The Farfield is an occasional series where I write about something other than gaming.
I’ve been increasingly focused on junk television, likely because both work and play – in the form of Electron Dance writing – tend to be mentally taxing. Firing the trigger on a new, engaging series with multiple storylines is tough. If you want to know how bad it is, I’m still watching the execrable Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Confession time: I watch a lot of horror, a lot of rubbish horror. I also have particular dislikes, such as when people are being victimised just for someone’s kicks – I feel exhausted and abused after an experience like Ils, in which a French couple are terrorized in their new country home, or F where school staff and children on detention are terrorized and brutally killed by hoodies. While I like the sense of dread that hangs over the first half of In Fear in which a new couple are lost in the Irish countryside, it eventually degrades into a game of unexplained sadism. In these type of films, the antagonist or antagonists often appear to have superhuman powers to be in the right place at the right time to maximise impact.
The horror film is much more of an audience game that many other film genres; the art of the thrill is the art of designing an intricate roller coaster. Good horror is intensely aware of context and audience expectations with films like Scream and The Cabin in the Woods deliberately exposing the game with a knowing wink to the audience.
I could easily write a whole essay on how I feel about horror but, look, I don’t do much critical pontification about what horror means or why it works. See, I disliked The Bababook which got critics applauding. That shows you my credentials. Even worse, I remain fatally attracted to the “found footage” subgenre, where the film is based on “real footage” recovered amidst mysterious events like a documentary crew gone missing or a spate of murders.
As an accidental connoisseur of this derided subgenre, I’ve decided to list every found footage film I’ve seen with a little bit of commentary. I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum. Here we go.
The Blair Witch Project. Three people go looking for the origins of a local legend in the woods. Rating: MEH. While not the originator of the found footage horror film (I think that award goes to Cannibal Holocaust) this is the one that gave birth to the modern craze. I finally got to watch it on a return flight from San Francisco and my memory of it is coloured by the passenger who sat beside me, getting increasingly drunk, kept making fun of the film, throttled another passenger during descent. I had to talk to the police about what I knew. This was all a lot more terrifying than the film.
Paranormal Activity. Couple set up cameras around the house when they suspect something spooky is going on. Rating: NOT BAD. Quite liked this one. As per usual for the found footage, it’s slow burn, but some truly outstanding moments like when protagonist Katie sleepwalks: she gets out of bed and stares at her boyfriend Micah for hours. The damn psychic they bring in looks like he’s trudging through a wad of writerly exposition compared to the more natural style of the protagonists, though.
Paranormal Activity 2. Couple related to couple who set up cameras around the house when they suspect something spooky is going on also have something spooky going on. Rating: MEH. A diluted version of Paranormal Activity where one of the spooky events, I kid you not, is a pool cleaner being taken out of the swimming pool at night. I decided I did not need to watch any more PA films after this.
Trolljegeren (Trollhunter). Documentary crew accompany a disgruntled troll hunter that the government supports yet disavows knowledge of. Rating: GOOD. This Norwegian film is quite the surprise, offering a very different take on found footage. This is not about the slow deterioration of what the protagonists acknowledge as reality; the team confronts the truth that trolls exist early on yet the film continues to extract suspense from every encounter.
As Above, So Below. Documentary crew go in search of the philosopher’s stone in the Paris catacombs. Rating: OKAY. It’s a little slow and I don’t like it when characters start doing things which are obviously crazy: Scarlett, the lead, rips an ancient tablet off the wall in a museum and sets fire to it because it might lead to a clue. This also suffers more egregiously from the “no rules” problem that all horror films wrestle with. To make things spooky, spooky things have to happen, but there’s rarely any explanation why things happen other than IT’S SPOOKY YO. You go from subtle weird to crazy shitstorm because the writer/director needs that kind of a rollercoaster arc for a horror film to work.
Europa Report. Footage from the first manned voyage to Jupiter’s moon Europa edited into a documentary. Rating: HMM. Not strictly a horror film but I watched it wondering what the “secret” of the film was going to be. Problems: there’s a certain arbitrariness to how people get bumped off; it’s in dire need of better editing, as the naturalistic conversations are just too naturalistic with long ponderous pauses while people gawp at monitors; it’s slooooow; there are too many budget-saving shots of astronauts’ faces inside helmets instead of showing them in their surroundings. The film does manage to fool the audience with one particular twist and I had to give it points for that.
Cloverfield. A farewell party turns into a desperate race across a city under attack from a monster. Rating: OKAY. I was excited for Cloverfield and actually went to the trouble of seeing it in a cinema, only to discover the constant shaky cam made me feel ill. This compounded its many issues. Because one big monster is easy to escape (run the other way) the writers were forced to add Half-Life-esque critters that also grow inside your body, and had the protagonists put themselves in danger repeatedly. In addition to being wholly unlikeable, they were also extremely unlucky. Sigh.
The Bay. Footage from various sources edited into a documentary about an ecological catastrophe. Rating: GOOD. I may be in the minority on this one. The Bay is B-movie horror at its core, but the way it’s dressed up as a serious documentary works well. It overdoes the horror angle to give the film more to explore: a Cloverfield style not only do the critters eat you, but they grow inside you too. I found it a plenty more watchable than Cloverfield though.
Invoked. Teenagers play with Ouija board on a some island and nothing happens, more or less. Rating: ASS. Made on a shoestring budget, there’s nothing here to commend. Dreadfully slow, characters that suffer from Cloverfield levels of unlikeability, overly reliant on the camera capturing a brief glimpse of a something that the doomed kids never see. Also missing: one plot.
V/H/S. Anthology of found footage stories. Rating: GOOD. I enjoyed V/H/S because none of the ideas get to outstay their welcome, keeping it fresh throughout. I have not yet watched the sequel, V/H/S 2, which I’ve also heard good things about. The main downside was my depressing realisation that, despite having different directors, most of the segments fall back on women being used or humiliated.
Chronicle. Three teenagers develop powerful telekinesis through a strange incident. Rating: GOOD. Another entry that isn’t a horror film. This one has a higher budget than your typical found footage fodder and, while it isn’t outstanding, it’s a decent outing. It falls into the District 9 trap of being thoughtful until it’s time for an ACTION CLIMAX.
[REC]. A journalist and her cameraman shadowing firefighters on the night shift end up with more than they bargained for. Rating: HOLY SHIT. Jaume Balagueró’s film blows away the competition and I don’t think any other found footage film can hold a candle to the claustrophobic tension and dread that floods the film after everything goes off the rails. I often found my eyes drawn to the background (a la the superb It Follows) begging the characters not to turn their back on a dark room. This is real craft. (Quibble: there’s noticeable acceleration in what’s going on as the film progresses to the point where I can see rollercoaster design more clearly, but it’s a minor quibble. Happy to talk about this in the comments.)
![[REC]](https://www.electrondance.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/rec-movie.jpg)
Quarantine. A journalist and her cameraman shadowing firefighters on the night shift end up with more than they bargained for – but this time in English! Rating: NOT BAD. Quarantine is an English remake of [REC] which copies the original closely in some areas but makes baffling changes in others – like battering someone to death with a camera. Also the journalist, played by Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter, seems to collapse into hysteria at such an early stage I longed for her Spanish equivalent. This is a film which did not need to be made. Just go watch [REC].
[REC] 2, 3, 4. Rating: DIMINISHING RETURNS. [REC] 2 is a solid follow up although I was not too excited about the religious aspect and the addition of a Cronenburgish antagonist; it is a little like watching Half Life: Opposing Force – now here are some stories you didn’t see! [REC] 3 is from a different director and it shows because (a) it’s not found footage and (b) it has blackly comic elements and (c) it’s just an average horror film. [REC] 4 is back with Balagueró but it strays too far from the series’ roots to become just another action/horror film.
The Last Exorcism. A Reverend makes a documentary determined to out his own profession – taking money for fake exorcisms. Rating: OKAY. The anti-hero at the centre of The Last Exorcism is different from the usual protagonists and the opening section where the found footage details his past is more interesting than most. But perhaps the best aspect is Ashley Bell who looks innocent and lost one minute – then downright demonic the next. Is she possessed or not? The story doesn’t have a coherent forward momentum and the ending is unsatisfying, but it was an enjoyable watch.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (aka The Devil’s Pass). Five students are determined to solve the mystery of the 1959 Dyatlov Pass Incident. Rating: OKAY. So the Dyatlov Pass Incident is a real thing – where nine hikers died in mysterious circumstances in the Ural Mountains. As it remains unexplained it is fodder for plenty of supernatural fiction – there’s even a videogame about it called Kholat. The production values aren’t bad and the film uses found footage tropes quite well. The gloriously batshit ending, though, is what elevates this to memorable. It is ridiculous on every conceivable level and I love the film for it. (Aside: Can directors stop throwing things directly at the camera? Using CGI to do this has never looked anything other than fake. Look, I hated it back when the BSG remake flew a Cylon raider straight at your face in the title sequence.)
The Borderlands (aka Final Prayer). The Vatican sends in a team to determine the authenticity of supernatural activity reported at a church. Rating: GOOD. Strange atmosphere to this one and a little sluggish in parts. However, the development of the relationship between the two main characters, Gray and Deacon, is fun to observe and the first strange incident, taking place outside the team’s cottage, is quite disturbing. You’re never sure whether some of the peripheral events are connected with the church… or simply coincidence. It doesn’t quite add up to the more than the sum of its parts but was not bored. Frankly, I found the final moments of the film terrifying.
And that completes the list. I think that’s every found footage movie I’ve seen. Let me know if there are any others that might be worth a spin!
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The Blair Witch Project is underrated and much better than most found footage movies. Its horror is much more abstract and unnerving than the jumpy monsters of later films.
Apart from the crappy, rushed ending, The Last Exorcism was surprisingly solid.
The Dyatlov (the L comes after the T) Incident is also surprisingly effective, despite an unnecessarily complicated ending that doesn’t contribute much.
Have you see The Objective (2008)? It had some truly terrifying scenes, without jumpscare bullshit.
Great, I correct your spelling and then miss an entire word myself. Way to go, writer man.
Oh, here’s another one: Diary of the Dead. Quite enjoyed that one.
I think, Jonas, what I’m usually looking for is something solidly disquieting. I’m not a jumpscare kind of person which is why I have trouble with horror games. I guess that’s why I’m attracted to found footage because they’re usually far more about reality slowly degrading – although there are decent examples of bucking that trend in the list – and experiencing that degradation is what I find thrilling.
I’ve always intended to go back to Blair Witch and watch it again because the original circumstances in which I watched it were, will, not ideal? But my memories are so negative I can never drum up the enthusiasm.
Fixed Dyatlov! I haven’t seen The Objective, but noted for future reference.
I did have Diary of the Dead on this list originally but couldn’t remember if it was actually found footage or was a hybrid. My memories of it are pretty vague.
I’ve also received recommendations of The Conspiracy and Grave Encounters from @zarawesome in Twitter.
Interesting and worth to be mentioned is the whole ARG thing around Cloverfield. Even if the movie itself is in my eyes OKAY as well, the transmedial storytelling behind it was amazing. It inspired thousands of people for craziest theories, for overwhelming discoveries and for mysterious experiences. It was my first ARG, and I was quickly under the spell of this genre.
That feeling of reality changing is also very much what I’m looking for in horror; it’s usually also what happens in my worst nightmares. Go figure. (Also great in this vein: several of John Carpenter’s films, Sapphire & Steel.)
A totally different found footage movie is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, which I adored. It’s very clever, at times extremely funny, and dark without being tediously sadistic.
Not a found footage movie, but I fucking loved The Witch.
Oh shit, dude, did someone just mention The Witch?
Man, now that there is a god damn film.
Is “fake documentary” included in the category of found footage? I’m pretty fond of Noroi (the curse), as well as Lake Mungo.
You watched The Blair Witch Project on a plane. Oh dear. It’s definitely worth giving it another chance in better surroundings. I saw a midnight showing of it as an excited 16 year old, and was thoroughly scared. I watched it again a week later with some immature lads who made fun of it all the way through, and was glad my first viewing wasn’t marred by them.
We will definitely check out V/H/S and The Bay, thanks for the recommendations.
Banshee Chapter and Creep are great, and were both on Netflix last time I looked. Man Bites Dog is also worth checking out, but I think it’s more of a faux-documentary horror than found footage. Lake Mungo has found footage elements, and is a rare film that succeeded in creeping both me and Gregg out for months afterwards. Gregg’s brother loved The Taking of Deborah Logan, but we rated it more of a MEH. We didn’t like The Conspiracy either.
As for your particular dislikes, never watch the original Funny Games. It’s the only film I’ve nearly asked Gregg to turn off because it was so intense and hard going – even though it was very self aware. Don’t watch The Loved Ones either; Gregg had to watch it through his hands.
Agree with you about The Bay. Great film. [REC] is also a favourite, and I’ve watched Trollhunter maybe three times now. I like Cloverfield more than you, but then I’m a sucker for monsters.
Kholat, the Dyatlov Pass game, is sadly not very interesting. It is essentially a Slender game.
“on a return flight”
Bad Joel, bad! I loved Blair Witch and the same goes for Paranormal Activity. Didn’t see the sequel on account that it was terrible, but watched the third film, which had some great moments but was let down by a really dopey finale.
Trollhunter is probably one of my favourites here. It’s tense, funny, smart, surprising, utterly intriguing and unique.
Not seen As Above, So Below or Europa Report. But slow you say? Slow tends to work well for me!
Cloverfield I enjoyed but not to the same degree as others seemed to. Now 10 Cloverfield Lane, that was great, though it’s not found footage.
Not heard of The Bay but that’s going on the list. Not heard of Invoked and seems I don’t need to either! V/H/S is one I’ve looked into but for reasons unknown never pursued. Sounds like we should fix that.
Chronicle I wasn’t that wild about. I don’t remember it being bad but perhaps it was the characters or something that rubbed me the wrong way? It’s been a while.
Now [REC] is one Hai and I saw years ago and she loved it through and through while I went from enjoying it to loving it after the finale. That finale is just… holy shit. Quarantine we just avoided, almost on principle! We may give [REC] 2 a spin.
“As it remains unexplained it is fodder for plenty of supernatural fiction – there’s even a videogame about it called Kholat.”
Ohh, that’s interesting. I had no idea. I’m very curious about The Devil’s Pass after yours and Jonas’ words. Sad to hear Kholat is like a Slender game Shaun. I’m not good with jump scares.
Man, The Borderlands we watched at my parents and wasn’t sure what to expect but I think it totally delivered. I love it when a horror movie has an inscrutable uneasiness to it and the direction the film goes in is totally unexpected, memorable and yeah, terrifying. Stuff of nightmares, really.
Very interesting hearing your thoughts on all this Joel. Remind me to talk to you about horror in the future 😉
Keep the recommendations coming folks, LadyHazy and I will be watchlisting them as we go. I’ll second what LadyHazy has to say too: Creep is excellent, Banshee Chapter reminded me of The Borderlands and Absentia (not found footage but, again, uncanny and unnerving), and Lake Mungo haunted us. Ooof.
Oh, and although I watched The Loved Ones through my hands, it was brilliant. I wouldn’t have watched it if I’d known what it was about beforehand though. I’m not great with torture.
So here’s an update from the Twitter side of things. Chris Franklin (Errant Signal) offered Project Almanac which he says is absolutely terrible. Adam Smith (RPS) said Lake Mungo is brilliant, but he doesn’t know many that agree with him – but as my ratings match his opinions fairly closely, he thought it’s probably my kind of movie. Sam Barlow (Her Story) suggested Unfriended which is fine but Open Windows was not great.
And Craig Lager was furious at my dismissal of Cloverfield and As Above So Below.
And Ben Walker suggested Noroi (The Curse) being up there with [REC] which is title I feel I might have heard of, but perhaps it’s just because I’ve heard of the word Noroi before. I don’t know.
Merzmensch
It sounds like I missed out on something pretty cool! After I Love Bees ARG and the failed “What’s in the Box” ARG I felt like I was done. Maybe I shouldn’t have been 🙂
Jonas
I really liked John Carpenter’s older stuff – The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13 are masterpieces – but his later works just don’t have that spark. I haven’t seen The Visit nor The Witch so I’ll just wait until they turn up on Netflix or terrestrial 🙂 And Andrew also seems to high five the latter recommendation.
Neggy
I tend to feel fake documentary is pretty close to found footage – The Bay, for example, is both – so I’m good. I’m happy to watch these two recommends (especially as you weren’t the only one to wave their flags) whenever I get the opportunity to!
LadyHazy
I was most definitely not a 16 year old when I had my chance to watch Blair Witch. I feel even older now 🙂 I will probably give it another chance at some point in the future. But there’s always more Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!
I have seen Banshee Chapter – it was on an “honorary mentions” list I decided to delete at the last minute because it opens with some “found footage”. For me it was okay, not brilliant, but has some defo creepy vibes running through it. I guess the Creep you mean is the 2014 movie and not the 2004 one?
I have seen The Loved Ones and I think I winced a lot. It certainly wasn’t my kind of thing, even though it does have a sense of humour about it.
Shaun
I’ve realised I’m not that into monsters these days – there was a period in my teens where I loooooved monsters but that seems to have passed. Maybe I should get back into my Gojira films (which I also loooooved around my early teens). Cloverfield felt a bit like a Half-Life movie particularly the tunnel sequence, in the sense that a lot of it felt artificial, like a designer engineering new elements to give the sustain momentum.
Gregg
If you want to know what “slow” means in the context of Europa Report, it means I feel asleep a couple of times and had to run it back. For a film that purports to be a documentary it is dreadfully edited. I would definitely give As Above So Below a run though, it has some interesting moments and I really like the opening section.
Yeah Chronicle just didn’t grab as much as I’d have hoped. But let’s [FFWD] to [REC] – that ending is brilliant, especially the “environmental narrative” way of explaining the whole movie. [REC] 2 is definitely worth a watch because it takes place in the same claustrophobic environment, retains the same feel. The only reason I watched Quarantine was for this very article!
I like The Borderlands but it suffers from the same problem most horror has – the supernatural incidents can feel so arbitrary. But that ending! Gah!!!!
I’ll just drop a quick bote for you regarding Absentia which I have seen. I like it but (a) half of the horror is misdirection – all those ghostly sequences are really disconnected from the meat of the story (b) for something that hasn’t bothered anyone for years, the “antagonist” gets really restless by the end. But, man, the outcome of the attempted exchange was horrifying, I did not see that one coming. Holy Christ.
I mean the 2014 Creep. Quite aptly named too.
I like that Banshee Chapter is based on an H.P. Lovecraft story (I’ve always meant to read some Lovecraft, but never seem to remember), and that it involves drug taking — lack of control through drug taking has always been a fear of mine, which is probably why it hit a note with me.
Someone else also recommended As Above, So Below recently, so we’ll get it added to the list. I’m not sure about Europa Report though, it sounds like a snoozefest :-/
I quite liked Unfriended. We had the perfect setup – through Gregg’s PC. Mark Kermode called it: ‘a Blair Witch for the broadband era’.
We’ve watched quite a few Aussie & Kiwi films recently, and they always seem to have a great sense of humour (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Wyrmwood, Housebound, Bad Taste). We’ve decided to permeate our viewing with them more often 😉
I have a number of these waiting in my Netflix queue, but will never watch most of them due to overwhelming cowardice. Their presence makes me feel brave and cool, though, like “hey, that Steerpike is pretty courageous with those scary films waiting to be watched.”
The Blair Witch Project had many shortcomings — talk about unlikable characters — but the last shot will stay with me until the day I die.
Loved this article, HM. Also loved your rating system, from HOLY SHIT (good) to ASS (ass). Love it!
I’m also afraid of the horror genre, but I’m very curious and want to see it. What a contradiction
Oh, Cloverfield ARG was the first of the most ARGs to productions by JJ Abrams – and most of them great. I’ll drop a message when they’ll start again (I dedicated 70% of my Blog to all those transmedial gorgeousnesses).
“What’s in the Box” was pretty interestkng video with some nice efforts to build an ARG post factum, but it was not really moving, since they hadn’t tried to mimic instead of something new. But again, the visuals are great. And btw. right now checked their account: they seem to making a movie “Kill Switch” (coming in June 20??). They uploaded the teaser some days ago (after 6 years silence).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TSEgT0pRc
BTW, “Noroi” is a pretty nice “fake documentary” with some amazing cabaretists of Japanese Manzai genre (like “King Kong” and “Ungirls” (I think)). And this movie was accompanied by a pretty spooky viral campaign in Japanese web (only in Japanese though), where a anthopologist looking for hidden messages in children songs and nurse rhymes made such great efforts in his research, that his whole library was destroyed by somebody/something. It was made like a blog, and was really spooky. Especially if you know all those children songs (like Suzume, or kakurembo rhymes etc.), and see them now from another, creepy perspective.
Great list. Mostly just here to belatedly chime in that I also did not like Cloverfield’s style. Cloverfield made me literally throw up. It’s a good thing I had that popcorn bucket to catch it.
Some belated comments: Am I the only person on earth who loves Cloverfield? I developed an affection for kaiju (giant monster) movies as a kid when I saw the original Godzilla, the Americanized version of Gojira with Raymond Burr interpolated as narrator/bystander. I still get chills when I remember the scene where the people in Tokyo stood listening in the night to Godzilla’s booming footsteps as he slowly crossed the bottom of Tokyo Bay toward the city. Later kaiju films degenerated into silliness and American attempts to duplicate Godzilla tend either to be formulaic drek, like the 1998 Roland Emmerich version with Matthew Broderick, or uninspired, semi-coherent homages, like the 2014 Gareth Edwards adaptation. Cloverfield, the only found-footage movie I’ve ever seen that used the technique for artistic rather than budgetary reasons, was the first movie I’ve seen since childhood that got kaiju-style horror right. The shakeycam cleverly excuses the cinematographer’s “failure” to give you a direct view of the monster, which like Stephen Spielberg’s shark that doesn’t show up until halfway through the film becomes vastly scarier for its absence. And I’m sure that every movement of that shaky camera was choreographed very carefully in advance.
I’m not sure it’s fair to call Agents of SHIELD “execrable” anymore. With the fourth season it graduated to mildly guilty pleasure. Although I found the Ghost Rider arc boring, it caught fire (pun not really intended) with the ninth episode and somehow managed to sustain an exciting virtual reality arc right up until the end of its 22 episode season. The show has had an unusually hard time finding a consistent voice, but for most of the last season it had one. My theory is that Executive Producer Joss Whedon, now that he’s rested up from his near nervous breakdown making the Avengers films, is sitting in at writers room meetings and cajoling the showrunners into pushing themselves harder, thinking ahead to the story they’ll be telling in a year or two and finding a rising arc that will get them there. At least it’s my fervent hope that next season, based on the final shot of this last season, will sustain the tension and the show will finally become what it briefly seemed to be at the end of season one, a witty, imaginative piece of television with a genuine dramatic backbone.
Hi Chris, indeed you may be the only person who loves Cloverfield! I feel like it was a film that had potential but too many wrong decisions put it at arms length. Shaky arms, at that.
I actually tweeted a few weeks ago that I was shocked that Agents of SHIELD had suddenly become good? Usually virtual reality stories are pretty rubbish – not everything can be the Matrix and they are more an excuse for “dream sequences but real”. The 100 indulged a bit of virtual reality in the final episode of the third season and it was just like that, inventing magic from moment to moment to conjure artificial emotional investment. Yet somehow the whole VR-based Agents of HYDRA arc was absorbing rippling with some genuine shocks (when Fitz pulls that trigger, even though I felt the show was going to have him do it, it still provoked a Oh My God No).
My problem with SHIELD is that most of the time it feels like they’re inventing universe on the fly so that the plot is interesting, very little of the story is extrapolation from a fixed set of rules. Also, this team of professional acts like a bunch of teenagers: they’re always going off and doing their own thing, having crises about what they should do… instead of following bloody orders. And they never quite pinned down who Ward was. I did enjoy the closing arc of the first season, which played out the full events of The Winter Soldier and everything went mental.
I’m going to throw another series out here which does interesting things but flawed. I quite like Van Helsing. I guess it’s kind of The Walking Dead but with vampires? (I don’t really watch The Walking Dead, gave up after one series.) The series hardly uses music and relies far more on the actors carrying the scenes. Problem 1: the vampires just look like people who haven’t had enough sleep, they simply don’t convince. Problem 2: way, way, WAY too much betrayal – I lost count of the number of double crosses in the tail end of the series. I’ll continue watching into the second season, though, because I liked what it was trying to do. The first episode is a bit “meh” but the second episode was engrossing.
Van Helsing managed to fly — get it? bats? flying? — under my radar, but here in the U.S. it’s on SyFy and I just discovered that I can watch it on my Roku. If I can tear myself way from the other several hundred other things on streaming that I want to watch, including all the shows based on superhero comics I read when I was 9 years old, I may give it a try, because it sounds like the kind of television I like to watch at night after Amy, my partner in life and house, goes to bed.
I really suggest that you give The Walking Dead another try, though. The first season was trite and fairly uninteresting, but showrunner Scott Gimple took over in Season Two and really turned it around. By Season Three it was thrilling, a web of complex characters and fascinating situations. They do wonderful things with character, often devoting an entire episode to a single character or pair of characters and exploring them in depth. By Season Seven it started wearing thin, though, with the half that we’ve seen brutal even by the show’s usual standards, and it’s probable we’ll never watch the second half. But up until then it was one of the best action/fantasy shows on television. The zombies are largely a Maguffin for exploring what becomes of human society under pressure, which is pretty much the way all apocalyptic shows/movies work, but it does it much better than most.
Chris, I don’t know if I would say “by golly, you gotta watch Van Helsing” it’s just… another thing, you know. And it’s far from perfect. I did wonder I did wonder that because I got into Van Helsing that I might get something out The Walking Dead now. What do I know. I haven’t watched Game of Thrones yet. Or anything past season 3 of Lost.
There’s not a lot of point to watching past Season Three of Lost. Though I know people who felt the show got better after that, when I rewatched the first five seasons with Amy to get ready for the sixth I realized that the show is basically a downhill slide all the way, with each season more confused and overpopulated than the season before it. If you’re looking for a good science fiction series to binge watch, I recommend the Canadian show Orphan Black, the best TV show ever about cloning. (It may also be the only one, but it would probably still be the best if there were others.) Tatiana Maslany is absolutely amazing as an ever-increasing string of clones caught up in one of the most elaborate conspiracies on television. I find the show, now in its final season, magnetically watchable.
As for Game of Thrones, binge it after it’s over. You kinda need to watch it all at once to keep from forgetting all the plot threads. I can only keep them straight because I read the books, from which it’s now departed, George R.R. Martin having somehow forgotten to write enough of them.
I would say Lost gets more complex and ambitious with each season, and its only problem is that it isn’t the show people think it is, the show that in some ways is implied by Season 1. It’s not a show about the complexity of the plot, but a show about the complexity of faith and doubt. It’s not about who’s the bad guy, but about breaking cycles of abuse. It’s the show where everything is infinitely more messy than we’d like it to be, but human beings are not actually awful, and the bonds between people do matter.
I’d say it’s one the most underrated, philosophically complex works ever created for television, and it bugs me to hell that it’s so commonly dismissed. The finale is up there with “Sleeping in Light” as one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen.
Fully agree, LOST provided new levels of perceptive immersion – not only via plot and acting, but also via postperceptive work of mind. With every new LOST season the dimensions of this fictional reality became bigger and bigger, and all the connections, cultural allusions, intertextual references became innovative for the entertainment sector.
The newest levels are about to be exploded by the 3rd season of Twin Peaks. The most important thing is: authors trust to their audience. They don’t need to explain everything, they let audience find out of this labyrinth. And this is also important for game making as well.
I will say that I only stopped watching Lost because I never had access to it beyond a certain point. We bought the whole box set – because I was really into it – but my wife and I never found the time to sit down and watch it together. And so it was abandoned. I still have the complete box set and I should probably crack it open. You know, at the same time I play Mass Effect.
At the time I remember the themes of Lost were strongly about one’s place in the world, belief in destiny and fate. It felt fresh at the time and not as anti-science as it could have been, but soon enough I noticed this theme popping up everywhere (most negatively in the new BSG). I always assumed this was a reaction to rising feelings of individual impotence in an increasingly connected world – here you are, a show about the importance of everyone’s lives to a dramatic whole. Have faith. You have a destiny! A religion of the Self aka Paulo Coelho goes Hollywood.
Or something like that.
Wait I forgot Orphan Black. I was a fan of Orphan Black. I loved the first series. The second series was okay, too. But then Castor in the third series just wasn’t as interesting a twist and it was getting too wheels-within-wheels for me. How deep does the conspiracy go? As far as we need to make another series, it felt like.
So I haven’t watched any more episodes since the S3 finale.
Regarding the “faith” thing – yes and no. What makes Lost quite remarkable (and very different from BSG) is where it goes with the character of John Locke. It’s so layered and painful and complex, and absolutely not what the first season seems to imply (wise wheelchair man becomes island Yoda). I think one reason people got frustrated (including myself, the first time) is that it goes so very much against what we are conditioned to expect.
Ultimately, it actually has far more in common with B5 than BSG.
Wow, I really shouldn’t let myself get into discussions of television shows. It’s as dangerous as getting into discussions of politics and religion! 😉
Jonas: Given that I watched the first five seasons of Lost twice, I obviously was a fan and I stuck with the show even when friends were dropping out because they felt it was becoming too murky and obtuse. But I found my enjoyment diminished on the second viewing rather than enhanced. I hate to admit it, but I’d never thought about it that deeply on a philosophical level, just a science fictional one (which is clearly not the right angle to view the show from, because by the end it’s clear that it isn’t science fiction). But your points are good ones and I’m going to mull them over. I liked the symmetry of the show, the way the first half in many ways mirrored the second half, most obviously in the crossover at the end of Season Three from flashbacks to flashforwards (and the accompanying Through the Looking Glass analogy). But it’s been too long now, even with two viewings, for me to pull up enough memories of it to discuss it on that deep a level.
Joel, if you liked the first three seasons of Lost then you really should go ahead with it. I figured you gave up, like a lot of my friends, because you were getting bored or frustrated with it. But if it piqued your interest, watch the second half. And about Orphan Black — yes, it became way to enthralled with its own complexity as the seasons went on. But when I saw an ad for the latest season and heard that theme music playing (I’d forgotten how much I love the opening credits), I knew I’d be coming back for more, even if I’m totally lost in the final season. The clones are so beautifully drawn as characters that I’m willing to put up with boatloads of convoluted intrigue to see them again.
I did love that Locke had been the defender of the numbers in the hatch at the end of the second season – and then lost his faith completely leading to the station exploding (if that’s what that even was).
I will reckon Lost at some point and, I dare say, I might end up watching Orphan Black again – I’d like to watch that with my wife. If we ever get time to watch TV together.