes of Xar and Wish and Bodkin have actually been characters from Arthurian legend all along. It’s as strange as it is pointless, and none of them really match up with the personalities of the characters they’ve been ascribed to.

In any case, the quest to defeat the Kingwitch and create lasting peace between the warring tribes of the Wizards and the Warriors comes to its conclusion here, and it has enough triumph and poignancy to remind me that this is the writer of How To Train Your Dragon (even though the film adaptations veered wildly from its source material). There’s heartache and victory in equal measure, and though Cowell doesn’t quite manage the weightiness she’s reaching for, it’s still been a fun ride throughout.

It’s interesting to note that she’s illustrated the book as well as written it, which means you can be in no doubt of the author’s vision when it comes to how her characters are depicted. Between the spiky, stylized figures and her chatty, personable prose, she definitely has a distinct quality to her storytelling that’s carried on from the HTTYD series (not that I’ve read any of them, but I’ve flicked through them at the library).

And given the success of her previous work, it’s now a question of whether this will similarly be adapted.

Death Sets Sail by Robin Stevens

I was only a few pages into this book when I realized it was going to be the last instalment of the Murder Most Unladylike books. This made the rest of the reading experience extremely bittersweet, as I’ve truly enjoyed the adventures of Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, two teenage investigators in the 1920s, who go up against the norms of society in order to solve the various crimes that occur in their boarding school, holiday locations, and family homes.

They’re great reads, all the more so because Hazel is such a charming character: a Chinese student that’s been sent abroad for an English education by her Anglophile father, and who struggles to understand the strange customs of the alien culture she finds herself in (her first experience of hockey is especially funny).

She’s the Watson to Daisy’s Sherlock, the latter being a young aristocrat who marches through each mystery as though she has every right to question suspects, search for clues and essentially undertake police business. They’re a great team of opposites, and watching Hazel grow in confidence – eventually standing up to Daisy’s overbearing bossiness – has been the great joy of the series.

Stevens was very clearly inspired by the works of Agatha Christie, something she wholeheartedly admits to in various afterwords, and Death Sets Sail is clearly her take on Death on the Nile. This poses something of a problem, as being so familiar with that text meant I pretty much immediately intuited the identity of the killer.

But the book makes up for this in its depiction of era-appropriate Egypt, with a range of suspects from a society that believes themselves to be reincarnations of various Egyptian Pharaohs, and important roles for supporting characters George Mukherjee, Alexander Arcady and Amina el Maghrabi – the latter two harbouring crushes on Hazel and Daisy respectively. Throw in the presence of Hazel’s strict father and precocious younger sisters on board the Nile cruise, and it definitely feels like a “last hurrah” for the characters.

It’s not the mysteries but the characters I enjoy so much, and I hope that this will make the leap to a television adaptation sooner rather than later. And perhaps it’s not quite the end of the Detective Society, as there was some clear set-up here to introduce Hazel’s little sister May Wong as a successor to our protagonists. Even so, I’m going to miss them dearly.

Evil Thing by Serena Valentino

Another series I returned to even though I hadn’t much enjoyed the previous books. It’s a curse, I tell you. But where Valentino’s take on other villains of the Disney pantheon largely failed because she was more interested in her original characters, to whom the famous villains were just supporting characters, this one keeps its focus on the person we’re all actually interested in.

Cruella’s deal is that she wants to skin a bunch of puppies in order to make a fur coat, and though there have been Disney villains objectively worse than that, you can at least try to mount some sort of defense for Maleficent’s demonic powers or Jafar’s power grabs or the Faustian bargains Ursula arranges with various merfolk. But killing puppies to make clothing is so hilariously petty and cartoonish that even Once Upon a Time didn’t bother trying to give their Cruella a sob story.

So I can’t say I’ve ever wondered what Cruella de Ville’s childhood must have been like, and aside from mention of Anita as her old “school chum”, the original film doesn’t shed much light on the situation either. Valentino images her as the daughter of an emotionally distant mother and a much more loving father who dies young, leaving Cruella to struggle between the warmth and companionship she receives from friends and household staff, and her desperate attempts to win her mother’s love.

Turns out that the Dalmatian fur coat was going to be given to her mother as a last-ditch attempt to get mummy’s approval, though it’s obvious from her first-person narrative (used for the first time in one of these books) that she's growing increasingly unhinged in a number of other ways. I’ve been frustrated by this series’ insistence on giving Freudian excuses to the likes of Maleficent and Ursula and so on, but in this case Cruella’s background makes a fair bit of sense, even if it still remains within the realm of “this is pretty dumb.”

We get the totally unnecessary origin of things like Cruella’s green earrings, and Valentino still attempts to cram the entirety of the film into the book’s final chapters, but what can I say? I actually enjoyed this one. It’ll be interesting to see how it compares to Emma Stone’s upcoming Cruella movie.

Scream (1996)

I’d been itching to rewatch these films for a while now, and Halloween was the perfect excuse to do so. For the record, I limited myself to the original trilogy, as though I heard that the fourth movie was surprisingly good, I’m honestly of the opinion that three instalments is enough for any franchise – a trilogy gives a story a beginning, middle and end, and that should be that.

Here’s something else: when I first watched these movies as a teenager, it was completely out of order. Back in 2000 I saw Scream 3 with friends at the movies with absolutely no understanding of the first two films, then caught Scream 2 on the television some years later, and finally watched the original Scream at my Auntie Carol’s. But all that was years ago (I had actually forgotten who the killer was in the second one) so it felt good to settle down and finally watch these in the correct order.

Honest question: is Scream the first movie that ever went truly meta? These days it’s almost expected for a movie to be self-referential, to wink at the audience, to be so packed full of in-jokes that allude to supplementary material that some viewers won’t even understand what’s being said. But Scream was a forerunner to this (now tedious) trait, deliberately building itself on the back of horror movie clichés, in which characters discuss the rules and requirements of surviving a horror movie, which was ironically designed to be the final nail in the coffin of the slasher genre. (Ironic because the film instead reinvigorated it).

The entire film plays around with this, from the opening hook in which Drew Barrymore is forced into a “game” that involves answering questions about famous scary movies, to a fantastic sequence towards the end in which a character pleads through the screen for Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween to look behind her, only for other characters to start pleading with him through a time-delayed recording of the room, to equally useless effect, when they notice a masked killer sneaking up behind him.

That opening sequence has been parodied to hell and back, but on watching it for the first time in years I was reminded of just how truly harrowing it is: the tension escalates masterfully and Drew Barrymore gives it her all. There are even little clues strewn about that (when seen in context with the rest of the film) give away the fact that there are two killers at work, and details like Casey’s mother whimpering: “not my daughter, not my daughter” when she arrives home to the trashed house is what makes it genuinely gut-wrenching. We don’t know anything about Casey beyond what we see of her in this scene, but my God are we made to grieve for her death.

Watching this movie so many years after it so thoroughly reinvented the horror genre, it’s fascinating to notice some of its quirks and idiosyncrasies: for example, the characters of Sidney, Dewey and Gale (who have so far featured in, and survived, all four Scream films) can’t accurately be called a “trio” (as they so often are), as this film is too busy putting everyone under suspicion, from Sidney’s dad to the chief constable (and even Dewey for a hot second) for them to form any sort of meaningful bond. It’s really not until the third instalment that they deserve the moniker of "golden trio", and even then Sidney is largely on the outskirts of the investigation.

Rose McGowan is here, looking so young and relatively carefree (though that these are all adults playing teenagers is clearly apparent, leading to the only funny gag in Scary Movie, which deprecatingly points out that all of their actors are also in their mid-twenties to early-thirties) and Henry Winkler of all people has a cameo role as the school principle (did anyone else think it was weird that although we get word of the fact his body is strung up on the school goalposts, we never actually get to see it?)

I’d also forgotten that Dewey and Tatum were siblings, and at least one of the jump scares really got me!

But the lasting legacy of the film is (at least in my opinion) Wes Craven’s deliberate subversion of wholesome American suburbia. There’s something about the way he shoots those manicured yards and white picket fences that make them so unsettling, adding nicely to the subtext that every house, every family, holds a sordid secret. There’s an early shot of Sidney’s house, drenched in the blood red-and-orange colours of the sunset that’s just horrifying to look at.

Everything seems to exist in a strange alternate universe where things are just a little off, from the side-lining of everyone’s parents, to the fact classes aren’t cancelled after the grisly deaths of two students (not that anyone seems that upset anyway) and how everyone continues to attend parties despite a killer being on the loose. None of it seems quite real.

It’s an aesthetic that’s since seeped its way into the horror genre, and other instalments in this franchise simply don’t have the same level of crawling dread without Woodsboro as their setting. As for the name Billy Loomis, that’s become as skin-crawling as Norman Bates (I’m pretty sure a few episodes of Angel purposely had a couple of evil characters called Billy). My point is, Scream really established a vibe. 

It’s an amazing achievement, even if it ended up doing the opposite of what it set out to do, with a winning heroine in Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, a number of great twists and red herrings, and an internal consistency that allows you to figure out which of the two killers was making what kill across the course of the movie.

Scream 2 (1997)

There was always going to be a sequel. Moving the setting from Woodsboro to Windsor College was certainly not a bad idea on paper, but (like I said above) much of the first movie’s power came from that specific setting: the isolated farmhouses and white picket fences were given a horror-movie sheen that lent much to its feeling of mounting dread. A standard college campus is rather ho-hum by comparison.

This is probably my least-favourite of the trilogy, and I had actually forgotten who the killers were, which says a lot about how memorable I found it. Perhaps its cleverest feature is the existence of a movie-within-a-movie, in which Sidney and the other survivors of the Woodsboro massacre are having to grapple with the release of a cheesy slasher movie made up of B-list actors. As such we get to watch slightly rejiggered and badly-acted scenes of the original movie, which are not only funny in their own right but (in one case) help refresh the audience’s memory when it comes to important killer-identity-related clues. My favourite detail of particular genius is that the Stab movie features Tori Spelling in the role of Sidney, as Sidney herself scornfully predicted in the first film.

Naturally they have jabs at the nature of sequels, which helps cover for the fact that this one isn’t as good, because it’s simply not as clever as the first movie. There you can look back and figure out how Billy and Stu planned their killing spree; who killed who at various points of the film, and how all the dots connected. Here, there’s no such internal consistency. Was it Max or Mrs Loomis in the auditorium, or the sorority house, or the movie theatre? We never find out, there’s no way to deduce it, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

An early suggestion that it’s a copycat killer deliberately going after people with the same names falls by the wayside pretty quickly, and there’s even LESS concern about a killer being on the loose here than there was in the first, with a tasteless fraternity prank being pulled in the third act and virtually no security measures being taken on the campus at all. This casual attitude was unsettling in the first movie, but it fit the tone. Here, in a less liminal setting, it seems absurd.

Although I cared about Jada Pinkett’s Maureen, her murder in the theatre has absolutely nothing on Drew Barrymore’s, and there’s something a little too cruel about her being killed like that in front of a cheering crowd who think it’s all an act. It’s also a point of some irony that after pointing out that Black people always die first in slasher films, the movie goes right ahead and plays that trope straight (though it’s nice that Black people at least exist now – there were none whatsoever in the first, and Gale’s new cameraman sensibly gets the heck outta dodge once people start dying).

It’s Randy’s death that hurts like hell, though it was also a good idea to bring Cotton Weary back in. After only a brief glimpse of him in the first movie, he has a much larger role here (and was apparently going to be the killer in the original script before it leaked, which might explain why the story is so messy this time around) and there’s something surprisingly poignant about Derek’s last words to Sidney: “I never would have hurt you…”

And I’d forgotten how many familiar faces were in this! Joshua Jackson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, a Wilson brother, Heather Graham, Jada Pinkett Smith, Portia de Rossi, David Warner (the epitome of a One Scene Wonder as Sidney’s drama teacher), and apparently even Selma Blair as a voice on the phone.

Basically, it’s a weaker sequel. The original script was watertight: you could track the killers’ movements, there’s a gradual unspooling of exposition, we cared about the characters – here, not so much. Plus, people are profoundly stupid this time around. Why on earth would Sidney run back onto campus and into the auditorium of all places instead of going straight to the police? Why would Dewey and Gale use campus equipment in a lecture hall instead of the safety of a newsroom to watch video footage? And the final confrontation doesn’t work at all: Timothy Olyphant’s character was a non-entity, and Laurie Metcalf’s Debbie was too bug-eyed and goofy to be even remotely threatening.

(On a final note, why is it that they go to all the trouble of providing continuity for Dewey’s stab wound, which has caused a limp due to nerve damage, but Tatum is only briefly namedropped, with only an equally brief reaction shot from her brother? It’s weird).

Scream 3 (2000)

Imagine this being the first Scream movie you ever saw. I can’t remember how I was talked into it, but I definitely saw this on the big screen with friends as a teenager, and was bemused throughout by the obvious fact that the main characters had a history together that I just didn’t know about. The scene in which Sidney goes into the set of her bedroom to recite dialogue from the first movie clearly had weight to it, as did all the reunions between Sidney, Gale and Dewey, but at the time I’d no idea what was going on.

So it’s nice to finally see the complete trilogy – and yes, I accept this franchise only as a trilogy. Apparently Scream 4 was better than expected, but this leaves everything on a high note: Randy gets a swansong, Dewey and Gale get their happy ending, the Canon Welding involving Sidney’s mother ties everything together surprisingly well, and that final shot of Sidney is supremely satisfying, in which she sees the front door swing open and walks away with a smile, no longer living in fear.

As pointed out in the film itself, a trilogy capper is very different from a third sequel. Scream 3 was designed to wrap everything up, to be the last of the Scream films, and as such it delves back into the past to bring new context and perspective to Maureen Prescott. It didn’t escape me during my watch of the first two films that the entire franchise is predicated on the fact that – as is so often mentioned – Sidney’s mother was a giant slut, and this film helps recontextualize that belaboured plot-point, in a way that feels a little like an apology.

Turns out that Maureen was taken advantage of while working as a young actress in Hollywood, leading to a pregnancy, the birth of an abandoned son, and promiscuous behaviour as a direct result of what must have been PTSD. The killer of this film is unique not only in being the only one to work entirely alone, but in taking credit for every murder ever committed by Ghostface, revealing that he was the one that goaded Billy Loomis into his killing spree after sharing details of Maureen’s affair with Billy’s father.

Is it a bit of a stretch? Sure, all the more so when Sidney finally comes face to face with him and you realize that she’s never interacted with him across the entire course of the movie. His dramatic unmasking would have certainly led her to think: “who the hell is this guy?” But the voice modulator works surprisingly well (despite its miraculous ability to mimic absolutely everyone) and there’s a certain tragic grandeur to Sidney having an unknown half-brother that’s been “directing” her ordeals across the past few years.

And hey, look who produced this: human slug Harvey Weinstein. You can’t make this shit up. Perhaps he inspired the story.

It very much feels like a final movie, with Randy turning up via a recording to give the others the new set of rules for the film, Sidney’s father featuring in a single scene (played by the same actor, no less), Cotton getting dispatched of extremely quickly in the cold open (having perhaps the strangest role in this entire saga), Gale and Dewey getting engaged, and Roman being the Greater Scope Villain of the whole thing. It was the right place to end things.

There are even sweet little details, like Sidney still wearing Derek’s fraternity letters around her neck for the duration of the film, and remembering to use the wardrobe door in her bedroom to block the advance of the killer. And the cameos! I remembered Jenny McCarthy, but Jay and Silent Bob? Patrick Warburton?? Carrie Fisher???

Speaking of whom, this is also the funniest film of the trilogy (you just KNOW that script-doctor Carrie Fisher added in that line about the role of Princess Leia going to the actress that slept with George Lucas). There’s something hysterical – I mean that in the scary and funny sense of the word – about everyone panicking their way through Jennifer’s house, reading threatening notes from the fax and screaming about whether they’re safer inside or out. The action sequences are better staged than last time, and though it’s less bloody and gory, the voice modulator makes everyone seem less stupid for going to places they shouldn't (at least until they start splitting up in the mansion).

Parker Posey is a hoot as well, though the rest of the cast is eminently forgettable, and you feel nothing when they start getting picked off (compare again to the original Scream, where every death actually hurt). What was even the point of Angelina being a secret bitch? And why was she standing on the toilet seat in the bathroom anyway? She was a red herring that really didn’t work.

This is a good end to the trilogy, and I’m happy to leave it here. It might be considered the least of the four movies, but I definitely think it’s better than the second.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

During this year’s lockdown I decided to entertain myself by revisiting some of my favourite movies: The Mummy, The Illusionist, The Secret Garden… but I didn’t get around to Pan’s Labyrinth until now. Generally considered to be Guillermo del Toro’s best film, I revisit it every few years and notice something new every time. If asked, I always say my favourite genre is “dark fairy tale”, and this film plays out that very specific tone, aesthetic and content to perfection.

Set during 1944 just after the Spanish Civil War, we meet a young girl called Ofelia who’s travelling with her pregnant mother to join her stepfather Captain Vidal in his rural villa, where he and his men are attempting to rout the last members of the resistance hiding in the mountains: those who still oppose the country’s fascist regime.

Most of this is way over Ofelia’s head however, as she’s more caught up in her books, the presence of a labyrinth on the villa’s grounds, and her insistence that she’s seen a fairy. On meeting a faun by moonlight, she’s told that she’s the reincarnation of a princess that ran away from the underworld, and in order to re-join her father and reclaim her throne, she must pass three tests of character in order to prove her true identity.

But there are really two plots at work throughout the film: as Ofelia undergoes her trials to varying degrees of success, another drama is playing out among Captain Vidal, Ofelia's mother Carmen, and the housekeeper Mercedes, who is secretly helping the rebels in the mountains. Totally grounded in reality, this part of the drama nevertheless provides a perfect mirror to the fantastical adventures of Ofelia, illuminating the themes of virtuous disobedience, following one’s instincts, and the unlikely power of innocence.

Del Toro lightly teases the possibility that all of Ofelia’s adventures might be a product of her imagination; a way of escaping her grim circumstances, but towards the end of the film the lines between the two plots begin to blur ever-so-slightly, and the tragic ending is transformed into a profound moral victory, tying everything together in a perfect emotional crescendo.

I’ve always been fascinated by del Toro’s insistence that the faun Ofelia meets is not Pan himself, and that the correct title of the film in its natural Spanish is instead: The Labyrinth of the Faun. Played by Doug Jones, the character is quintessentially fey: mercurial, passionate, potentially devious… from start to finish you’re not sure whether Ofelia should trust him or not, making him (in my opinion) the more interesting maybe-antagonist than Vidal, who simply evil through and through.

It’s so rich in detail and concept, allowing you to take one of dozens of themes and delve deeply into them: transgressive redemption, in which it is better to break the rules than blindly obey; the duality of the feminine as depicted in Carmen and Mercedes (which refrains from dismissing or vaunting either one of them); the symbolism of Vidal’s straight and angular fascism contrasted with the dense green and circular imagery of Ofelia’s story...

Even relatively short set-pieces are bursting with ideas and implications that could fill an entire film on their own: the unforgettable Pale Man sequence includes a pile of children’s shoes that conjures up unsettling allusions to the Holocaust, Ofelia knowing instinctively which of the three doors to open (and being correct in her judgement), and the unmistakable connotations of a thin man sitting at a table weighed down with food and going on a rampage when someone else tries to assuage their own hunger. It’s capitalism, it’s the church, it’s fascism… I could go on.

It’s one of my favourite films of all time, though unique in that I can’t watch it on repeat, or play it in the background while I’m doing something else – it’s a film that must be sipped like a glass of wine, slowly and carefully, and with my undivided attention.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

In the years since this became a cult classic I’ve always meant to track it down. At the time of its release it was buried under the inevitable but tedious backlash against both Diablo Cody and Megan Fox, so I’m glad it’s found a second life as an underrated horror gem, with plenty of commentary on the nature of female friendships, male/female double standards, and the rank hypocrisy of… well, pretty much every facet of society. And it also features the youngest I’ve ever seen Chris Pratt.

Anita (nicknamed Needy) and Jennifer have been friends since kindergarten, but after they get separated at a seedy bar and Jennifer is whisked off in the van of the visiting band… things change. Though the audience is pretty much privy to Jennifer’s transformation from the get-go, Needy begins an investigation into what exactly happened that fateful night, even as Jennifer’s body count begins to grow.

It’s more of a black comedy than anything else, though there are moment of genuine pathos throughout. As in Scream, many of the deaths are given enough weight that they actually feel like horrible tragedies instead of random kills, and there’s a focus on the complex relationships that form between teenage girls that I hope to delve into deeper when I finally write up my thoughts on The Craft and its sequel.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)

Still trotting my way through this particular branch of the DCU. The most interesting thing about Throne of Atlantis is its similarity to 2018’s Aquaman: it’s essentially the exact same story with only a few modifications – this time the Justice League are helping Arthur Curry, and Atlanna has been ruling Atlantis instead of surviving in exile (don’t get too excited though, she’s duly fridged before she even gets a chance to meet her secondborn son).

That’s not too surprising since both variations of the story are based on the same origin story, but it also goes to show just how repetitive comic book adaptations are getting these days (I’ve just started Black Lightning, and beyond the depiction of a loving but complex Black family, it’s pretty identical to every other superhero show out there). Prince Orm and Black Manta are staging a coup, Arthur Curry is living in a lighthouse and mourning his recently deceased father, Mera rescues him from an assassination attempt… you can pretty much see where this is going.

I generally love underwater adventures, but this didn’t have much in the way of any truly innovative designs (or which I didn’t already see in Aquaman, on a much bigger budget), and aside from the Justice League being along for the ride, didn’t cover any new storytelling ground. Maybe I’m being a bit unfair since this was technically released before the Jason Momoa film, but… yeah.

Still, I’m in this for the Batman-related movies, which are always incredibly good, and they’re coming up next in the roster…

Palm Springs (2020)

This narrowly squeezed into my “focus on female protagonists” resolution for the year, as even though Andy Samberg gets top billing, it’s really Cristin Milioti’s story in a lot of ways. You’re probably already aware that it’s a standard Groundhog Day Loop story (the profusion of which is hilariously referenced in the film itself, when Samberg explains the scenario to Milioti with a weary: “it’s one of those infinite time loop situations that you might have heard about”) in which Sarah meets Niles at her sister’s wedding, only for a masked archer to interrupt their hook-up, leading to a hysterical Sarah following Niles into a cave with a glowing vortex inside, and waking up that morning before the wedding.

The usual hijinks ensue, and as with most people who end up in a time loop, she goes through the five stages of grief before reaching self-acceptance. There are a few interesting details they add to the proceedings, such as Niles telling her that the worst thing she can do while staging a suicide attempt is prolong the pain, and the presence of another person trapped in the loop (the aforementioned masked archer) who started the day at a completely different location and so only sporadically drives to the venue in order to take his revenge on Niles for drunkingly dragging him into the scenario.

There’s also a scientific explanation for the loop (well, as scientific as such a sci-fi premise can get) though it doesn’t mean that the film foregoes the usual character development of its leads, who gradually become more focused and less self-loathing as the story goes on. Sarah in particular has a dark secret that struck me precisely because the exact same plot-point is used in the first season of Fleabag (see below).

It’s a fun movie all things considered, and probably one I’ll revisit sooner rather than later. The real joy of watching Groundhog Day loops is that the best ones seed all kinds of clues within the first few cycles, and Palm Springs was no exception.

Over the Moon (2020)

I’d seen the trailers and gotten on board with a little of the hype, knowing this was a Chinese-inspired story that was sure to be more respectful to the culture it was based on than the live-action Mulan. Sure enough, Chinese festivals, meals and traditions are an integral part of the storyline, with particular emphasis on the legend of Chang’e and her lost love, whom she waits for on the moon after losing him to mortality.

The story takes on extra resonance when tween Fei Fei’s mother dies, and somewhere in the grieving process she makes the emotional connection between herself and Chang’e: like the moon goddess, she never wants to let go of her heartbreak – especially when her father starts seeing another woman.

So she… um… makes a homemade rocket to get herself to the moon, where she hopes that proving the existence of Chang’e will convince her father to remain single. I think? It’s a pretty tenuous follow-through, and I think it’s meant to take on a magical realist context when Fei Fei’s rocket successfully transports her to the moon, along with her pet bunny and would-be stepbrother Chin.

There she meets Chang’e in a “never meet your idols” type situation, though the fact that a goddess has reinvented herself as a pop singer who stages elaborate live concerts actually makes perfect sense. Fei Fei is tasked to bring the goddess a gift that will help her bring her lover back from the dead, and from there it’s your standard journey of discovery to find one’s true family.

There’s nothing overtly wrong with the movie, despite trying a little too hard to follow the Disney/Pixar formula (big-eyed little girl, dead mother, cute animal sidekick, obnoxious comedic relief, Very Important Life Lesson) but that said, there’s nothing hugely memorable about it either, apart from the incredible visuals and musical numbers which definitely make it worth at least one watch.

I think the problem is that any story about grief can only go in one direction: eventually the grieving individual will work through the five stages, and move on with their life. There’s no question whatsoever as to where they’ll end up or even how they’ll get there. Having said that, there’s no telling what this movie might provide for a young child that’s recently suffered a loss, or even someone who is conceptualizing the nature of death for the first time. In that sense, this simply wasn’t a movie for me.

Fleabag: Season 1 (2016)

Everyone has been raving about Fleabag for so long, I knew it was time to get my act together and see what the big deal was about. It was shorter than I expected in every respect: shorter episodes, shorter seasons and shorter run-time on the whole (it finished after two seasons) but it is packed with delights, from Phoebe Waller-Bridger’s famous asides to the camera, to the comedic set-pieces that escalate without ever going truly overboard.

Gifs don’t really do Waller-Bridger’s performance justice: there’s something so natural and effortless about how she breaks the fourth wall, and it really has to be seen to be appreciated. The most effective ones don’t even involve any narration, they’re just an expression or raise of the eyebrows, often appearing with lightning speed in the moments between dialogue.

The season itself is so short that it’s hardly worth laying down the synopsis; suffice to say that the unnamed protagonist is grappling with some serious issues that don’t mesh particularly well with her brand of (what is clearly self-protective) humour. Her best friend has recently died, her café is failing, her over-achieving sister is facing marital trouble, nobody gets on with her father’s new wife, and she’s constantly jumping into bed with men in such a way that suggests much deeper emotional and psychological issues.

I’m not remotely like this character, and yet I understand her completely (while we’re here, I’m getting increasingly annoyed by people saying they “can’t relate” to a usually-female character; it’s just another way of saying “I can’t project myself onto her”, which astonishingly enough, is not actually the point of most stories). More than anything, it’s a wonderful character study, and Waller-Bridger pulls it off with her dual wielding of expressiveness and snark.

My personal highlight were the scenes between her and her stepmother, played by Olivia Colman. Together they’re two women with the sweetest of smiles and the sincerest of small-talk, who clearly loathe each other with every pore of their bodies. It takes passive-aggressiveness to an art form. It’s truly the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. 

SPOILERS

Something worth mentioning though is that the major transgression of our protagonist is the exact same one committed by Sarah in Palms Spring: sleeping with the significant other of their sister/best friend. That I could watch the same plot play out twice in a single month is pretty surprising, and I hope it’s not going to be the go-to solution for female characters that are “troubled”. Women can feel guilty about a number of things that aren’t sex-with-inappropriate-dudes-related.

Evil: Season 1 (2019 – 2020)

SPOILERS

This show is an odd duck, and I can’t even remember why I decided to watch it in the first place. Mike Colter, maybe? In any case, it had a female protagonist which meant it passed my prerequisites of this year’s viewing, and the Halloween season seemed like the perfect time to watch it.

The set-up is both simple and strange: Mike Colter plays a priest who investigates potential miracles and demonic activity, who approaches Katjer Herbers, a forensic psychologist, and offers her a job in helping him ascertain whether such phenomena is supernatural or scientific in origins. What follow is a procedural formula in which the two (plus Aasif Mandvi as a technical expert) look into a variety of different cases – from demonic possession to a woman who can accurately prophesize – that have what's possibly a mundane and a paranormal explanation to them… though much like The X-Files, the true nature of each case is left ambiguous and few things are ever definitively solved.

What’s bizarre are some of the creative choices at work. Katjer Herbers’ Kristen Bouchard is a mother raising four girls while her husband is away leading expeditions on Mount Everest, struggling to pay the bills while seeing what has to be an incredibly expensive psychiatrist, deciding to give up her career in order to chase down demons (I can’t imagine the Catholic Church pays very well), and trying to maintain a hold on her irresponsible mother, who is experiencing a second youth thanks to her recent divorce and making all sorts of questionable life decisions.

I mean… none of this is beyond the realms of realism, but it’s still a deeply strange scenario to get your head around. The tone is similarly wild, fluctuating madly between the precocious antics of Kirsten’s chatterbox daughters, to her night terrors about a demon called George that sexually harasses her. Another scene has the show’s main antagonist Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson, always nice to see him) seduce Kirsten’s mother by cracking jokes about a friend that died of a heart attack, but who was suicidal anyway. She responds to this positively and ends up going home with him.

I’m not sure what’s more horrifying, the thought that a male writer assumed this pickup line has a chance in hell of working on a woman, or the possibility that it actually might. Half the time I watched this show in a state of complete bewilderment.

And yet it must have done something right, as I kept on watching it. If a show goes by the name Evil then I expect it to explore the idea of what evil actually is, and in this respect it does a pretty good job. To me at least, the true nature of evil is fundamentally banal and monotonous – the opposite of everything that’s kind and interesting and innovative in the world. Though we often like to portray it as glamourous and exciting in fiction, I’m always grateful for stories that expose evil for what it really is (this is the direction I initially thought Star Wars was going to take with Kylo Ren: presenting him as intimidating at first, before revealing he was actually just a whiny little pissant. I loved it, and then they spent the next two movies playing the “poor innocent victim all along” card instead).

In the case of Evil, they DO commit to the reality of evil as something that’s inherently pathetic, from the would-be mass shooter who accidentally shoots himself in the head while preening in front of the mirror, to an entire season of Leland hovering around Kirsten, goading her with threats and insults before she finally confronts him with the truth of his identity: a former insurance adjuster who played the tuba in high school. Right before her eyes, in the face of her scorn and armed with the truth of his real nature, he shrinks. It’s a fantastic scene.

Even as it deals with the “excitement” of demonic possessions and supernatural abilities, it never loses sight of this fundamental truth – which in many cases is cleverly filtered through the use of modern technology. Things like Bluetooth speakers and sophisticated gaming equipment are the tools that evil uses to scare and corrupt, ultimately melding with the show’s tightly wound question of whether certain events are supernatural or mundane (a spooky little girl that approaches Kirsten’s daughters in an online game ends up being your run-of-the-mill sleazebag working remotely through an avatar).

There are some questionable choices: the promise of a long-running arc involving Colter’s visions, a fertility clinic, Leland’s machinations, and various other subplots doesn’t excite me, as I’ve been burned WAY too many times by shows such as this promising a consistent storyline that eventually pulls all the disparate threads together that ultimately never delivers. Likewise, despite a few jabs at the Catholic Church and its horrific history of violence and child abuse, it never really gets into the true depth of its evil – which is odd when you think about, considering the show’s subject matter and the rich potential of pointing out that the institution most committed to fighting a real-or-imagined devil is itself guilty of unequivocal acts of evil.

(And guys, having Kirsten wryly lamp-shade the fact that only women get possessed on your show doesn’t actually erase that consistent creative decision).

Other clumsy missteps made me wince, like the uncomfortable conflation of demonic possession and mental illness, exemplified in a scene that involves one character stating: “possession looks like madness,” that’s countered with another character responding: “madness looks like possession.” Uh, no it doesn’t because POSSESSION ISN’T REAL. Saying otherwise only adds to the stigma against mental illness. And yeah, I see the conundrum that the show faces: naturally if you’re tackling the subject of demons and possession, a conversation along these lines will inevitably take place at some point. But the ambiguous tension between what’s real and what’s not means that it’s never made explicitly clear that if people kill, it’s because they’re bad people – not because they’re mentally ill or possessed.

And so far the show isn’t committing to either side of the debate; only providing evidence that points to supernatural phenomena as often as it does rational explanations. In fact, once Kirsten unmasks Leland as the fraud he is, we’re treated to a scene in which he’s bitterly complaining to his off-screen therapist about how he’s just been emasculated by a woman. And then the camera pans back to reveal this:

Reader, I screamed. Or at least made a strangled noise in the back of my throat. This show can get WEIRD, y’all.

Little Fires Everywhere (2020)

Very much in the footsteps of Big Little Lies comes Little Fires Everywhere – not just in the presence of Reese Witherspoon and the word “little”, but the subject matter: familial conflict and secrets in the seemingly idyllic suburbs – though instead of tackling domestic abuse, this miniseries focuses on race and socioeconomic injustice (and naturally, how they intersect).

Elena Richardson lives a picture-perfect life with her successful husband and four children, at least until she makes the decision to lease her rental house to artist Mia Warren and her teenage daughter Pearl, who have seemingly been living in their car. Moved by a blend of genuine empathy and (one suspects) a chance to virtue signal, Elena allows them to move in. Not long after, she offers Mia a supplementary job as a “house manager” (wanting to avoid the loaded term of “maid”).

The two families gradually integrate, with Pearl befriending Elena’s children Trip, Lexie and Moody, and Mia striking up a rapport with Elena’s youngest, the somewhat troubled Izzy.

Another thread wraps the two families together: Mia works at a Chinese restaurant with an illegal immigrant called Bebe, who was forced to abandon her baby at a fire station when she ran out of resources to care for her. In the show’s one big coincidence, it turns out that Elena’s best friend Linda is the one who ends up adopting baby May Ling, something that Mia discovers and shares with Bebe, leading to a custody battle for the child.

Yet despite this subplot’s seeming importance, it takes a backseat to the dual storylines of Mia and Elena, and how their backgrounds – gender, race, talents, motherhoods, choices – have shaped their lives. I won’t give away anything else, but it provides a backdrop for all sorts of commentary on the culture wars of the nineties (we didn’t know it was a culture war back then, but we sure as hell do now).

A lot of content is pretty heavy-handed, but just as often things are presented with a deft touch – off the top of my head, I appreciated that Izzy acted from a place of genuine activism but also a desire to wind up her mother. When she comes up with a project to illustrate the racism inherent in the adoption system (selling dark-skinned dolls for a cheaper price than white ones), it ends up offending her Black peers and getting her privilege called out by Mia. And though we can feel sympathy for Izzy being the black sheep of the family and her struggle with her orientation (which is wrapped up in the betrayal of a friend) it’s clear that her stunt was inspired by the only person who was actually trying to make a difference for Bebe: an unnamed Asian student who was unobtrusively selling baked goods at school to raise money for her court case.

As it happened, I followed each episode by reading the comments on Previously TV, which in hindsight was a big mistake. Once again, fandom seems to be under the impression that characters exist to be projected upon instead of empathized with. (I mean, you don’t have to, but not doing so clearly led to a baffling viewing experience for a lot of people). To recall one of my favourite Tumblr posts: “y’all want complex female characters until you actually get them”. This show had plenty, and audiences responded with hostility and confusion.

It wasn’t perfect, but I’m glad it exists: that the increasingly-acceptable character of “difficult woman” is being expanded to include to Black women, and that the story itself afforded its women of colour a satisfying, if not exactly happy, ending. (Can you believe that some viewers decried the show for being racist because the white women were “punished” while the likes of Mia and Bebe got away with what they wanted? Sheesh, if you have a problem with this, you’re free to watch literally everything else that exists).

Miss Scarlet and the Duke (2020)

It’s basically Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries set in Victorian London, which is all you really need to know. At only six episodes long you can race through it in no time, and I was immensely happy to see Kate Phillips in a leading role after spending so long in support.

After her father’s death, Elizabeth Scarlet inherits his private detective agency, but naturally struggles to find clients in such a male dominated society. She has a quasi-ally in childhood friend Inspector William Wellington (nicknamed “the Duke”), though he can just as often be a hindrance as a help. Their Belligerent Sexual Tension is perhaps the most obvious comparison to Miss Fisher (aside from the mysteries of course) and though the chemistry is good and the running gag of their mutual preoccupation with a kiss they shared as children that neither of them can stop bringing up at every available opportunity is hilarious, there’s still some fairly unpleasant material here.

For starters, William has a temper that often leads him to breaking and/or throwing objects around Eliza, and on a number of occasions – when Eliza refuses to follow his orders – he has her locked up in a big jail “for her own safety”. I don’t care if he’s a man of his time, I hate this level of overprotective bullshit. Even in fiction it’s a massive red flag, and here it’s usually played as a joke. Please, don't ever mess with a woman's right to come or go as she wishes.

Basically the crucial difference between Eliza/Will and Phryne/Jack is that Jack fundamentally respects Phryne – her agency and her capabilities – in a way that Will doesn’t.

I like that Eliza’s allies are a gay man, a domestic servant and a Jamaican immigrant (who carry around their own prejudices against her, even as they face their own) but the show could definitely do a bit better with its female relationships. You’d think that Eliza would find her niche in helping women with their specifically gendered problems, but the writers never find this fairly obvious solution to her “no customers” problem. And don’t get me started on the suffragette episode…

Still, the pros outweigh the cons, and there’s an opportunity to pick up the pace in season two.

Monsterland (2020)

Aside from a couple of isolated Black Mirror episodes, I don’t think I’ve watched an anthology show in my entire life. The presence of Nicole Beharie and Kelly Marie Tran was what drew me to Monsterland, which is comprised of eight episodes, most of which are based on a number of short stories by Nathan Ballingrud.

I don’t really want to get into the specifics of each one; they are largely standalone with only a few threads of connective tissue between them, and linked mainly by the central theme: that humans are the real monsters. This includes pretty dark themes of corruption, paedophilia, depression, mental illness, suicide, domestic abuse and so on.

Each one takes place in a different state, focusing on rich or poor, men or women, black or white, young or old, with the underlying hypothesis that any human being can be driven to true monstrousness under the right circumstances. Any number of witches, demons or shapeshifters are just metaphors for the negative emotions that drive us: greed, envy, lust, wrath, fear, grief…

Many of the episodes are quite Biblical in nature, though the best ones are more “pagan”, dealing with dark supernatural elements that defy any sort of categorization. Kelly Marie Tran’s episode in particular is excellent, and worth watching on its own merit even if you’re not that interested in the others. She plays a teenage girl (then a young woman after a time skip) called Lauren whose best friend Elena goes missing in the sinister white woods, the site of various disappearances and urban legends.

Years later, Lauren has essentially stepped into Elena’s life; now engaged to her high school boyfriend and referring to Elena’s grieving mother as “mum”. What exactly happened to Elena remains a mystery, though several Rashomon Style flashbacks give us some possibilities of what may have occurred, with varying degrees of involvement on Lauren’s behalf. In any case, it’s clear that Lauren’s early life wasn’t much to her liking (an alcoholic mother, a toxic best friend) and she has a lot to lose if whatever “truth” about her friend comes out on her wedding day. It rachets the suspense up nicely, and the final twist is a slam dunk.

Over the Garden Wall (2014)

This has been on my radar for years, and I went in knowing that it was (bizarrely enough) based on Dante’s Inferno. With that in mind it’s a wonder I didn’t get to it sooner, and it has a strange, almost-hypnotic quality to it that’s entirely unique. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it before: a folksy Americana-based fairy tale in which two half-brothers journey across a strange 19th century-era landscape filled with all manner of strange creatures and locales.

Glancing over the Wikipedia page, it seems its inspiration comes from sources as varied as old board games, vintage postcards, magic lantern slides, John Tenniel illustrations, Don Quixote, Hans Christian Anderson, and chromolithography – so specifically intertextual that I imagine much of the content is understood only by the creators themselves. You’ll finish it and cry: “but what does it all mean?” (What was the significance of the painted stone? What??)

Some portions are a little too self-indulgent (young Gregory’s extended dream sequence) but the rest feels loaded with potent and purpose, lingering just under the surface. You find yourself trying to decipher the potential symbolism and references that the story contains, like a puzzle that doesn’t quite fit together. In this sense, it’s fascinating, with the promise of further enlightenment with every rewatch.

It’s therefore surprising that it’s so short; a one-and-done that has (by the looks of it) only a few graphic novel supplements. That it had such an impact despite its strange and often-surreal subject matter only makes it more intriguing – in many ways it reminded me of Emily Carroll’s work, from its eerie setting to its refusal to answer all the questions it raises.

Now I’m going to go trawl Reddit in search of answers…