Horror

NBC’s Hannibal returns with its latest entry “Shiizakana,” an episode that explores the strange and complicated relationship Will Graham and Dr. Hannibal Lecter share. Shiizakana’ begins with a clear-cut dream sequence in which Will has Hannibal tied to a tree with the end of each rope cinched around the legs of a black stag. Will exerts control over the animal by signalling the stag by whistling. With each whistle, the stag steps a bit further away tightening the cordage around Lecter’s neck. Will tells Hannibal he is waiting for an admission, but Lecter isn’t interested in a confession, and so as the stag is commanded to fully engage the rope and pulley system forward, our favourite psychopath is beheaded with a geyser of blood splashing across the screen. Will’s command of the both the stag and Hannibal speak volumes about his current state of mind. The opening scene reiterates Will’s capability, and perhaps desire, to do whatever it takes to beat Hannibal at his own game. The two have had their differences, but now their relationship has advanced to a new level. Will is more than willing to unleash the monster inside him, and in order to defeat Hannibal, he must become like Hannibal.

Hannibal’s “Su-zakana” is pretty much a palate cleanser; an episode representing a new start in the relationship between Dr. Lecter and Will Graham. Now halfway through season two, the series seems to be entering a new phase in which Will slowly lures Hannibal by using himself as live bait. Hannibal has never been subtle, and if you didn’t already guess based on the episode’s title alone (which refers to a palate-cleansing-Japanese-dish), this week is all about the concept of rebirth.

We knew it wouldn’t be long before Frederick Chilton was a goner for several reasons, but one can’t help but think it came a little too soon. Not only has Raúl Esparza provided the series with some much needed dark humour and a superb performance, but his character has a prominent and important role in both Thomas Harris’s novels and in their cinematic adaptations. That said, this is an adaption and a very different medium, and so Fuller is wise in deviating away from the original source material. Nobody needs a page by page, word by word, reenactment of the books; so while Fuller is using Harris’s novels as inspiration, this is his baby, and based on the week to week quality of the show, we shouldn’t complain. It’s unsurprising that the many literature-based TV series currently on the air have approached their source material with varying degrees of success

  17. Home Invasion The true sense of urgency in “Claimed” is reserved for the scenes with Rick and the gang of would-be-rapists and murderers invading the house. Seith Mann does a stellar job sustaining the tension in these scenes, as Rick tiptoes from room to room in search of either a weapon or an …

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 16: “A” Directed by Michelle MacLaren Written by Scott M. Gimple and Angela Kang Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on AMC Just when I was ready to break up with The Walking Dead, Michelle MacLaren comes along and directs one of the season’s best episodes – “A” is chock-full of nail-biting …

  The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 15: “Us” Directed by Greg Nicotero Written by Nichole Beattie & Seth Hoffman Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on AMC Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Last week, I made it pretty clear how much I disliked “The Grove,” calling it the worst episode in the series …

The Walking Dead’s season 4 delivers its 13th episode, “Alone,” as Sasha questions Bob and Maggie’s decision to move forward towards the sanctuary, while Daryl and Beth find shelter in a funeral home. We are offered a chance to check back in on two groups of survivors; one of which is separated by the end, and the other group splits up only to reunite once again before the credits role. Unfortunately, “Alone” ends up feeling a bit uneven, and is a subpar episode at best.

The 12th episode of The Walking Dead season 4 titled “Still,” spends all of its running time with Beth and Darryl. The two bond over all they’ve lost before and after the apocalypse, while Beth and Daryl try to find a new save haven, and some booze to drown away their sorrow.

The end of the first season of Hannibal left Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) locked up in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Season 2 serves a promising start as Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) wine and dine on the episode title’s eponymous kaiseki, a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. Following his arrest for the murders that took place in season one, Will finds himself in a tricky situation where he has to try and prove his innocence while trapped in a cell and while suffering from temporary memory loss. Hannibal Lecter steps into Will Graham’s shoes as the new FBI criminal profiler, and Will struggles to remember how it is Hannibal framed him for the crimes Hannibal clearly committed.

Ever since Scott M. Gimple took over as showrunner, it’s become clear that he and his team of writers have tried, as hard as they could, to put to rest any unfinished storylines and unanswered questions left over from season three. Yes it took some time to clean up after the mess, but to be fair, he did have to continue from where Glen Mazzara left off. This meant killing off busloads of extras who we never got to know – killing of The Governor once and for all– and blowing up an entire prison, forcing our survivors to move forward. “Inmates” served to get things moving ahead even more. By structuring the episode as a series of vignettes, not all in chronological order, we catch up with the all prison survivors who weren’t featured last week. Beth, Daryl, Tyreese, Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Bob Stookey, Lizzie, and Mika are all accounted for.

After the devastating events at the end of the mid-season finale, which saw the conflict between Rick’s group and the The Governor’s men end in a bloody conclusion, “After” attempts to deal with the fallout from that attack by focusing only on three of the many characters scattered to the wind. In what is a stark contrast to the beginning of season 4, we open with a beautiful ariel shot of the aftermath at the prison. What was once considered a self-sustaining safe haven, now burns to the ground with hordes of walkers invading its premises. No longer are Rick and Carl planting vegetables, nor is Carol teaching the children how to use weapons during reading time. The prison is once and for all destroyed, and as the walkers swarm the grounds, feasting on the insides of a dead horse, the camera pans by the body a dead Governor – putting to rest any rumours that he may still be alive. Following the comic book’s route fairly faithfully, the episode found Rick defeated in every way possible – Rick’s declining health makes him more of a liability than an asset, to the point where he spends half the episode in a state of deep and usually prolonged unconsciousness. When he’s unable to take a Walker down with an ax to the head, Carl is left with no choice but to waste a bullet and shoot the Walker down himself; an act that will come back to haunt him later on.

Any regular readers of Sound On Sight, or listeners of our Sordid Cinema podcast, should know that I am a huge fan of horror films. I recently published a 75 000 + word article counting down the 100 greatest horror films ever made – and every year, I whip a list of the best horror …

Inside (À l’intérieur) Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury Written by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury 2007, France Inside (À l’intérieur) takes the home invasion genre about as far as it can go with an exceedingly simple premise. Four months after the death of her husband, Sarah (Alysson Paradis), who is nine months pregnant, is tormented by …

The Walking Dead season 4 brings the action with its midseason finale “Too Far Gone”. The Governor and his troops make their assault on the prison, and the face off between them and Rick’s group is not only a reckoning, but a long-awaited resolution to a story that has been dragging on for far too long.

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 7: “Dead Weight” Directed by Jeremy Podeswa Written by Curtis Gwinn Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on AMC The penultimate episode of The Walking Dead season 4 proves that zombies have a limit when it comes to serving as entertainment for show-runners who continue lurching slowly down a path …

Anyone who listens to our Walking Dead podcast has heard me comment on how much I would like to see the writers of the Walking Dead take bigger risks. Just last week I mentioned how I’d love to see an entire episode that doesn’t feature Rick and the gang. It’s no secret, The Walking Dead always does better with their more focused installments. I also stated how much I’d like to see more flashbacks featured on the show. That said, I also made it very clear, that I wasn’t necessarily happy with the sudden return of The Governor in the final moments of last week’s fifth instalment, “Internment”. The sixth episode of season four titled “Live Bait,” gives me everything I asked for, but there is one problem: it revolves entirely around the one-eyed villain from season three, who most of would prefer to never see again. And I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this decision.

Danny Huston guest stars on the sixth episode of American Horror Story: Coven, as an axe-wielding killer whose spirit is released from the dead by Zoe after communicating with him using a Ouija board. Much like Asylum, Coven is cramming in as much as they can in terms of plotting.

About 20 minutes into “Internment,” and I couldn’t help but think I was missing both Michonne and Carol greatly. Both actresses have been at the top of their game all season, and it helps that the writers have done such a wonderful job in building (or rebuilding) their characters. But thankfully for some of us, “Internment” wholly belonged to Hershel. Scott Wilson is a great actor, arguably one of the best in the long list of names in the cast, but this is the first time the character has taken front and center in an episode since he first appeared back in season two. And boy did he shine.

The reading of film articles can be both a great pleasure and an educational experience. With the wealth of film writing available at the touch of a key, it should be pointed out that there are a number of current trends in film article writing that are lowering the overall bar in terms of quality. …

“Burn, Witch, Burn! deals with the fallout of last weeks climax which saw Cordelia blinded, when assaulted at a nightclub by a hooded assailant who threw sulphuric acid in her face. Meanwhile, Marie Leveau’s army of dead storm Miss Robichaux’s Academy. The fifth installment of Coven is immersed in the guilt of cruel mothers. LaLaurie is forced to come to terms with the pain and suffering she inflicted on her own daughters who rise from their graves, and Fiona feels responsible for Delia’s attack. On top of all this, two witches display new unexpected powers as Zoe manages to break Laveau’s spell and defeat her zombie army with only a few words, and Delia receives a startling clairvoyant vision of her husband’s murderous and cheating ways.

The fourth episode of season four of The Walking Dead spends the majority of its time outside the prison gates. Tyreese, Darryl, Michonne and Bob search for a way back, while Rick and Carol head out in search of more supplies. In the past we’ve bid farewell to many of our favourite characters. Of the bunch, the only one who didn’t go out as a result of death is Morgan, who not once, but twice separated himself from Rick Grimes by choice.

By far the best of the first three episodes of season four, “Isolation,” written by Robert Kirkman continues to devote more time to both the characters we already know and care about, while offering some moments for the more interesting newbies to strut their stuff. “30 Days Without An Incident” was a fairly satisfying instalment, but left me with concerns that the writers would continue to introduce new characters and kill them off within the very same episode (R.I.P. Zack).

The best decision show-runners Ryan Muprhy and Brad Falchuk ever made, was to write each season of American Horror Story as a self-contained miniseries. In following a different set of characters and settings, and a storyline with its own beginning, middle, and end, American Horror Story continues to reinvent itself each and every year. Unlike AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead, which is still chasing its own tail, Coven’s revival of classic horror tropes mixed with campy erotic-horror excess seems fresh, even when familiar.