Sunday, October 13, 2013

Review of "HEMLOCK GROVE"




Two highschool students are having kinky sex in a sports car. When they finish, the boy pays the girl generously and says "This is where you leave." Later, the girl is invited by one of her female teachers for a, uh, private lesson at the teacher's home. But before she gets there, OH MY GOD, she is chased by some horrible beast and brutally murdered.

The boy, ROMAN GODFREY, is the son in the wealthiest family of the town of HEMLOCK GROVE, in Pennsylvania.  They are so rich, his mother, OLIVIA, rents out an entire amusement park so he can take his cousin, LETHE, there for a date. Uncle NORMAN is displeased at such ostentation, but Olivia is a delightfully shameless, ball-breaking manipulatress who doesn't care what others think as long as she gets her own way.

Roman has a sister, SHELLY, who is spastic, mute, and who has an abnormally large right eye, but who seems quite intelligent.  The father of Roman and Shelly killed himself years ago because he was convinced his wife was a witch and Shelly was some kind of demon spawn.

Roman, by the way, may be an upir (either an atypical vampire or dragon depending on where you look) and can do the 'These are not the droids you're looking for' shtick.



Among the impoverished people in the town is PETER ROMANCEK, another high school student.  He is also a gypsy (actually, only one half) and a werewolf. There's a gruesome transformation scene but he's apparently not dangerous to people.  Nevertheless, when a second girl is brutally murdered, people talk about gypsy trash and suspect he is the killer.

In the second episode, Lethe is pregnant and says she's still a virgin but was impregnated by an angel. (Hey - that story worked once before.)  We also meet Dr. PRYCE, a pleasant, agreeable and wonderfully creepy scientist.



The music is enjoyably spooky, but sounds derivative of the Dexter theme.
 
In spite of all the teenagers, this is not a series just for teens.  The combination of supernatural weirdness and ordinary human weirdness makes for humorous and easy-to-watch entertainment.  Don't look for any insights into humanity, but this series will get your pulse to a run.  I give it ++++.

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