Posts Tagged ‘vampires’

If you know the original Underworld you’ve a pretty good idea what you’re getting here: Vampires, Werewolves, action, a palette of blacks & blue, a certain amount of gore, a British character actor of a certain age, a gut shaking thump to the soundtrack and, of course, Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.

Yet for each of those characteristics they have in common each of the Underworld films is a slightly different beast.  The first is more political, Evolution is more of a chase and Rise of the Lycans is more historical.  So what of Awakening?  Humans have discovered the existence of Vampires and Lycans and set out to exterminate them.

After three films most people will already have some idea if this is a film for them or not.  The real question is does it deliver (and does it have Kate Beckinsale in that outfit)?  Personally I have to say it’s a definite yes.  It delivers.

I’m not going to over analyse it because, frankly, analysing this film too much would be silly.

I still think the first film is my favourite because the politics and mystery added a level of nuance to the story.  Underworld: Awakening is a new fairly close second place.

And it has Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.  With guns.

Now a few years ago a famous game designer pointed out that all successful RPGs include zombies.  I think it was Robin D Laws but I could be wrong.  This was extended by others to suggest that a game could be made a success by including zombies.  Back then zombies were the preserve of horror and fantasy fiction, TV and budget horror films.  They were niche.  They were cult.  It wasn’t too many years before that time that rail adverts featured Jimmy Saville and the only undead on a train were the British Rail sandwiches.  We were told it was the Age of the Train.

Now British Rail and British Rail sandwiches don’t exist anymore. The fried breakfasts have been replaced with croissants and a full fat, ethical, posh coffee from a franchise on the renovated station.  You don’t have a brief encounter in the door with a woman as you’re both wearing backpacks and you’d get jammed in place if you tried to pass with a flirtatious smile.  Pretty soon new University students will have been born after BR was broken up.

The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Resident Evil and Shaun of the Dead have happened.  Zombies (along with Vampires and Werewolves) have become more and more mainstream.

Every day on my way to work this week I’ve faced by a Virgin Trains advert on a big screen featuring zombies…

Its now the Age of the Zombie.

So my question is are they now too main stream?  Are zombies past their sell by date?  Have they sold out  like an aging punk in an insurance advert with a million pounds in his back pocket?

What cool monster will fill the niche left by zombies?  Will it be another undead or something else?

I’ve been lazy and didn’t do a post for last week’s Doctor Who, Flesh and Stone.  So this week I’m doing a read one (post) get two Doctor Who reviews.  I’ll come to The Vampires of Venice soon but first Flesh and Stone and then at the end the Crack and River Song.

Second parts haven’t been the new Who’s strongest stories.   Fortunately Flesh and Stone worked from start to finish.  The escape by jumping onto the crashed space ships gravity.  Having the Doctor use a gun as a tool to engineer the escape was a nice touch.

Amy’s spooky countdown was a nice play on the old countdown timer gimmick.  The solution to the Angel inside her was clever and created another problem.  That in turn set up the problem of her escaping from the angels and the crack with her eyes closed and walking like she can see.

The end of the episode caused complaints but nowhere near the same scale as the last episode.  Interesting that the it’s a kids show and must be pure and nice with nothing adult mob didn’t even come close to the you spoilt our episode mob for numbers of complaints.

The Doctor had some nice snappy dialogue.  He also got some nice monologues.  Really liked the lines about the plan not being ready because he’d not finished talking yet and about having to trust him because he doesn’t always tell the truth.  Personally I’d have left the nanight off his climatic comment about them having forgotten the gravity of the situation.

The Vampires of Venice:  This week we got fishy, venetian vampires.  I was hoping for the return of the haemovores from the Curse of Fenrick but it wasn’t to be.  Lots of fun plenty of running around, an explosion, a sword fight and action but also a good building tension through the story.

The location worked wonderfully.  The set dressing was beautiful and costumes.  And there were the vampire girls.  They made up for the lack of haemovores.  Will the buxom, vampire girls get complaints to the BBC?

Overall, although I enjoyed it, I’d say The Vampires of Venice frothy a bit light.

Both episodes gave us more about the cracks.  Flesh and Stone revealed the danger of the cracks as they destroy people so they never existed.  Is the crack following Amy?  The crack unwrites time.  The crack can be fed to slow it down.  The Vampires of Venice was more of a teaser than a revelation with the bits about silence.

Who is River Song?  Who did she kill?  I’m not convinced by the idea that she’s the Masters wife or that she killed the Doctor.  The hints have been too broad and too obvious.  If either of those were true I doubt Moffat would have given such big clues away already.  Unless its more complicated and there is another layer to unpeeled below the hint.  A twist or two yet to be revealed.  Will she be back this season or are all the hints setting up for the long term?