I’m a little befuddled over the thought that Hemlock Grove developer and screenwriter Brian McGreevy has two black-list scripts and was selected to scribe the next iteration of Dracula, as the show seemed to be the work of someone with no scripting experience and an inability to construct a sensible plot, pen dialogue that a human mouth can utter without embarrassment, or generate emotions that an audience can empathize with. “Edgy” to me is drama that bleeds into the natural dichotomies inherent within socially unsettling topics, not just tossing in some bloody hot teen sex, hard drug use, the F word, twisted affairs with family members, and entrail gore. (Then again, I’ve seen enough Eli Roth movies to have known better.)
Speaking of entrail gore, Hemlock Grove could set up a national distribution center for body-bag manufacturers at the rate they go through cast members. You will see at least 8 or 9 killings by end of season, all predictably bloody, and with barely an impact except to wonder what plotlines will be remain if all the characters are dead.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, the shown is sewn together with coarse black string from bits and pieces of someone’s misconceptions of what they thought might be dramatic: here, time for the lead to bluster and posture in a malformed mockery of real emotion; there, time for a wistful song overlaying shots of characters watching the sun set into the trees; meanwhile, isn’t it awesome to watch two mismatched stud-buds tool around town in a fashionably antique convertible? Gosh, don’t you wish you lived in Hemlock Grove? We’re so COOL it might kill you.
I’ve read the producers thought the format lent itself to not having to be so focused from the get-go (and I will concede that the Netflix format offers an interesting opportunity to the weekly episode release dominating the major networks), but Hemlock Grove doesn’t just take its time exploring, it seems to wander about like a drunk kid in a Family Circus cartoon — an aimless mismash of guts strewn about by something feral. If I see any more shows about two teens driving around and trying to figure out what to do with their time, I’ll scream.
A show like this has its share of misplaced actors and terminally stupid behavior. One of the most obvious examples of the former is the town sheriff, whose only direction I honestly imagine was being told to watch Brian Dennehy a few times in “First Blood” and then wing it. An example of the latter is when a character escapes from a mental institution, only to go straight to the house of the head shrink and ask if he’s home, then when told that he isn’t but someone can contact him, says, “No, please, I don’t want him to find me!” There also seemed to be a death curse on any character that started to develop a real personality. And then there is the wig — THAT WIG. (You’ll know what I mean, when you see it.)
Be prepared for lots of crazy plotting that seems more like Lord Dark Helmet secretly playing house with his Star Wars figures than actually having a believable, sensible, character-driven story.
By now, after all that criticism, you’re probably justifiably wondering why I actually watched the entire first season of such a terrible show… and in just four days. The truth is that I just really wanted Hemlock Grove to work; the seeds of something great were there, just rather unrealized.
Look at the acting pedigree: Famke Janssen, Lili Taylor (woefully underused, what a crime!), Bill Skarsgaard and Landon Liabalon, even Kandyse McClure, I could see talent underneath their performances, but they were basically shackled by the script and direction.
And then you do get some genuinely creepout moments, like a suitably gory werewolf transformation or the scene where a character channels the spirit of a dead girl by less-than-orthodox means. And there’s even legitimate humor, like the night two teams inadvertently compete to unearth the same corpse.
The show even has some bona fide mysteries to solve — the main one being, “Who is killing these girls?” — and I’m actually kind of ecstatic to say I figured it out about halfway through. The clues are there but it’s not a clear tipoff, you’ll actually have to think a little. More intriguing questions would be, “Who or WHAT are Olivia and Roman?” Shelley is only a minor curiosity; her nature is pretty clear s early on, but her connection to the third Godfrey sibling takes some time to be answered. And then we have the mysterious “angel” who, like angels of old, has made a virgin conceive. But was it really an angel… or someone else? Again, all things in due time.
I kept watching because I just kept hoping the implementation would rise to the level of the ideas being played with. No such luck this time, but if there’s ever another season (and if we know anything about dead critters, it’s that they COME BACK), hopefully it will be.
What Jenny Saw 