Disappointing 19th Century Gothic Dramas

 

Disappointing 19th Century Gothic Dramas

by Kristin Battestella

These two throwback productions have a lot to offer in period piece morose. Unfortunately, the crowded storytelling makes for disappointing, mixed bag viewing that deserved more.

The Black Velvet Gown – Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) leads this 1991 award winning ITV adaption of the Catherine Cookson novel complete with 1830s impoverished patchwork and dirty coal downtrodden mood. The dated, flat print actually helps the humble, hardworking candles and quills as our widow Mariah and her children come to work at a dilapidated manor for four shillings plus room and board. Bitter spinster sisters give the disapproving once over and gossip about what trouble she is because Mariah can read and write, but chores and montages with upbeat music and ye olde town square bustle imply circumstances are otherwise happy. The master sets up a school in his library for the children and offers our housekeeper his mother's titular gown. However, suggested love triangles with the woodsman move quickly, nobody seems to brood or like each other that much yet there's talk of marriage and Mariah disrobes to wait for the master – who says she doesn't look that much older than her little daughter. Though struggling financially, he promises the children puppies and ponies, crossing fatherly boundaries and creepily manhandling them before the enraged twelve year old boy slices up the master with a sickle. The master admits he had to give up teaching because of his “weakness” but his threat to have the boy jailed for attacking him carries more weight then his implied abuse? The family is blackmailed into staying, forcing Mariah to rip up that gorgeous dress before the time jumps to eight years later. Our daughter is now quite the scholar, feeling sorry for the deathbed master that taught her and screwed over her family. This moves fast, almost too fast – as if the important elements have been glossed over and we're supposed to sympathize with the master for making the daughter his heiress. The male lawyers think Mariah should be grateful for inheriting this strapped property, speculating that she slept with her master to get it. Unfortunately, any potential behind closed doors meaty is at best tame and largely absent. A letter seemingly confirming the master abused the son is ignored by the daughter he educated, and her being smart is made the worse crime. Servants must know their place and never talk back as we move from mother to daughter in the second half. Young Biddy remains determined at the new downstairs, defiant despite being whipped while her brother is said to be smart enough to keep quite. The abusive undercurrent is confusing, for sex was seemingly traded to the previous master yet it's this tough laundress work that must be endured and overcome. What filth she's spreading by quoting poetry in public and learning letters in the servant quarters! Although the nothing new statements are weak, the high up idiots not wanting anyone else to gain knowledge reeks of today. Once elevated to chambermaid, our daughter learns how to behave and marries up before using her inheritance to open an equal opportunity school. The morose atmosphere, dramatic performances, and attention to class detail are here, however the last half hour rushes with no focus on how our smart girls cause trouble and all the men want them nonetheless. The twofold storytelling feels pointless with no time to tell either properly – leaving viewers to read the book to get the whole tale. I mean, the dress never even had to do with anything? Great frock, though. Would wear!

The Doctor and the Devils – The Burke and Hare names are changed for this long gestating 1985 Freddie Francis (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave) directed and Mel Brooks (Dracula: Dead and Loving It) produced horror yarn with a surprisingly elite cast. Well dressed doctor Timothy Dalton's (Penny Dreadful) sophisticated justification of what must be done in the name of anatomy and male only lecture hall contrast the gory body on the exam table – the grim product of grave diggers Stephen Rea (The End of the Affair) and Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies) who circumvent medical law for three guineas a body to impress working girl Twiggy (Brand New World). Dirty streets, ruined clothes, and congested pubs don't mix with the top hats and brightly lit upscale, reiterating the classism between working girls and well to do praying doctor's sister Sian Phillips (I, Claudius). The dialogue is intriguing and the performances well done. However this is slow to start with to and from coming and going carriages and romps in the back alleys. Drawn out scenes and idle busy moments delay the graveside thefts, creepy cadaver cuttings, bleeding arteries, and blood splatter marring the fine shirts and ties. At only ninety-two minutes, this should know whether it's focus is the murderous men or the medial horror. Pretty medical assistant Julian Sands (Gothic) gets his hands dirty in buying the bodies, but seeing his girl in the shady brothel, well that's too much! Humor and hooker jokes are apparently meant to have us laugh at the downtrodden who have resorted to killing, but the realistic gore and muffled smotherings in the dark are a better warped. After all, our desperate snatchers are putting bedridden victims out of their misery. The dirty pain, black teeth, and pox sallow waste of the living is made new, fresh, and useful as a dead body. New messy science has no time for red tape impeding a surgeon who makes scary sense when he objects to his talents being shackled by outdated ideology. Rival professor Patrick Stewart (Star Trek) is suspicious of our flippant doctor at the medical inquest. Yes that is his kidney in the jar but it's not his kidney! Healing a grateful cripple offering a meager payment conflicts with the necessary dehumanizing of the cadaver. Our doctor can't worry that they used to be people when it's his duty to do what needs to be done in the name of science. The provocative ideas are crowded with the body snatching comic relief, unnecessary scenes, back alley cockfights, and long gaps with seemingly important characters absent onscreen. The last half hour rushes with dinner parties shocked to hear of homelessness, doomed women, and the city squalor beneath the high society galleries. More victims and moralistic questions split hairs on if paying for bodies is murder for hire. Poor lodgers who suspect foul play and a tough old lady that just won't die are oddly played for laughs amid fiery dreams, butchers, and bodies in the sewer. Recognizing a victim is inconsequential when our doctor demands that he is right and the medical establishment is wrong. The Hammer throwback vibes and gothic atmosphere are welcome with working girls in peril, betrayals, and fingers left in the fireplace. However the period drama and humorous attempts don't quite come together with the best horror moments. This wraps up quickly with who's arrested or gets away unbothered becoming lost – probably thanks to the decades of delay and too many hands on the script.

Neverending Watchlist James Bond Podcast Collab!

 

I was so excited to take part in The Neverending Watchlist Podcast and their James Bond project! You can listen to hear who I would cast as the next 007! 

A huge thank you to all collaborated on this episode, you're all legends and we owe you all a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. #JamesBond #NextJamesBond

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— The Neverending Watchlist - Movie Podcast (@NeverendingWL) October 30, 2024

Thank you for having me and thanks for listening! You can keep track of my audio/visual guest appearances with our Podcast and Video labels or hear us regularly on the Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com. 

Read More on James Bond:

Revisiting Pierce Brosnan as James Bond

Sean Connery as 007

Daniel Craig's Tenure as Bond

Our Top Ten James Bond

Brooding Victorians and Moody Costume Dramas

Brooding Victorians and Moody Costume Dramas

by Kristin Battestella

Well, the title pretty much says it all. If you're looking for angst, frocks, pathos, or British accents, settle in for these windswept period pieces and literary flavorings.

Jane Eyre – Lace, candles, bonnets, frills, and waist coasts open this eleven episode 1983 adaptation starring Zelah Clarke (Dombey & Son) and Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights). The print is flat now and the production values hampered, however the attention to detail accents the gloomy manor house and its cruel family, abusive isolation, and rare comfort in books. Supposed problem child Jane is passed along to a terrible school where the punishment only increases because of her defiance in the face of starvation, illness, fatal friends, and instruments of correction. Often excised scenes are here word for word, and the very British glum and decorum may be boring for some before the warmth and comfort found in the governess position at Thornfield Hall. Kindly housekeepers and friendly chats let Jane express herself, but locked rooms, ghostly echoes, and whispers of the peculiar master build ominous before an enigmatic roadside encounter with a handsome stranger. Aren't all Jane Eyres identified by their Rochesters? Dalton's brooding suave is very much what we think of in a Rochester – smoldering and easily flustered by Jane in debates over tea where dialogue and performance are primary. He's used to having his way but this lowly governess won't buckle despite the unresolved sexual tension before there was even UST. Jane isn't exceptional but won't yield on her convictions, earning a begrudging respect from the melancholy Rochester, who can confide in her about reluctant gentry matches and superiority versus equality. He admires Jane's purity and would seek to reform through her, wearing his heart on his sleeve even as his secrets would corrupt her. Sinister violence and mysterious accidents make happiness too good to be true alongside beds set on fire, fascinating dualities on character and wickedness, and wild versus saintly symbolism. Jealous resentments dampen pleasant outdoor scenes, turning charming one on one banter into angry, looming, and yearning repression. Rochester is not the silent type, and the scene chewing in many ways has to speak for both characters and draw out do gooder Jane. In spite of the deathbed confessions, age differences, be on your guard warnings, and symbolic white veils torn in two – talk about red flags, girl – we're here for it hook, line, and sinker, swept up in the impediments at the altar, scary attic scenes, bitter revelations, and fleeing into the moors to forgo love and be true to oneself. Seriously though, what is St. John's problem anyway? While this is a wonderful story, the finale does rely on sudden relatives and coincidental fortunes, and I for one was always disappointing something more spooky wasn't afoot. Late episodes away from Thornfield drag thanks to odd scenes without first person narrator Jane and this is a little too long to marathon all at once, but this unabashedly takes its time to assure a complete adaptation. I love the 2011 version for its compact, more gothic spirit; however this is delightful for fans of the cast, period piece audiences, classroom comparisons, and Bronte lovers.

The Man Who Invented Christmas – Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) stars as Charles Dickens alongside Christopher Plummer (Somewhere in Time) and Jonathan Pryce (Hysteria) in this whimsical 2017 account on what really happened during the 1843 writing of A Christmas Carol. Our successful author has toured America to much fanfare, but Dickens is ready to get back to work despite unforthcoming publishers thanks to the poor sales of Barnaby Rudge, negative Martin Chuzzlewit reviews, and gasp – writer's block. It's expensive being a London gentleman when the wife is redecorating, bills are mounting, and everyone wants a donation from the exhausted Dickens, who has no creativity and a deadline to meet. Fancy garb, carriages, quills, candles, and humorous crescendos create charm alongside entertaining children with fairy tales and holiday mentions of veils being lifted as spirits roam between worlds. Grim alleys, dark cemeteries, bitter mourners, snobby friends wishing the poor would die, and humbug revelations inspire Dickens to write about a vile money maker learning the err of his ways thanks to sprites and spiritual intervention. Unfortunately, there wasn't a market for Christmas books back then and no profit in such a minor holiday. Going it alone, Dickens bounces about his bower mimicking voices – because if your find the character's name, he will appear. Similar to Miss Potter, Dickens transcribes Carol quotes from bemusing encounters with the famous characters entering his chamber. Scenes we know and love are acted out before him until an abrupt “That's as far as I've gotten” halt while the players add their opinions on the tale whether he wants them to or not. After starting well, begging for money and mooching relatives slow the spirited possibilities, and we shouldn't leave Dickens' breakthrough once the wonderful frenzy happens. There are hints of darker Dickens aspects, but his debtors fears and realistic problems feel shoehorned in once the fanciful comes to life. It's tough to have the author mirror Scrooge with contrived overnight changes and revelations about Dickens' terrible childhood when we know his life story and anything truly heavy is off limits. Problems are created just for a third act resolution, and one on one confrontations with his father regarding Dickens' lingering shame and brokenness are more powerful. The source here is a non-fiction book, but the film is obviously fiction, and viewers know Dickens had success before and will again. Maybe the real world Victorian issues are meant to parallel the Carol constructs, however the narrative can be uneven, interrupting arguments about killing off characters while they wait about his room or repeating his struggle over what of himself to put on the page before wondering what the point of a story is if there is no hope. After all the forgiveness discourse, a quick postscript with newfangled Christmas trees says everything turned out just fine – although writers today seeing Dickens' need to self publish and inability to get a $300 loan know circumstances haven't really changed amirite? This isn't necessarily a Christmas movie, and the family friendly fantasy may be too much for those seeking a hardcore Dickens biography. Some audiences may be sly to the author within his own story gimmick, too. Fortunately, there's enough charm in the wholesome nuggets and inventive twists on the familiar tale, and I'd also here for Plummer playing Scrooge en masse yes please.

The Turn of the Screw – Downton Abbey alum Michelle Dockery joins Dan Stevens (again) and Nicola Walker (MI-5) in this ninety minute 2009 BBC adaptation of the Henry James askew moving the repressed ambiguity to 1921 institutions with post war doctors analyzing our governess' infatuation with her employer, the topsy turvy male shortage, and of kilter Bly Manor. Fashions, hats, sweet automobiles, fine woodwork, and hefty antiques sell the refreshing setting, however the nonsensical strobe flashes look amateur on top of the time wasting, disjointed doctoring add-ons and unnecessary narration. Visions of dalliances that initially upgrade the Victorian scandalous soon hit the viewer over the head one too many times as the governess imagines her master and his saucy approval. She insists she's not the nervous type, but the dark interiors, maze like staircases, and distorted camera angles add to the strange noises and creepy country manor unease. She's in charge, above housekeepers and maids, but there are too many flighty women doing all the work in this house. Parasols and summer white contrast eerie fog and trains as her boy charge is expelled from school without explanation. The cheeky children whisper about their previous, pretty governess – unbothered by screams, accidents, or dying maids. Melancholy piano music, graveyard echoes, dark figures amid the trees, and faces in the window build on the female isolation, yet all insist there are no ghosts – surely she's just hysterical, overwrought, and obsessed with men. Rumors of suicide and a woman ruined by her lover seem proved by hidden pictures of the master's up to no good valet, and tales of his violence among the unprotected women are better than seeing suspect flashbacks. The prim style degrades to loose hair and nightgowns as our governess jumps to dire conclusions and possessive delirium, but the shouting about it afterward with her doctor interruptions break the tainted picnics and frantic tension. We don't need his sounding board to deduce her fears, just let us see the abusive violence and water perils. Crazy laughter and disembodied voices escalate as the phantoms, repression, and projection possibilities culminate in a one on one battle for the truth. The deviations here are flawed, and while the horror lite is fine for gothic period piece fans, some viewers will expect more than the have it both ways attempt at the ghosts and crazy ambiguity. This isn't the best version but thanks to the cast and unique setting, it can be a good introduction for audiences who haven't seen The Innocents.

A Disappointment

Under Capricorn – Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia) and Joseph Cotten (Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte) star in this overlong 1949 mystery from director Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds) with an opening narration filling in the Colonial Australia history and past Ireland secrets before 1831 governors, stiff upper lip politicking, and wooden exposition. Who has money, who's related to whom, who's doing the land deals – it's all clunky and yawn worthy on top of a period setting perhaps obscure for American audiences then and now. Colorful waistcoats, cravats, and frocks alongside muddy frontier streets and carriages attempt an early Victorian meets Wild West tone, but the shrunken heads rolling at their feet is more awkward then shocking. Hitchcock attempts new techniques here in his second Technicolor film – long takes, zooms, and tracking cameras following the players in scene. Unfortunately, the direction is stilted, moving from men talking to other men talking about what the other men just said. The first fifteen minutes of convicts turned businessmen and conversations while bathing in a barrel could have been excised, opening instead with the newly arrived scoundrel eavesdropping on a suspect dinner at the creepy manor house. Iron-fisted housekeepers, beaten staff, and disobedient convicts add to the drinks, whispers, social shunnings, and an intriguingly absent wife – who has some history with the new man in town. So much time is spent talking about the past at the expense of the present, yet people readily drop all their secrets and explain their life stories to folks they've just met. A few sentimental winks and smiles bolster the love story elements, however it's awkward to see Bergman both lighting up the room as well as playing the drunken barefoot and wobbling sickly. Uncharismatic, strong chinned men, swelling crescendos, and fainting women combine for all the things audiences bemoan about period pieces, and the supposedly scandalous love triangles remain undynamic. A stable boy eloping with the master's daughter and killing her brother in the process while the maid secretly poisons the wife would make for an interesting tale, but most of that action is told after the fact rather than shown. The tiara ensemble and divine ball make for the one exceptional, uninterrupted sequence capturing all the guilt and performance lacking in the rest of the film. Despite horse chases, who really shot whom revelations, and deportation threats; the drama never seems to happen before the abrupt happy ending. One can see what Hitchcock is trying to attempt with characters bound to the visual frame as well as their inescapable history. Unfortunately, calling attention to the drama with the camera only shows how thin the story is. Even if viewers leave any Master of Suspense expectations aside and like romantic period yarns, this is really only for the Hitchcock and Bergman completists.

Tales from the Crypt Season 4

Tales from the Crypt Season 4 Continues the Scary Quality

by Kristin Battestella

Summer of 92's fourteen episode Season Four of Tales from the Crypt once again sources the titular comics alongside Crime Suspense Stories, Haunt of Fear, and Vault of Horror for more choice frights, spooky guests, and cheeky thrills.

Director Tom Hanks cameos along with fellow The 'burbs alum Henry Gibson and boxer cum grave digger Sugar Ray Leonard in the “None but the Lonely Heart” premiere as Treat Williams (Everwood) endures the old lady lipstick before a little poison and another funeral. Killing rich dames is good business, but he needs one more gal to make his fortune before his past comes back to haunt him. Unfortunately, anyone wise to the fatal gigolo might have his head mashed into the television or tie stuck in the paper shredder. Our Crypt Keeper host, meanwhile, is a 'boo it yourselfer' hitting his thumb with the hammer and building a swing set so he can 'hang around' for “This'll Kill Ya” with scientists Dylan McDermott (Olympus Has Fallen) and Sonia Braga (The Rookie). Medicine bottles, insulin injections, long legs, and dead bodies in the trunk don't mix! These radical experiments aren't ready for human trials, but love triangles and mixing business with pleasure make for unreliable antidotes, erroneous injections, and steamy bad habits. Zooms, neon flashes, and rapid montages add to the virus paranoia, patient delirium, boils, and oozing skin. Although the initial edgy music and bad ass language falls flat to start director William Friedkin's (The Exorcist) “On a Deadman's Chest,” C.K. does his Elvis impersonation amid the heavy metal arguing and groupies in leather. Tia Carrere (Wayne's World) is the new bride coming between the band, but freaky snake tattoos lead to a magical artist who says he can solve our musician's problems. There's more graphic sex and nudity this half hour, and the old fashioned needling and talk of putting what's on the inside on the flesh set off the voodoo-esque parlor as the music tensions spiral out of control with fatal bathtubs and gory skin peels. I dare say, there are also some slightly homoerotic themes, too, with mesmerizing snakes, a woman coming between men, a man unable to escape who he really is, and body dysmorphia horror. Likewise, older actress Mimi Rogers (Ginger Snaps) is being replaced by her younger, willing roommate Kathy Ireland (Alien from L.A.) for the behind the scenes meta of “Beauty Rest” with 'Ball Buster' perfume commercials and little creaky push ups from the Crypt Keeper. The seductive, sassy start turns into pageant rivalries and poisoned cookies as the ladies argue whether sleeping to the top or killing to get ahead is worse – but the unusual contest questions and the secret winnings remind the ladies that it's really what's inside that counts. Shady landlord rocker Meatloaf pressures restaurant owner Christopher Reeve (Somewhere in Time) in “What's Cookin',” however bus boy Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) has some new barbecue recipes for the bodies hanging in the freezer. Local cop Art LaFleur (House Hunting) also develops a taste for flame broiled flesh at the booming steakhouse, and the superior turnabout is set off with red lighting, sizzling grills, and all the expected puns from our host.

Bad ratings and the threat of cancellation thanks to shock jock Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) leads shrink radio host David Warner (Wallander) to make an on air visit with frequent caller Zelda Rubenstein (Teen Witch) in “The New Arrival.” His The Art of Ignoring Your Child book, however, doesn't help the screaming girl thanks to the masks and booby traps in this spooky manor with dark stairs and a dangerous attic. Not to mention the attacker points of view, deadly twists, and ceiling fan mishaps. C. Keep is looking for a home on 'derange' marked 'souled' in “Maniac at Large,” but meek Blythe Danner (Huff) doesn't feel safe in her library thanks to trouble causing ruffians and newspaper reports of a serial killer on the loose. Creepy music by Bill Conti (North and South) adds to the unease as late night cataloging and book piles in the basement build paranoia. Suspense editing and strategic lighting escalate the alarms, knives, vandalism, and possible intruders as the headline hype spirals out of control. Producer Joel Silver directs the memorable “Split Personality” as Joe Pesci (Goodfellas) romances twins by pretending he is also a set of twins where one always has to be away on business. Split screen camera work and intercut conversations accent the double talk, but these possessive ladies are not to be taken advantage of by anyone. Everything has to be fifty-fifty, and despite swanky tunes and casino style, the luck is going to run out on this con thanks to Tales from the Crypt's unforgettable brand of saucy, graphic, and cheeky. The Crypt Keeper has some therapy on the rack to open “Strung Along” because he's 'a little stiff everyday,' but recovering puppeteer Donald O'Connor (There's No Business Like Show Business) is nostalgic for his old black and white kids show. Heart attacks and sentiment, unfortunately, clash with his younger, bikini clad wife. His creepy clown marionette also seems to have a life of his own, and increasingly dark designs set off the affairs, love letters, and shocking betrayals before the full moon of “Werewolf Concerto.” Chanting music and infrared animal perspectives add to the chases, howls, and hairy attackers as sexy guest Beverly D'Angelo (National Lampoon's Vacation) is trapped in a hotel with wolf hunter Timothy Dalton (Penny Dreadful) amid piano compositions, double crosses, and gunpoint standoffs. The werewolf revelations and race to beat the moonrise are superb, surprises again combining for some of Tales from the Crypt's best winks, scares, and star power. The wilderness solitude for Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and the late Margot Kidder (Black Christmas) in the “Curiosity Killed” finale only acerbates the marital insults. However, their fellow campers have a special tonic that might curb the catty aging. Excellent interplay and fountain of youth sympathy build to the inevitable topper with night blooming jasmine, bugs, graves, moonlight madness, disturbing gore, and all the irony to match.

Unfortunately, Tales from the Crypt does briefly sag mid season with the double dealings, blackmail, and swindling resets of “Seance.” The candles, incantations, and Old World atmosphere of the psychic parlor are just a smokescreen for mid century hustles and colloquial put ons with Ben Cross (Dark Shadows) and even Crypt Keeper Investigations doing a Sam Spade spoof with 'No headstone left unturned.' The noir aesthetic looks great, but this is another typical crime plot with lawyers, money, and a tacked on supernatural bookend. Our Keeper's wearing adorable little chaps and a cowboy hat as Tales from the Crypt producer Richard Donner directs “Showdown.” Sunsets, haze, bleak shadows, and dry orange vistas add a surreal, hellish look to the horses and gunslingers. There are quick draws, snake oil tonics, and ghosts in the saloon, but this non-linear tale is dark and tough to see with a distorted passage of time and too much confusion about what should be an interesting question on who's dead or alive. The pace both drags over nothing yet maybe it's also a story worthy of more than a half hour. Star power is also surprisingly lacking, however, the next episode “King of the Road” has Brad Pitt (The Counselor), hot rods, and disturbing street racing collisions yet also misses the mark. Even the Keeper is too busy doing 'A Mid summer Night's Scream' instead. Both these episodes come from original scripts with loose ties to a Two-Fisted Tales movie adaptation, and the hooking up with the cop's daughter, blackmail, kidnapping, and spiders in the mailbox are pointless torment. Cool veneer, music montage filler – it's scarier that there are no English subtitles on the bare bones Season Four DVD set!

Thankfully, the full opening intro once again plays with each Tales from the Crypt episode, and macabre soul that I am, I love studying it for home décor ideas. Word processors, big old retro televisions, vintage cameras, video dating services, and VHS stuck in the VCR add to the mod eighties style, all white designs, and old lady mauve. Older blue nighttime lighting invokes the cemetery mood, and purple hues or Art Deco black and white tones create flavor with very little. Forties styles, long stem cigarettes, and big hats go far while fire, candles, and thunderstorms provide atmosphere regardless of setting. Bright luxuries contrast the dark dated nineties clubs, but there are still high-waisted jeans and the occasional shoulder pads on the ladies alongside the lingering one giant earring trend and big blowout hairstyles. The language and gore are also a little tame to start the season – perhaps the producers were already thinking of the future syndication reruns beyond HBO. However, black lingerie, thongs, nudity, and further saucy actions are still somewhat risque. Jump cuts and repeat zooms both cover production corners as well as build onscreen intense while heart pulsing rhythms and sound effects accent the bloody prosthetics and horror makeup. Several practical monster effects remain surprisingly good, and creepy old homes, dangerous antiques, and spooky staircases join the slimy recently deceased or skeletons from the grave. 

 

There are a few slip ups in this short but otherwise choice season. However, once again Tales from the Crypt turns out a fun little marathon with Season Four's campy chills and scary stars making for some of the series' best.

Penny Dreadul: Season 3

Penny Dreadful Season Three a Disappointing Finale

by Kristin Battestella

I loved me some Penny Dreadful. Previously, I watched the First Two seasons twice or more before writing my reviews a few months after I had simmered in the immersion of all things sophisticated Victorian macabre. I re-watched the entire series again when finishing this obviously late review, but Season Three's still blindsiding finale and haphazard resolution of the series undermines the glorious potential that was yet to be found in Penny Dreadful.

Year Three hits the ground running with some delightful circumstances in “The Day Tennyson Died.” Our quirky little family of evil fighters – Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), and His Monster (Rory Kinnear) – is scattered about the globe from London to the Old West and Africa to the frozen north. Their townhouse base is shabby with covered furniture and piled mail before the titular solemn and lovely poetic references reconnect old friends with tenderness and sympathy. After all they've been through, those in London are allowed to stew and cry – unlike the unforgiving railroad and lawless land of the New Mexico Territory. Though blindingly bright compared to the British bleak, there's an underlying ominous to the witches and werewolves among the lawmen. Letters from Africa with burials made right also find Chiricahua Indians in the most unlikely Zanzibar alley while faraway frozen trawlers debate cannibalism and melodies remind monsters of when they were men. Famous names face racism at Bedlam as pale minions with anemia excuses lurk. Penny Dreadful has a lot to do but does it with superb conversations, new allies, and bloody vignettes. “Predators Far and Near” adds vintage photography, jurisdiction technicalities, a modified barber's chair for experimenting on patients, and fear of the gramophone cylinders recording one's sin. Therapy confessions recount prior indiscretions, but the prescription for godless loneliness is doing something innocent and happy no matter how small. Women debate on light and dark souls while men bond over their love of daughters and a son not birthed to them but bound with their suffering. Talbot family history, ritual chanting, and colorful vision quests counter the sophisticated Victorian science lectures and whimsical memories of adventures the likes of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Unfortunately, our dreadfuls are more familiar with lunatics and monsters rather than childhood heroes, with Jekyll and Hyde-esque transformations on crazed victims, deceptively charming courtships, a wise Apache woman reminiscent of the fortune teller in The Wolf Man, and a desert full moon to aide one's bone cracking escape.

Unholy alliances between witches and the Wolf of God continue in “Good and Evil Braided Be.” Is it the beast or angel, good or evil that's the real persona? Does the mind create phantoms and demons to explain the darkness and pain? Do you bury the animal inside or unleash it? Between the werewolf curse, divided locales, tug and pull father figures, and hints of Hyde, Penny Dreadful creates superb dual themes alongside several racial moments and of the time derogatory Native American comments. Sophisticated light and dark visuals and good and evil motifs are interwoven against crudeness, triumphing over those who define what's black and white or right and wrong solely based upon skin tone rather than soul. The audience isn't hit on the head with the social commentary, but one scene beautifully addresses the sadly still lingering attitudes upfront. New, risky hypnosis techniques further retrace past darkness and despair in Episode Four “A Blade of Grass.” Memories and present offices blur in a dreamy act with current doctors and familiar faces in unexpected places uncovering new revelations of a forgotten padded white room. In camera foregrounds and backgrounds accent the confined or expanded four walls as needed with overhead views, zooms, face to face close ups, and wide angle warped. Finite descriptions of precious few details, amplified sounds, and demon shadows match the kindness of an orderly or the evils that await. Precious blankets are taken away amid growling, crying, straight jackets, and water torture. Can God find you in a place like this or are you alone? Our patient fears the evil within and wants to die over the betrayals and sins committed, yet the tender bonding with her jailer turned poetic advocate provides an unlikely compassion. Whether you can face yourself in the mirror or not, these fugue state manifestations overcome evil with the truth at Christmas in one excellent parable. The least amount of effects, minimal characters, and few locales leave nothing but the emotion and anguish upon their faces. It's divine, just everything television should be and perhaps the best episode of the entire series.

And then, somehow, Penny Dreadful went to shit.

Series writer and creator John Logan hands Penny Dreadful over to new writers mid season – a maneuver suggesting a viable transition rather than leaving unknowns to resolve your planned finale with rushed characters and compressed stories. Andrew Hinderaker (Pure Genius) pens “This World Is Our Hell” with The West as a barren purgatory full of symbolic multi-layered pursuits on who the righteous should save or whom the evil would kill. Water is scarce among the grave sins and shame worn as redemption; forgiveness versus temptation comes in revealing fireside chats recounting past ambushes and the difficulty of serving multiple masters – fathers, duty, Lucifer. Unfortunately, these lofty topics are undone by nonsensical mysticism. Witches can summon snakes to conveniently wipe out pursuers but cannot heal injured mounts or conjure water and dying people somehow have enough energy for awkward evil sex after days of thirst. The Victorian mad science and desert shootouts jar in an anchor-less back and forth when the confrontations between our converging father figures are more interesting. Lengthy exposition on past horrors feels odd in a series that often shows rather than tells. Why not have an entire Talbot past hour the way “Closer than Sisters” showed us how Penny Dreadful really began? Otherwise the audience is left confused over who's really at fault for the faithful turning evil. It was Ethan's dad's fault for making it the army's fault who made the Apaches to blame??? Penny Dreadful always had pacing issues and uneven characters, but this Old West excursion could have ditched the dead weight characters and been back to London in half the time. I don't think it is necessarily Hinderaker and newcomer Krysty Wilson-Cairns' fault, but “No Beast So Fierce” throws even more at the screen with too many threads regarding who's evil or who's the law amid busy shootouts, vampire minions, Bedlam serums, how to kill a man tutorials, Egyptian wonders unrealized, and new steampunk introductions. What's supposed to be important – monsters being kind to sick children or sassy sword wielding new characters? If the key to defeating evil is holding fast to loved ones, why has our family been apart all season? Perhaps one writer should have been responsible for one set of characters the entire year, as Dracula's apparently content to wait out the cowboy adventure while other isolated and aimless immortal plans go round and round and pull Penny Dreadful apart at the seams. 

 

Penny Dreadful has an innate melancholy – cemeteries, grave digging, mourning shrouds – but the dark romance is used for unnecessary preachy in “Ebb Tide.” Separated characters finally meet, but one knock on the door and a brief scene reconciling the past and present is not enough. Friends that could fill this empty manor and fight the bloodshed are pushed away while our team in the West doesn't heed ancestral warnings. Despite insisting London is home, characters remain obstinate just for the sake of creating drama, leading to contrived betrayals and more speeches begging for the fast forward button. Touching conversations on who will bury whom are interwoven with weaker plots, straying from the core and repeating exposition we already know. Visions unite players who have been apart but such mystic conversations and wisdom on rescuing one another from darkness should have happened much sooner – two episodes ago, nobody cared. Krysty Wilson-Cairns writes the quick at forty-three minutes “Perpetual Night,” and it's the shortest episode of Penny Dreadful when the series desperately needed more time. The boys rush back to Londontown amid foggy cityscapes, morbid voiceovers, tasty frogs multiplying, and rats amok. Dead wolves and toothy minions everywhere require swift blade work and fireplace pokers to stave off vampire infections – but no one thought to call Dr. Frankenstein away from Bedlam's dungeon when people are said to be dying by the thousands? Penny Dreadful bites off more than it can chew, takes too long to achieve what matters, and spits out the excess when there's no time left. Ironically, the “The Blessed Dark” finale also delays, saving choice moments with its stars rather than going full tilt with the dream hazy, bodies on hooks, and bats as sad lullabies over the special credits recap the sad state of our separate characters. It's very exciting to see the reunions and werewolves fighting vampires in true monster mash up fashion as it should be – Dr. Jekyll passes by as Dr. Seward hypnotizes Renfield! As a season finale, this hour provides closing moments on some toiling plots. However, as a series finale, it barely resolves anything. Brief mentions on her destiny, his destiny, and previous prophecies don't make sense anymore, and Victor literally bumps into the gang at Bedlam. The team is together again by accident! Major moments with his monsters earn one scene each, and none of those super strong immortals join the End of the Days^TM battle. Instead, bad ass walking down the street filler and a few ridiculously outnumbered pistols struggle with conveniently confusing action choreography. Bitter ties to the First Season become unrealized tangents, and new characters are inexplicably more steadfast than our original crew. Four episodes ago, life was worth fighting for but now isolated characters give up because the script says they should in a one hundred and eighty degree turn that's painful to see end this way.

Vanessa Ives begins alone, a recluse living in squalor before rising thanks to words and wits with her therapist. Eva Green's heroine cleans up and humbly restores the manor. Despite losing her faith, Vanessa is inspired by Joan of Arc's confidence and says she will remain resolute. Oddly, she doesn't seem as psychic or intuitive anymore and fails to recognize evil tendencies she previously pegged so astutely. It's sad to see Vanessa open herself, revisiting innocent things that make her happy or having a man's company once again end in terror. She's willingly hypnotized to face her repressed psychiatry treatment, addressing her past doubts, regrets, and battles with Lucifer. “A Blade of Grass” shows her at rock bottom before a ray of hope and renewed prayers – if you believe in evil, then you must believe God is there to defeat it. Unfortunately, Penny Dreadful squanders the Lucifer issues, fast tracks Dracula, and circumvents Vanessa's body and soul versus the fallen brothers with a past event cheating viewers out of a current victory. Vanessa can sense and see Kaetenay when the plot says so, but her lack of psychosexual possession and failed insights inexplicably have her give up despite knowing overdue help is on the way. Green saves this sloppy writing and deserved more hardware for Penny Dreadful. I don't blame her if she recognized the tone had changed and was ready to depart. The series could have continued in searching for an evil Vanessa as an absent lead a la Blake's 7 rather than two scenes with bad girl red eye shadow trying to make up for rushing to resolve Vanessa's story. Josh Hartnett's Ethan “Lawrence Talbot” Chandler is also not only reluctant to see his real father, but he's angry at being adopted as Kaetenay's Apache son. Ethan knows there is blood on his teeth and his soul deserving of punishment and wears his guilt on his sleeve. Unfortunately, his history comes from three different sources – so for all this New Mexico excursion, we don't get a clear picture. The Wolf of God also spends about fifteen minutes being evil, standing up for Hecate over Malcolm because he won't repent and belongs in hell. Ethan speaks evil prayers at the dinner table, but isn't this the guy who's Latin single-handedly exorcised Vanessa? His reciting of the Lord's Prayer in the finale feels hollow thanks to his satanic reversal just a few episodes earlier. Was Ethan's western escapade and Vanessa's evil each meant to be it's own season storyline? They both have a scene or two of darkness, and one moment in the finale doesn't make up for Ethan's back and forth. Meanwhile, Sarah Greene as Hecate travels in white, an unassuming Gibson girl who loves horses and animals but loathes people. She wants to be evil beside Ethan, but her powers are both handy or nonsense as needed. Hecate kills unnecessary to teach him a lesson and lingers too long in this uneven capacity – crowding an already busy Penny Dreadful while not being a character in her own right. The English Sean Glider (Hornblower) may be an unusual choice as a U.S. Marshall, but his crusty ways balance the British tidiness of Douglas Hodge as Inspector Rusk as they pursue Our Mr. Talbot. Rusk may ask for tea in the bar car and insist Scotland Yard Inspectors do not carry firearms, but he doesn't underestimate the ruthless West. He begins to believe the Occult upon his case and does take up more violence as the blood on their path increases – before a thankless end, of course.

The beard is back for Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcolm, and even if he doesn't know all the details, he's ready to respect Wes Studi's (Geronimo: An American Legend) Chiricahua Kaetenay if it will help save Ethan. Like an oasis in white in the mostly unlikely place, it's wonderful when Malcolm and Ethan finally meet up for some shootout action. However, Malcolm really doesn't have a whole lot to do this season beyond listening to Kaetenay. Most of his dialogue is responsive filler, and even before the surprise series finale, I suspected Dalton would not be returning for Season Four. You don't keep a talented name without giving him quality writing, and Malcolm ends up repeating the same plot. Chasing after lost lamb Ethan, fighting a vampire to rescue Vanessa – he's again saving his family even as his travels keep him from his home and any relationship with Victor. Malcolm could have returned to London post-Africa, maybe to meet Catriona sooner or dislike Dr. Sweet, as it's a disservice to reduce him to little more than Kaetenay's sidekick. That said, yes please to more of Studi's set in his ways Apache. He still scalps because old habits die hard, but he doesn't drink and believes one can't die until his purpose is served. Granted, Penny Dreadful is trading the mystical negro trope for the mystical Apache stereotype, but the moonlight visions and enigmatic destiny talk tie the blood, suffering, and wolves together. Kaetenay pushes on after Ethan no matter what – he and his people have endured much but he's prepared to face this darkness over London. There should have been more time for his revelations, and Penny Dreadful only makes use of Kaetenay when needed. It takes seven episodes for Ethan to heed his warnings about what is to come, and he should have mystically connected with Vanessa from the start. As Ethan's father, Brian Cox (Coriolanus) also has some great one on one's with Malcolm. They are wonderfully alike, right down to the conquest map on Jared Talbot's wall, the mountains named after him, and an empty home as the cost. However, a boat load of family history that Ethan already knows is repeatedly told rather than seen, leaving Talbot Senior unevenly written with sorrowful or crazed exposition amid one gunshot and stand off after another. Had we seen the first terrible shootout that has him so angry, then this second battle in his ranch chapel would have had much more meaning. Kaetenay provided connecting visions when necessary, so why not have some kind of mystic Talbot dream that showed the betrayals and horrors causing all this pain?

Fortunately, Rory Kinnear's Creature aka Caliban aka John Clare has some superb redemption on Penny Dreadful. He won't harm a dying cabin boy, recalls more about who he was, and realizes who he may yet be after touching moments in the Fourth and Fifth episodes showing his life before his death and resurrection. He is again at the window or in the eaves, on the outside peering in on those that think he is dead. The Creature risks rejection and reaches out despite the pain, blossoming from being an angry violent child to almost the man he used to be. His resurrection allows Caliban to find his family – only to loose it again thanks to innocence versus the unnatural. This season, Clare is almost totally separate from everyone else, alone on this sympathetic journey beyond too brief moments with Vanessa, erroneously on the fringe without even seeing Dr. Frankenstein. He may piece together his past, but not enough was done with the connection between Vanessa and the Creature. She recognizes him, but not him her, and Penny Dreadful cops out by resolving their past in a flashback. Again, just because we the audience saw it does not mean the characters themselves received any current resolution. Why didn't Caliban ever knock on Malcolm's door? He would have been welcome in this misfit family dang nabbit! Reeve Carney's Dorian Gray and Billie Piper's Brona cum Lily Frankenstein, however, should have stayed home. By his very nature, Dorian is a supporting character that never changes. They aren't missed when absent but Penny Dreadful uses him and Lily to shoehorn in some kind of modern feminism vengeance that goes nowhere fast with repetitive, ad nauseam speeches. Whether it is justified man hate or not, the appearance of Jessica Barden (The End of the F***ing World) as Justine perhaps a la the de Sade wastes time with back alley torture, nudity, and bloody threesomes. The warped justice is all over the place with even less to do Dorian getting stabbed for funsies before he gets bored from having seen such depravity already. Episodes grind to a halt with their round and round male behavior psychoanalysis, briefly tossing in suffragettes and violence that makes them just as bad as the abusers from who they claim to rescue women. Penny Dreadful has done better psychosexual themes, and compared to Caliban's soul searching, Lily realizes her humanity too late in one great soliloquy that should happened the moment she was reborn, and Ethan never finds out Brona has been resurrected!!!!

Harry Treadaway's junkie Victor Frankenstein becomes a mopey little piss ant bent on proving his superior science can conquer death, and he arrogantly thinks he can perfect on Jekyll's methods. Maybe there's a parallel between his wanting to create angels instead of monsters and Lily's superior woman army, but their uneven storylines barely intersect beyond a few redundant stalker scenes and never factor into other plots. Victor goes about getting Lily back in the worst way possible, becoming like his originally angry Creature in a fitting poetic justice. He's deluded in thinking Lily owes him anything, and it should be a great destructive character arc. However, rather than having him freaking call on Vanessa while they are both in London twiddling their thumbs, Penny Dreadful treats Frankenstein as an afterthought before one last lesson on how to be a human rather than the monster. One poetic voiceover from Victor such as, “Sir Malcolm, I hesitate to confess it now, but I must inform you I have a singular talent for defeating death as we know it...” could have ended Penny Dreadful in a uniquely twisted vein. Sadder still is that Shazad Latif (Mi-5) as Dr. Jekyll somehow turns into a handing Victor the scalpel lackey. He has history with Dr. F. – roommates and dare I say something more – and faces much “half breed” Victorian racism. Jekyll despises his white father but wants his acclaim and title to help prove his serum on anger and duality. Simply put, there is no way he was intended as a throwaway character and we deserved to know him more. Although scheduling conflicts necessitated the departure of Simon Russell Beale as Mr. Lyle, his being written off as going on assignment to Egypt just begs to be told! Did everyone forget all the prophecies on Amunet and Lucifer or the hieroglyphics carved onto the vampire bodies? Of all the friends still about London who never bother to visit, it's Lyle who draws Vanessa out and into therapy because thanks to his closeted sexuality, he understands what it is like to be unique and alone. Of course, he might have mentioned Perdita Weeks' (The Tudors) thanatologist Catriona Hartdegen when they were studying all that Fallen Angel and Mother of Evil stuff. She's a woman of occult science fencing and wearing pants who doesn't blink at the thought of Dracula being in London. Her one on one scenes with Vanessa are well done with possible replacement or lover vibes, “It's 'Cat' for you, as in cat o' nine tails.'” Wink! She calls Malcolm “Sir M” and I would have liked to see more of them together, but Catriona's style provides a steampunk cum The Time Machine and albeit meaningless potential. Her cool fighting skills are ultimately convenient and inexplicable – if we weren't going to learn more then all these superfluous characters should have never been introduced.

We are however given some divine new characters with Patti LuPone returning to Penny Dreadful as Dr. Florence Seward – an alienist said to have distant Clayton ancestry due to her resemblance to LuPone's previous cut-wife role. Though rigid and progressive, Seward is there to heal the ill, who aren't bad or unworthy, just ill. She calls out every politeness or mannerism, pegging Vanessa's loss, isolation, and depression in delicious two-hander scenes with award worthy dialogue and delivery. A moving session recounting Vanessa's tale, however, makes the doctor strike up a cigarette. She refuses to believe the paranormal causes or that vampires are after her patient, but she does understand pain and has some murderous history of her own. Samuel Barnett's (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) seemingly innocent Renfield is Dr. Seward's secretary, but his red light district cruising leads to bloody encounters and insect snacks. Where Penny Dreadful initially had to dance around the Stoker limitations, these superb character interpretations deserved more than this season's rushed attention. Christian Camargo (Dexter) as zoologist and charming widower Alexander Sweet is a man smitten using rapid fire science references to woo Vanessa, but his reveal as Dracula is too darn early. This romance seemed so happy and Sweet is almost empathetic, but evil lurks in the House of Mirrors of all places! He doesn't want Vanessa's submission, just to be seduced by she, the Mother of Evil and serve her. Sadly, unraveling toppers instead go unresolved. After admitting he was directly responsible for Mina's demise and all of Season One, Penny Dreadful lets Dracula exit stage right and we aren't supposed to notice? What is worth noticing are the trains, dime western action, and steampunky flair alongside our usual penny blood, gore, buzzing flies, broken necks, and bat silhouettes. The cobwebbed and boarded manor opens the windows and clears the dust as the camera focuses on the period touches – vintage motion picture cameras, spectacles, brandy decanters, nibs, and ledgers contrast the hay, canteens, wagons, saw dust, and Native American motifs. The fashions are a little more modern, but the museums, taxidermy, skeletons, and specimens in jars invoke Victorian sciences amid the carriages, cobblestone, and tolling bells. Although some CGI backgrounds are apparent with a foreground actor and fakery behind, the desert vistas, mountains, and ranch compounds create bright lighting schemes to contrast the British grays, developing a unique style like nothing else on television. 

 

Unfortunately, with NBC's Dracula long gone, Crimson Peak's less than stellar box office, and Penny lost too soon, the promise of more Victorian horror and a new dark romanticism appears short-lived. Whether the cast or Logan wanted to depart or Showtime disliked the production expenses, something behind the scenes was the final nail in Penny Dreadful's coffin. The two hour finale burned off the last episodes yet advertising promoting the event as a season finale later backtracked with the series' fate. More merchandising opportunities never seemed capitalized upon, and there was little award campaigning. Having had Season One available on other streaming platforms might have helped the show find more audiences, however Penny Dreadful wasn't available on Netflix until after its cancellation in a tidy Three Season binge package. The series' props have been auctioned off, so it appears no one shopped Penny Dreadful to any other networks. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but in late 2015 while this Third Year was filming was also when Tom Cruise swept in to take over The Mummy and start Universal's highly anticipated but ultimately D.O.A. Dark Universe monster revival. Did somebody squash the competition? Maybe it isn't as simple as that, but I will always be skeptical of Logan and Showtime's he said/she said claiming that this was always how Penny Dreadful was supposed to end. With new locales and more colorful literary characters among our beloved team, why couldn't Penny Dreadful sustain itself? Previously, one could overlook any small inconsistencies because the sophisticated scares and morose design far outweighed any negatives. This season, however, becomes a chore to continue and is best left at Episode Four. After finishing Dexter and losing interest in Homeland and Ray Donovan, we've canceled our Showtime subscription since Penny is no more. There were other ways to do Penny Dreadful justice than this, well, what seems like internal sabotage, but gothic viewers shouldn't let this rushed Season Three dampen what has otherwise been a stellar and macabre program.