i saw a few eps of Kingdom Hospital over the weekend. not everything about the show works for me. the title sequence, and the theme by Ivy, are a few of the things that do:
(or here, on youtube.)
the series works best when it's being utterly weird, which, ironically, is mostly during the scenes involving the living rather than the dead. except for the Underground Kingdom and a few elements such as the old driverless ambulance, the treatment of the supernatural (i.e., ghosts) is tedious, humdrum and oh so very conventional (and i just can't get over century-and-a-half year old ghosts using phrases like "butt-out"--that could just be me; it could be a valid expression in America at the time, but still). i have a particular aversion to the good/evil polarization that characterizes the Western take on supernatural horror.
plus, the talking animals, though weird in their own right, don't quite work, and good god Peter Rickman's wife is annoying.
the Underground Kingdom is actually still pretty conventional, but it has a pretty, right-out-of-the-Cabinet (of Dr. Caligari) look to it that i totally dig.
perhaps the worst thing i can say about the show is i don't find it scary at all, but, again, that could just be me, having been desensitized by the Eastern take (i.e., Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu, et al.) on this kind of weird horror. i haven't seen the Lars von Trier original, but i've seen trailers online (again on youtube), and while the production for the US version is definitely slicker and visually darker, i get the feeling the sober, relatively unstylized and mundane look of the original ups the scare factor considerably.
the US version is, however, aptly atmospheric, and atmosphere is what the show is all about for me. and is probably why, despite all the things about it that i simply do not care for, i can't seem to stop watching it.
3 comments:
Gotta agree though I remember reading reviews beforehand that said it wasn't all that good (i.e. scary). When I did catch some segments before on AXN, I had to concur: despite the ambience of the shots, it wasn't all that freaky (which was why I never got into it). Ironically, I actually thought Supernatural did a better job of being scary though what's not to like about a scare-fest combined with The OC?
good god, you aren't a Buffy fan, too, are you?
i keed. i've never seen Supernatural, so have no right comparing it to Buffy.
in fact, i don't watch Buffy either, so i have no right to say anything about *that*.
though i have seen a few eps of the "slayer chick" and found the mythology a bit too derivative and, well, teenybopperish for my tastes, though i did enjoy the uber-dumb movie, simply because it seemed to me that it had absolutely no pretensions. though that was a while back, and my memory can be rather unreliable.
the lack of scare in the kingdom doesn't hurt it so much in my mind, because, as i've said, the atmosphere is beautifully done, and besides, i've resigned myself to the fact that my scare threshold has upped in recent years. it's when those damn ghosts show up and do what they do (damned conventional and boring, i wish they'd just stick to the walls or the elevator shafts, whispering inaudibly or just plain shutting up, damnit) that the series really starts pushing me away.
and what about all that solipsistic drivel, Stephen-King-as-Painter? and did i mention that Peter Rickman's wife is just plain annoying?
still, i wish more shows had this deliciously weird look and feel. not even Carnivale was this pretty.
Hehe not really. Never got into it though I did get to watch more of Angel. However, I did get to see the Buffy musical ep. Pretty funny songs.
On the other hand, I thought the movie slipped a bit on exploring its main concept further. Ironically, a lot of the paranormal romances out nowadays seem to be targeting that field.
Hmmm... it seems like you and eldritch have something in common that you like your horror atmospheric-laden. I don't mind meself but I feel like there's something always missing when I watch these movies or TV shows. Maybe, like you, my horror threshold has climbed as well.
In the end, I suppose that's why I consider Supernatural my guilty pleasure as it keeps me entertained by the 'new' monsters the protagonists always keep coming across.
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