My Review of Zombieland

Zombieland (2009)

You know how I said Shaun of the Dead is my favourite zombie movie of all time? Well, here's the film that falls into the second spot. Zombieland is an absolutely excellent movie, a movie that has often been compared to an American Shaun of the Dead. I don't think that's entirely true. While they do have some similarities, Zombieland is a very different movie. Shaun of the Dead is about a man trying to improve his relationships in the face of a zombie apocalypse, but Zombieland is about a loner who finds a family in a ragtag team of survivors. Zombieland offers up tons of good humour as well as excellent gore effects and some pretty good acting in an overall awesome package.

In the world of Zombieland (which is name-dropped a couple of times), zombies have outnumbered humans thanks to a mutated version of mad cow disease and the world has gone to absolute shit. Our main character and narrator, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has managed to survive all this time despite his extensive phobias by having a list of rules that pop up over the course of the movie.Some of the rules include the double tap, bewaring of bathrooms, checking the backseat for zombies, and the simple act of wearing a seatbelt. He also manages to survive because he has been a loner all his life and has no close family or friends. He is on his way to Columbus, Ohio to see if his parents (who are paranoid shut-ins like himself) are alive. Which is a perfect time to explain why his name is the same as his hometown. There are no names in Zombieland, your name is either where you're from or where you're going. Which also explains to first-time viewers why the other three main characters are named Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock.

Columbus runs into Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), easily the most awesome character in the movie, and they agree to accompany eachother east. Tallahassee is armed to the teeth and he has two things on his mind: killing zombies and getting his hands on a Twinkie. While stopping at a grocery store to achieve goal #2, they are introduced to two mistrusting sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The sisters are on their way to Pacific Playland and after a series of scams, Columbus and Tallahassee join them.There's another reason why Columbus decides to go with them, but to say so would be to reveal spoilers, and I don't want to do that. The rest of the film is a road trip story, where the four get to know eachother on the way to Pacific Playland. Tallahassee and Little Rock bond over guns, Wichita and Columbus experience growing sexual tension, we learn the true motivation of Tallahassee's zombie-killing ways, and of course, some zombie ass is going to get kicked.

This is a departure from most zombie movies (even apocalyptic movies in general) because the zombies are not any sort of political or social metaphor, like in many other zombie movies. No, in this zombie movie, the zombies are just a means to show off awesome gore effects and something to have fun killing. It is also a movie about a loner finding his place in life and finding a family as he never had one of his own (just like Shaun of the Dead was about fixing a broken relationship in the face of danger). The film is not at all devoid of character development. Columbus learns that some rules are made to be broken, especially when the safety of people he cares about is on the line. Tallahassee learns to come to grips with what I can't tell you, and the two sisters learn to trust people besides eachother. They also grow as a sort of family.

One of the funniest scenes in the movie

Zombieland serves up loads of good humour alongside the zombie-killing scenes and some excellent dramatic moments. Some of the funniest parts of the film come from anecdotes, like how Wichita and Little Rock conned before Zombieland, how Columbus let his hot neighbour into his dorm room after being bitten by a homeless guy (AKA his first zombie encounter), and how Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker won Zombie Kill of the Week. There is also a cameo from Bill Murray once the group hits California and of course, being Bill Murray, hilarity ensues. It's also kind of funny to see the normally badass and tough Tallahassee go fanboy over Bill Murray. There are a whole bunch of other comedic gold nuggets in the film and it's sure to have you laughing throughout. There are a few memorable quotes in an awesomely tongue-in-cheek script, and the relationships between the characters also bring for some funny moments (especially the comparisons of Wichita and Columbus' 1997's, and the moments between Tallahassee and Little Rock).

For all the laughs, there is a heart behind all of the blood and guts. It's a movie about togetherness, about a young man who spent so long being alone that it took a zombie apocalypse for him to find a family. It's also a movie about survival, and the isolation that comes with survival. In order for this to work, the four lead actors have to have chemistry with eachother. Fortunately, the four lead actors have great chemistry (as well as great individual performances) and thus, the audience believes they can survive together as a family. The first performance of which to speak is Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus. It still surprises me that in all his future movies, he can be billed as "Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg". Granted, he was great in this and he was fantastic in The Social Network, but it seems shocking that a year after this was made, he came close to winning an Oscar, mostly because he seemed to be the next Michael Cera-esque typecast awkward guy. Good for him for getting out of that, at least for now. Here, he makes a sympathetic lead and a great narrator. This proves once again that Eisenberg is a fantastic actor, and I will like him more than I will ever like Michael Cera. He is one of Hollywood's great young talents and I hope he will continue to get great roles in the future, although his latest role in 30 Minutes or Less proved to be a return to his typecasting.

The other three actors rounding out the leads are Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. Harrelson is positively badass as Tallahassee, one of his most enjoyable performances by far. He nails the roles of the zombie-killing badass (with multiple chainsaws and a snakeskin jacket to boot), the jerk with a heart of gold, and the funny guy perfectly, making for an extremely memorable performance (probably the most memorable of the four leads, outside the Bill Murray cameo). Emma Stone is pretty good as Wichita. She conveys the mistrusting nature of her character perfectly, and she and Eisenberg have reasonable chemistry together. Her shining moment came during the flashback where she was conning a hapless gas station clerk. Lastly, Abigail Breslin proves once again why she is one of the best child actresses of our time, turning in a wonderful performance as Little Rock. Her interactions with Woody Harrelson are just hilarious.

All in all, Zombieland is an excellent movie and a modern classic, and it is definitely one of the best films of 2009. Zombieland features brilliant gore effects (although the squeamish will want to avoid this movie for just that reason), great acting, a great story with a very entertaining and tongue-in-cheek script, and some great zombie ass-kicking scenes. I highly recommend Zombieland to any and all fans of the genre (whether just zombies, horror-comedy, or horror in general) and besides the squeamish, Zombieland should do something for just about everyone. I bought this film today and I'm glad I did because this film definitely warrants multiple viewings. In short, see it. You won't be disappointed.

9/10- HIGHLY Recommended



My Review of Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead (2004)



With this review, I have decided to start a new style of review. Though I will still be doing long reviews, I am going to be doing this as a mini-review. Anyway, I absolutely adore Shaun of the Dead, arguably the greatest horror-comedy since Scream and my current favourite zombie movie. It is a wildly entertaining masterpiece of a film that has awesome zombies and kick-ass action, but it also has memorable and fleshed-out (no pun intended) characters played by great actors to back it up. This is my second taste of the Pegg/Wright/Frost combo, and it is a winning combo for sure, making me want to see Hot Fuzz all the more.

Shaun of the Dead is often described as a "rom-zom-com", that is, a romantic comedy that happens to take place during a zombie apocalypse. The film is centred around the titular Shaun (Simon Pegg), a deadbeat who lives with his equally deadbeat friend Ed (Nick Frost). After plans for a date with his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) go south due to his incompetence, he is dumped, which merely adds to the shitty things in his life. He has a crappy job, a crappy relationship with his stepdad, and he's treated crappily by pretty much everyone he meets. Shaun was entirely asking for it, as he happens to be an incompetent dolt at the start of the movie. The only person that seems to be nice to him is Ed, who's still a total douchebag and inadvertently keeps screwing things up.

Things have only started though, because Shaun and Ed are attacked by a girl in their garden who they think is drunk, but turns out to be dangerous and only stops her attack when Shaun hits her in the head with a cricket bat. Shaun also walks through his normal morning routine too hungover and oblivous to realize he is in a zombie apocalypse. Ed and Shaun first deny that anything is going on ("Don't use the Z word"), but after hearing the news, they wise up to the fact that something is wrong and make their plan. They are to go and get Shaun's mother (who has told him that his stepfather was bitten and feeling a little 'under the weather'), take care of Philip (the stepdad) and then go to Liz's apartment and make sure she is okay.

The rest of the film is a survival story, where Shaun, Liz, Ed, Liz's annoying roommates David and Dianne, and Shaun's mother and stepfather. The entire second half is them at the Winchester (Ed and Shaun's favourite pub which Liz grew tired of after being taken their night after night) fighting the encroaching zombies. This half of the film gets more serious, whereas the first half was more comedic in satirizing zombie films like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Shit starts going down and that's pretty much all I can tell you without my words being rife with spoilers, so the plot summation will stop here. Being honest, the film is not so much about story so much as characters, and these are characters we grow to like over the course of the movie.

The first of these characters is Shaun, played by Simon Pegg. He starts out as an incompetent fool but grows to become more competent as the movie goes on, eventually turning into the only competent person in the survival team. I shouldn't say that, Liz is extremely competent as well, but it is Shaun that is the most sympathetic and likeable character. He goes through so much that we can't help but feel sorry for him, especially near the end, when the film looks bleakest. He feels his failure to fortify the pub is just another one of the failures in his life, and this is one failure too many, as Shaun faces the ultimate despair. This leads to a truly excellent performance from Simon Pegg both during the comedic and dramatic parts of the film. I had only seen him in a few comedic roles before this and I never knew how brilliant an actor he was until now. By far his best performance.

The rest of the cast rounds out brilliantly. First, there is Nick Frost as Shaun's deadbeat roommate Ed. He seems to always play second fiddle to Pegg and one day he should definitely play first fiddle, because he is an extremmely talented comic actor as well. Pegg may give the best performance, but Frost certainly comes close, making Ed just as memorable and sympathetic as Shaun, despite the fact that Ed keeps screwing things up. Kate Ashfield is good as Liz, the only other sane character in the film, and she and Pegg (as well as Pegg and Frost as always) work very well off of eachother. The rest of the cast includes Penelope Wilton as Barbara (Shaun's mother), Bill Nighy as Philip, Lucy Davis as Dianne (one of Liz's roommates) and Dylan Moran as David (her other roommate). Dylan Moran deserves special attention because he plays David as such an asshole that (SPOILERS) when he gets ripped apart limb from limb and disemboweled through the same window he broke when there was a back door to get into the pub (END OF SPOILERS) I actually cheered because I was wishing for his eventual fate. Moran played him very well though, especially during the mexican standoff scene with the rifle and several broken beer bottles.

The script, written by Wright and Pegg, is absolutely brilliant in both the fields of comedy and drama, and especially in the field of character writing (as I had priorly mentioned). It is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. Some of the particularly hilarious scenes include Ed and Shaun throwing records at the zombies while bickering on which ones to keep and which to throw, Shaun and the gang running into near-exact doppelgangers of themselves (except with a woman as the leader), and Shaun and Liz beating up zombies with pool cues while Queen plays in the background. There are a lot of funny lines as well, and the film is as entertaining as it is well-written and occasionally horrifying.

All in all, Shaun of the Dead is a total masterpiece in the fields of both horror and comedy, as well as in the field of character writing.  The characters are memorable, the zombies are cool, the gore effects are amazing, the actors are brilliant, and the movie is just straight-up awesome in general. Another thing I loved about it was the ending. I won't tell you what it is, but it's likely one of my favourite endings to any comedy. I highly recommend it to fans of zombie films, as well as fans of the Pegg, Frost, and Wright combo. This now reigns as my favourite zombie film as well as my second favourite horror movie (Scream just barely inching it out) and is definitely in my top 20 favourite films of all time. I thought I would like this, but I didn't think I'd like it this much, and I just can't run out of excellent things to say about it. So in short, see it. Plain and simple.

10/10- Must-See

This prat deserved his fate for being a whiny little know-it-all and a complainer at every turn. May that fact be shouted from the rooftops





My Review of The Birds

The Birds (1963)



When you come to think of it, The Birds is actually one of the most influential films ever made. All "act of nature" or "attack of the killer whatever" movies, even those about zombie apocalypses owe something to The Birds. This is also the second Alfred Hitchcock movie I have seen (the first being Psycho) and it is one that I picked up in a collection recently (which also includes Rear Window, North By Northwest, and Vertigo, all of which I will be seeing soon). The Birds isn't quite as good as Psycho, but it is still pretty much a perfect movie in my eyes, because I couldn't really find anything wrong with it. The film is exciting, suspenseful, well-acted, well-directed, and at times, it is genuinely frightening.

However, if one were to look at the first forty-five or so minutes of The Birds by itself, it would not seem like a horror movie at all. In fact, it seems like a romantic comedy until Hitchcock pulls a complete genre switch. The film is about Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a wealthy San Francisco socialite who meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a bird shop during a typical romantic comedy meet-cute situation when he is looking for lovebirds to give to his younger sister for her birthday. It is here that we learn that Brenner already knows who Daniels is (which is not a bird shop employee like she was pretending to be to talk to him) and that she is a notable practical joker, which he doesn't much care for.

Following the meet-cute/loathe at first sight, Melanie decides to buy the lovebirds for Mitch and goes to deliver them to his apartment, but discovers he is not there, rather he is at Bodega Bay (where the majority of the film takes place) staying with his mother and sister (which his neighbour says he does every weekend). She decides to drive up and give the birds to his sister by hand. While experiencing her first hours in Bodega Bay, she meets Annie Heyworth (Suzanne Pleshette), a suspicious schoolteacher, and after she is invited to dinner by Mitch, she meets his little sister Cathy and extremely distant mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy).

However, it's when she's boating back to the mainland that the audience sees there's something up. A seagull ducks down at Melanie and scratches her on the head, apparently deliberately. Melanie decides to stay the night and rents a room in Annie's house. Annie explains that she used to date Mitch, and that the reason that they are no longer together is Mitch's mother. It seems we have another Norma Bates on our hands, but Annie explains that she's not afraid of losing her son, but she is afraid of being abandoned (after losing her husband several years prior) and she sees any woman that Mitch takes interest in as a threat. It is made clear that the mutual attraction between Melanie and Mitch is growing as well, which may cause problems, but there are bigger issues to deal with.

The birds attack again, this time at Cathy's birthday party, and they wound several children. After they take refuge in the house and think that they are safe, birds come sweeping into the house and attack all that are inside it. We don't know why they are doing this but it has managed to strike fear into the hearts of all the residents. Lydia asks Melanie to get Cathy from school the next day and what follows is a prime example of a perfectly staged suspense scene. Annie tells Melanie to wait outside while she finishes her lesson, and while she is sitting on a bench and lighting up a cigarette, crows slowly begin to descend on the play equipment. Melanie seems entirely oblivious to this until she turns around and sees hundreds of crows have descended, ready to attack. Daniels and Heyworth get the children to run away and they swarm, attacking the children.

I don't want to spoil too much more, but I will discuss another one of my favourite scenes. Melanie is calling her father at a bar, telling him about the bird attacks, and the news sparks up a debate between her, the bartender, an ornithologist, and a drunk who seems to think it's the end of the world. Then, another attack starts to happen, the one that frightened me the most until the climax. Two birds swoop down and attack a man who was pumping gas, and the gas leaks under another car. The owner of that car lights a cigar and pandemonium ensues. It is a genuinely suspenseful scene and one of the finest scares ever put on film. That being said, those who are fans of the wham-in-your-face type of scares will not like this movie because even though there is one of those near the end (which I will not spoil), most of the horror comes from build-up.

This movie definitely takes its sweet time getting to the outright horror, and Hitchcock knows that it's the little things that get people freaked out, and that build-up is a key element of suspense. The viewer can't just be pushed into the swimming pool, they have to stick their toes in first, test the waters. This element of the film reminds me of Black Swan. It's the little things in Black Swan that start to make things freaky (like the scratches on Nina's back and the moment when she pulls a large piece of skin off her finger), and Aronofsky uses these small things to freak the audience out before he throws them into the craziness of the second half of the movie. Hitchcock used the same method 47 years before, gradually freaking out the audiences with the little things (such as the seagull that attacks Melanie and the dead bird at Annie's door) before the film is flung into full apocalypse mode.

With this clever buildup, Hitchcock has managed to transform birds into some of the most frightening villains ever put on film. I wouldn't be surprised if this movie turned people off of birds, like Jaws has turned people off of the ocean and Psycho has turned people off showers. It didn't have that effect on me, but I can't deny that the birds in this movie are extremely creepy. These birds can smash through windows, peck through doors, blind people, obviously kill people, and worst of all, they don't care who they attack. They also seem invulnerable, like little Birdinators. The last image we see of them is pretty powerful, them covering the house almost in its entirety. Talk about creepy. I was unsure of whether this would hold up, but like the other Hitchcock movie I have seen, it holds up extremely well and I'm sure with repeat viewings, it will still get a reaction out of me, and the object of a horror film is to scare people is it not?

The film is well-acted on all ends, the only one I could possibly complain about is Veronica Cartwright, the actress who plays Cathy, but she gets better as the second half progresses and she's only a kid, so I don't want to be too hard on her. Plus, I like Tippi Hedren in this movie much more than I like Janet Leigh in Psycho. I feel sorry for the poor thing as well, because she suffered what was basically a psychotic episode while filming the movie entirely at the hands of Hitchcock. She and Rod Taylor work well off eachother, and the belligerent sexual tension between the two of them is fun to watch, especially in the first half of the movie before things start to get scary. The last performer I would like to talk about is Jessica Tandy as Lydia, Mitch's mother. She gave an excellent performance as the distant, and yet emotionally vulnerable mother who is still grieving over the loss of her husband, and of course, she does a great job of acting terrified when the birds come along.

The production design of the film is also solid, and the cinematography is excellent as per Hitchcock standard. As I explore more and more of his films, I will probably get to know his style better, and the next one that I would really like to see is North By Northwest, which I will probably watch tomorrow with my dad. Needless to say, The Birds does not reach the level of greatness that is Psycho, but it is a horror classic nonetheless and probably my favourite horror movie besides Scream. I strongly recommend it to everyone, including Hitchcock buffs (although most Hitchcock buffs have probably seen this already) and especially people who need familiarizing with this amazing director's oeuvre (this is a great starting point for those who want to explore Hitchcock's work as well). It's well-acted, well-filmed, suspenseful, and occasionally genuinely terrifying. So all I can say is that Platinum Dunes better not touch this or I'm going to be pissed.

9.5/10

My Review of Psycho

Psycho (1960)



I absolutely love this movie, and what better way to pay homage to horror than to review a movie that I love which could very well be called the birth of modern horror? I think a more appropriate genre title for Psycho would be a psychological thriller, but there are some definite horror elements in it. Psycho was also an extremely influential film in that it introduced several new elements to film that would be copied dozens of times, such as the twist ending (every film that has a twist ending nowadays owes it to this film) and several other revolutionary technical aspects of filmmaking that would be expected from a filmmaking great like Alfred Hitchcock (who I definitely need to explore more). Psycho is most remembered for its shower scene but it has so much more than that. It is well-acted, well-made, well-filmed, and a generally awesome movie that I love more the second time around. Fair warning, the big twist is going to be revealed but I'm fairly certain you all know what it is, so I'm only posting this just to be sure.

After the credits, we see Marion (Janet Leigh) with her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin). Sam and Marion want to get married but cannot afford it, as Sam's money is tied up in paying off his father's debts and paying alimony to his ex-wife. Marion then goes to her secretarial job and is given $40,000 to bank for her boss. Thinking on Sam's remarks, she does not bank this money and instead skips town with it in tow. What then follows is the first extremely suspenseful moment in the movie and one of the best scenes ever put on film. Marion falls asleep in her car and she is awoken by a cop, who proceeds to chase her until she trades out her car for a new one. After she loses her tail, Marion continues to drive but is stopped by the rain, and pulls into the Bates Motel.

The Bates Motel is an isolated place, and it's rarely visited by guests. It is also towered over by a large mansion-like house. Marion meets the motel's quiet owner and caretaker, a nice young man by the name of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Norman invites her for dinner in the parlor and it is here where we see the first sign that there is something wrong with Norman. He tells Marion about his mother, who he seems to have an abnormal attachment to, and when she suggests he put her "someplace" (meaning an institution) he, albeit calmly, loses his temper. These sudden mood swings are a part of what makes Norman such a great character, but I'll talk about that later, we have more plot to discuss. Norman also has a thing for stuffing birds, and we see him arguing with his mother about bringing Marion to the house, but for now, he seems like a sweet, albeit eccentric fellow who has mommy issues. That will change.

What follows is the movie's most famous scene, the shower scene, which I consider to be in two parts. Pretty much everyone knows what goes down in the first part, Marion is murdered in the shower by "mother", but in the second part, Norman (acting as the dutiful son) cleans up the mess. The first part is brilliantly staged as so many people have said before, but I find the aftermath more powerful. Not a word of dialogue is spoken, but we see what is going through Norman's mind as he cleans up his mother's mess. We see him performing the role of the dutiful son and see him genuinely terrified by what had been done. It really speaks to the quality of Anthony Perkins' performance and how he can convey so much with just his facial expressions. I suppose I should talk about the shower scene though. I understand Hitchcock's approach to the scene, as there is a certain sense of paranoia involved in setting the scene in a shower. When one is in the shower, it automatically suggests vulnerability. You are alone, naked, and sealed off only by a curtain. I never found it scary, but I understand how it traumatized so many people (including Janet Leigh, who never took another shower for the rest of her life). Needless to say, the scene is iconic, but the second half of it should be recognized as classic as well and a tribute to the wonderful performance of Anthony Perkins.

The second half of the film takes a completely different turn, as it is mostly about Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and Sam investigating Marion's disappearance. They do this with the help of private investigator Aborghast, who goes to the Bates motel and talks to Norman, who it appears is on to him. Aborghast leaves the motel, but feels dissatisfied, so he comes back to talk to Norman's mother. He is never seen again, and Lila and Sam go to the motel to investigate. Lila goes to talk to Mrs Bates and finds her in the fruit cellar. However....Lila instead finds a corpse with no eyes in a dress and a cheap wig. Her scream alerts Bates, who then shows up in the same dress and cheap wig, and is wrestled to the ground by Sam.

There is an expository speech at the end, given by the psychologist, which explains exactly what is wrong with Norman. He explains that Norman had murdered his mother and her lover out of a sense of jealousy, and overtaken by guilt, he allowed "mother" to take over part of his brain and convinced himself that she was alive by dressing and acting like her. Why he killed Marion and two other women was because "mother" came out whenever Norman was attracted to a woman, and her jealousy ended up getting them killed. The last major scene I would like to discuss is the last we see of Norman, sitting in the jail cell, "mother" having completely taken over his personality. The ending of that scene is extremely disturbing, as there is an image of Norman's face superimposed on his mother's skull. I don't mind the slasher smile, but the skull just pushed the scare over the top.

The first performance I would like to talk about is Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, the role that he would be known for until the tragic end of his life. His Bates is amazingly complex, and his character always keeps the audience guessing. We never know whether Bates is an innocent pawn or an evil plotter, a poor soul under the thumb of his wicked mother or a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. My best guess is a combination of several of these things. I have a feeling that if Norman Bates had a different mother, he would live to be a normal guy and lead a normal life. However, he lived basically his entire life (at least after his father's death) under the thumb of his abusive mother, and thus, he went crazy. That's what makes Norman have some semblance of sympathy and what makes me feel kind of sorry for him. It's also what makes the final scene kind of sad as well as scary. Perkins gets so much done with the performance not only with his words, but with his face and his body language. Every nervous tic and every stuttered word is played pitch-perfect and this is, in my opinion, the grand Oscar snub.

Janet Leigh, however, was nominated for an Oscar for her performance and while it certainly wasn't awful, it was nowhere near as good as Perkins. She properly conveys all of the emotions necessary of a woman on the run, nothing more, nothing less. I find it funny that Janet Leigh was something of a 'scream queen' in this movie, and she gave birth to an even more famous scream queen, Jamie Lee Curtis (who was two when this movie came out). John Gavin is a good Sam, embodying the role of the noble hero, and doing it very well. We only really see him in the second half (he appears at the beginning of the movie and isn't seen again until after the shower scene), but when we do see him, we like him and want to see him win. Psycho is one of those movies where there is no real clear-cut hero or villain (except Mrs Bates, who is definitely a villain), but if there is the closest thing to a traditional hero in this movie, he would be it. The last performance I would like to talk about is Vera Miles as Marion's sister, and many things that can be said about Leigh's performance can also be said about Miles'. Another weird coincidence that I picked up the second time watching this is that Anthony Perkins and John Gavin look very similar, almost like they could be blood relatives, as do Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. Kind of funny seeing as the connection between Perkins and Leigh is important in the first half, and the connection between Gavin and Miles is important in the second half, a parallel of sorts.

The film also introduced a whole bunch of new filmmaking concepts that have been copied numerous times (as well as introducing a concept later used in Scream by having a big star being killed off in the first half of the movie). The black-and-white cinematography is amazing and each scene is staged to perfection (some important ones being discussed in this review). The last thing I would like to talk about before wrapping this up is the score. I love the score of Psycho, and throughout history, it has become one of the most iconic movie scores of all time. Even people who haven't seen the movie know the violin-based score and the tune (especially the tune from the shower scene) is pretty much instantly recognizable upon hearing. All in all, this is an extremely revolutionary movie and one of the best movies of all time (placing around #4 on my all-time favourites list). It is extremely well-acted, extremely well-filmed, and extremely well-written, and just awesome in general. I loved it the first time, but I love it even more now and I hope to watch it again several times (and hopefully to own it someday). This is the very definition of must-see, anyone who hasn't seen it needs to see it immediately and anyone who has needs to see it again.


10/10

My Review of Interview With The Vampire

Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Well, October is well underway and I haven't reviewed a single horror film all month, as I have been too busy reviewing Disney. However, I came across the book upon which this is based, and I enjoyed it so much that I had to check out the cinematic adaptation. Despite my saying that I enjoyed the book, there were some things that held it back, as Anne Rice is notorious for writing flowery romantic stuff and the flowery romantic stuff sometimes made it a hard read, and I have some issues with the main character that I will discuss in this review. However, it is entirely worth a read and I recommend the book for anyone who comes across it. But we aren't here to talk about the book, we're here to talk about the movie. Interview With The Vampire is an entertaining movie and one of my personal favourite vampire movies. However, I haven't seen many vampire movies so that title is rather insignificant. It doesn't quite live up to the book (but books are different from movies, so it is unfair to compare them), but this movie has an excellent story, excellent characters, and above all, excellent visuals (which actually won the Oscar back when this movie came out). Like the critics consensus said, it lacks some of the book's subtler shadings and suffers from some clumsy casting, but it benefits from atmospheric direction and a surfeit of gothic thrills.

Interview With The Vampire starts in New Orleans in the 1980's, where a young man named Malloy (Christian Slater) prepares to interview a man named Louis (Brad Pitt) who claims to be a vampire. It turns out that Louis is telling the truth, and he agrees to tell Malloy his life story. It begins in the 1700's in New Orleans, where we learn that Louis was a wealthy plantation owner that lost his wife in childbirth, which robbed him of his will to live. It is at this point in his life where he encounters Lestat (Tom Cruise). Lestat is a vampire, and he turns Louis and makes him into his companion. Louis and Lestat tolerate one another throughout the years but Lestat grows frustrated with Louis' reluctancy to feed on anything but rats.

One day, when Louis is walking alone, he comes across a young girl crying for her mother, who has died from the plague. This little girl plays a big part in the story, as she is taken to safety by Louis and Lestat and made into a vampire. Problem is, Claudia (the little girl, played by Kirsten Dunst) is five years old, and being a vampire, she cannot grow older. Louis and Lestat parent Claudia, Lestat being more of the father and Louis being more of the mother (at least in those times, Lestat being tougher and Louis being more nurturing). When Claudia finds out that she cannot grow up, and when she tries to cut her hair and it mysteriously grows back, she gets really pissed and a plan enters her head.

SPOILER WARNING

Claudia formulates a plan to kill Lestat, and this plan is successful, at least temporarily. She kills two boys and tricks Lestat into drinking their blood with full knowledge that drinking the blood of the dead will seriously weaken a vampire. She then slits his throat and throws him in the swamp. However, Louis and Claudia see a ghostly, scarred Lestat that is very much alive, albeit just barely (what with his skeleton-like visage and such). When he attacks, Louis and Claudia run away and catch the ship to Europe, where they had been planning to travel to, to see if there were any more vampires. This brings us to the part of the film set in Paris, where another vampire named Armand (Antonio Banderas) comes into the picture.

END OF SPOILERS

Armand is the leader of a troop of vampires who live at the Theatre des Vampires, where there are shows mosy every night (one which included stripping a female victim fully nude before killing her). Armand and his coven know about...what I mentioned in the spoiler warning... and Armand says that Claudia is in danger and she and Louis should part. It could be interpreted that Armand just wants Louis for himself, or he knows that his vampire coven is unpredictable and he knows that the one crime of the vampire (punishable by death) is to kill their own kind. Claudia thinks that Louis is going to leave her for Armand, so she plays the same trick that Lestat played on Louis by getting a woman for Louis to turn who would take care of her.

However, they are kidnapped by Armand's coven. Louis is sealed in a coffin and Claudia and Madeleine (the woman) are trapped in a prison cell with an open roof. I promised not to give away any more spoilers, so we'll leave it at that because I can't really say anything more without giving away the ending. However, you all know by the beginning that Louis survives the whole affair. Needless to say, Interview With The Vampire has a great story at its heart, and it's based off excellent source material. It is a very detailed book, so naturally it couldn't all be transferred to screen. The movie is what I would call a distilled adaptation, as the writers just cherry-picked what was important to the story and put it in the script. Things move fast in this movie, much faster than in the book, and while it sometimes doesn't work in the film's favour, it can't be helped.

One of the most notorious things about this movie is the casting, because the two main stars of this movie were the big Hollywood heartthrobs at the time, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, who were chosen for pretty much their marketability, as it appears to the naked eye. They both look utterly ridiculous as vampires, Cruise as Lestat more than Pitt as Louis, but I was actually surprised as performance-wise, they were both pretty good. However, the huge surprise for me was Tom Cruise, and this is from someone who is hardly his #1 fan. Tom Cruise gave a great performance as Lestat, and even though I could imagine many other actors in the great role (actors such as Jeremy Irons and Rutger Hauer were considered for the role, and Stuart Townsend played the role in Queen of the Damned), I was thoroughly entertained by his performance and found it to be the second-best in the movie.

Brad Pitt was slightly less ridiculous looking in his role as Louis, but my enjoyment of his performance was hampered by the fact that I don't much care for the character. Louis and his whining got a bit tiring after a while (although he is much whinier in the book), and his whole self-pity due to the fact that he has to kill to live starts to get old fast. Don't get me wrong, Brad Pitt was good as Louis, I just don't care for the character so I liked his performance less than that of Cruise and Dunst. Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the performance of Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, who got a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. This was her big debut as a child actress and it was a damn good one. The character of Claudia is, for the most part, an adult in the body of a child, and Dunst embodies that, being very articulate for her age and being able to hold her own against Pitt and Cruise. Needless to say, her performance was probably the best in the movie, and that's something to say for a child actor.

The rest of the performers include Antonio Banderas as an entirely believable Armand (albeit also slightly ridiculous looking), Stephen Rea as a villainous vampire named Santiago, who is a large part in the climax of the film, and Christian Slater as the Interviewer (a last-minute replacement for River Phoenix). They all give pretty good performances, nothing Oscar-worthy but nothing terrible. Out of the three performances mentioned, I would say Banderas was the best. The only problem that I really see is that Banderas wasn't in the movie enough, as Armand was in the book much more. Slater wasn't bad, and Rea wasn't bad either, but Banderas was the best.

The acclaimed elements of the film, however, lie in the visuals. This film got Oscar nominations for art direction and costume design, and rightfully so, because both elements of the film are spectacular. The use of visual effects is also well-done except for one aspect. In my opinion, they messed up the vampire teeth, and it was part of what made Cruise and Pitt look ridiculous. They looked okay on Dunst, but still weird. Another thing, fair warning to those who are squeamish. If you are squeamish around blood, then some parts of this movie will be awkward for you, because there are a lot of gory deaths, some more than others. However, for those comfortable around gore, this should be an entertaining watch.

Don't get discouraged by the unfortunate glut of vampire movies coming out, Interview With The Vampire is a worthwhile watch, especially around this time of year. It may be flawed, but the film has a lot of things going for it. It has splendid performances, spectacular visuals, and despite lacking some of the subtlety that the book had to offer, an excellent story. I also recommend giving the book a read, but like I said, this movie is a distilled adaptation, so you don't need to read the book before watching the movie to understand it as the basic plot elements are still there. It may not be straight-up horror so much as romantic vampire fiction, but it's better than Twilight. It's much better than Twilight. You have to give it that. So in short, I recommend Interview With The Vampire, especially to doubters of vampire movies.



8.1/10

Supernatural- TV show review

I have decided to follow the likes of Lord Naseby and The Creep and do a review of a TV show. Now this review will be half a normal review and half informational, about the characters, major plotlines and such. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. P.S. I would put pictures in if I could, but RT is not letting me, so if you're really curious, that's why I had to post on my individual blog, which I try not to do. Warning: For those who care, there will be some spoilers
SUPERNATURAL
Now a few of you have maybe heard of this show, as it has been running since 2005. However, you may have dismissed it as just two attractive guys hunting monsters. It is, but there is so much more to the show than that. It is a clever, funny, intelligent, and occasionally quite sad show about two brothers who's lives are riddled with problems, having to do with their absentee father, a war between angels and demons, or any problems that might crop up on the show. This is my favourite show on television currently and it's not just because of the fact that the two brothers are extremely attractive. Granted, they are, but I actually like the show for its content, unlike the majority of the show's rabid fanbase.

OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS


The elder of the two brothers is Dean, played by Jensen Ackles. Dean initially starts out as a bit of a tough guy and comic relief, but we see over the course of the show that he is a man who loves his family and will do anything to save them if they are in trouble, including selling his soul for his brother Sam in the third season finale. That can lead to martyrdom, which is one of Dean's character flaws and a major source of conflict between him and Sam. A good deal of the conflict also comes from their absentee father, who Dean blindly worships and trusts, whereas Sam has the audacity to question him, and Ruby, a demon that comes along in season 3, who Sam summons to find a loophole in Dean's contract. He had to partially raise Sam due to their father being away for weeks at a time hunting, and thus he is extremely overprotective of Sam and is probably more of a father to Sam than his own father. Dean is also a very funny character, and to be honest, he's kind of a slut (Dean's sluttiness making the show occasionally quite hilarious). In the fifth season, Dean learns from one of the angels that he is supposed to be a vessel for the Archangel Michael, who would lead the angels in the war against Hell, which is the cause of the animosity between Dean and most of the angels.  Despite the movies he has done, Jensen Ackles is a fantastic actor and he performs extremely well as Dean, playing both the comedic and dramatic aspects of the character perfectly. Dean is also an extremely fascinating character, possibly one of the best and most complex TV characters ever, and that's what makes him such a joy to watch, even as absolutely horrible things happen to him.


The younger of the brothers is Sam, played by Jared Padalecki. Sam was never on good terms with his dad, and when the show first starts out, he is not with Dean or his dad, but at Stanford University. He also lives with his girlfriend Jessica, who he intended to make his fiancee. When she is murdered in a similar fashion to his mother, Sam agrees to go along with Dean, hunting monsters and other supernatural creatures. Sam is shown to be the quiet, studious brother, and he is the one doing most of the research for the jobs they go on. It is revealed that on the night when his mother died, the demon that killed her went into his nursery and fed Sam demon blood, which later results in him developing precognitive powers. In the second season finale, he is stabbed fatally and Dean sells his soul to save Sam. Pretty much the entirety of Season 3 has Sam desperately trying to find a loophole to save his brother from Hell, including enlisting the help of a demon named Ruby, who will cause bigger problems and who we'll talk about later. In the fifth season, Sam is told that he is Lucifer's one true vessel and that he will lead the demon army in the war against Heaven, which is one of the main sources of conflict in Season 5. Jared Padalecki is a fantastic actor as well, and he and Jensen Ackles have great brotherly chemistry. He has had some less than exemplary movie choices as well, but don't let that detract from this great performance.


Sam and Dean's father, John Winchester, is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and even though he is not on the show very much, he is one of the main sources of conflict and one of the main sources of animosity between Sam and Dean. John Winchester is more of a symbol, because for a long while, he was all that Sam and Dean had besides eachother and he was absent from the majority of their lives. One of the popular theories discussed is whether or not John Winchester is a good father. I'm going to have to say no, disagreeing with the general fanbase. He keeps way too many secrets from his sons(lying to Sam about his mother's death and what he does even into his childhood), going against his late wife's wishes by raising the kids as hunters (as Mrs. Winchester was raised a hunter and didn't enjoy it very much), prevents Sam from going to university and having a happy life, and is solely focused upon vengeance as opposed to what's best for his children (what's best being that he is there for them as opposed to leaving them on their own for weeks at a time, and being there for a four year old who lost his mother. The six-month old lost his mother as well, but he would be far too young to remember her). He also hides another kid from the boys, a kid he did normal dad things with, who we'll talk about later. Needless to say, he won't be winning any Father of the Year awards. The majority of the first season involves Sam and Dean trying to find him, and after Dean is badly wounded in a car crash, John ends up making a deal with Azazel (the demon that killed his wife) to give up his life, his soul, and the Colt (a demon-killing gun) so Dean could live. This deal is important because the demons wanted to get this whole apocalypse thing (a major plot point in season 5)  underway a lot sooner, and they hoped that John would break the first seal (that would set Lucifer free, the first seal being when a righteous man sheds blood in hell), but it didn't happen, so they had to settle for his eldest son. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a fantastic actor and he performs well as John Winchester, and even though his character is a deadbeat, he does have some very touching moments.


Bobby Singer is a hunter on the show, and is played by Jim Beaver. The point of his character is that he's much more of a father to Sam and Dean than their own father, and he's much more normal and consistent than their own dad. Bobby is an old friend of John, and often helps Sam and Dean with cases. He's probably the most featured hunter on the show that's not Sam or Dean and is a general mentor and occasional traveling companion, and probably the most funny person on the show that's not Dean. He's probably the smartest as well, and he is willing to do what is necessary to solve the problem, whether it involves locking Sam in his demon-proof panic room for him to detox (I'll explain later).  He oftentimes chides the brothers for some of their more moronic actions, but he does care for them and it is shown that he never thought much of John's parenting. He is confined to a wheelchair for the fifth season, but he still assists the boys in whatever way he can and still serves as a pivotal character. I liked that they gave Bobby a backstory that was completely unbeknownst to the boys, namely that he had to kill his own wife after she became possessed by a demon. Jim Beaver plays Bobby extremely well and is just one of the many fine actors on this show. I'm also glad that the show creators would probably never have the guts to kill off Bobby. They can kill off whomever they want, just not Sam, Dean, Bobby, or a certain angel character I will talk about later.


Here we come to our first female character on the show. Her name is Ellen Harvelle, and she is played by Samantha Ferris. Ellen is also a hunter and an old friend of John Winchester, and she runs a bar for hunters. She had not spoken to John for many years because a mistake John made in a hunting job caused the accidental death of her husband. She has a daughter named Jo who is supposedly around the same age as Dean (although I find that very hard to believe because Alona Tal looks much younger than Jensen Ackles and is about six years younger than him in real life) and she continues to hunt. Like all female characters on Supernatural though, Ellen doesn't last long, as Supernatural fangirls get pissy about any female characters added to the show. However, I don't see any problems with Ellen, as she is one of two female characters (the other we'll talk about later) that could be on the show without getting in the way of the brotherly relationship that is the core of the show. Ellen is sort of a mother figure to the boys, although she is featured on the show much less than Bobby, and she's obviously more of a mother figure to the boys because they both barely remembered their own mother (especially Sam). Samantha Ferris plays her well, and for the relatively few episodes she is in, her character is emotionally resonant and we actually grow to care about her.


This now brings us to Ellen's daughter Jo, played by Alona Tal. Jo was an extremely unpopular character with mixed critical reception and extremely negative fan reception. She was originally designed as a love interest for Dean, but transferred into a more sisterly role. Her father died when she was only a child and she longed to become a hunter to feel more connected to him, at the resistance and later, grudging acceptance of her mother. Jo only appears a few times in the show, and each time she is almost entirely useless. I know this description sounds quite biased, but I don't like her character much. She is either an appendage of her mother or of Sam and Dean, and the only real semblance of drama with her character was her finding out of John Winchester's involvement in her father's death, and even then, that was more interesting with Ellen, who always knew. Alona Tal is not a bad actress, Jo is just a bad character and she was someone who the show could have definitely lived without.


Ruby is a demon that Sam summons to try and help find a loophole to get Dean out of his deal. The first incarnation of Ruby is played by Katie Cassidy and the second incarnation of Ruby is played by Genevieve Cortese (who is actually married to Jared Padalecki, who plays Sam). Dean takes an instant disliking to Ruby, merely seeing her as another villainous demon. She shows plenty of tendencies towards that, but Sam seems to continue to trust her. After the Season 3 finale, Ruby possesses a different body and when Dean gets out of hell, he finds out that Sam has been working with Ruby and he has been drinking her blood to become stronger so he can kill a demon named Lilith who has been breaking the 66 seals that would free Lucifer from Hell. The mystery with her character is whether or not she really wants to help Sam or whether she is just tricking him and taking advantage of the fact that he is in love with her. Out of the two Rubys, I like Genevieve Cortese a lot more than Katie Cassidy. That could be due to the fact that Katie Cassidy isn't exactly a very good actress and her personification of Ruby is much more annoying than Cortese. I'm not a rabid fangirl that objects to her relationship with Sam, but I still don't really care for her character because I agree with Dean about her. Critical reception of the character has been generally mixed, and fans initially hated her (of course) but general consensus (my own included) points to Cortese's performance being better.

Lilith is a demon played by Rachel Pattee (not pictured), Sierra McCormick, and Katherine Boechner, and she is the main villain through seasons 3 and 4. It is revealed that she is the demon that holds Dean's contract, and she doesn't want to let Dean go, as he would break the first seal like his father was supposed to. During season 4, Sam works tirelessly and gets addicted to demon blood in order to kill Lilith. During this season, she is breaking the 66 seals in order to free Lucifer from Hell and start the Apocalypse. There are over 600 possible seals, but only 66 have to be broken, so any attempts to stop or prevent seals from breaking would fail because nobody knows which seals Lilith would break so there is no way of preventing or stopping her. We learn that Lilith is the final seal, and knowing that her death would be essential in the starting of the apocalypse, she tries to make a deal with Sam, who refuses and kills her. Sam only finds out that her death frees Lucifer about ten seconds after killing her, making him the one that started the apocalypse. Lilith has a habit of possessing little girls, being played by two over the course of her seasons. Afterwards, she possesses the body of a grown woman who she is inhabiting at the time of her death. My favourite of the portrayals is Sierra McCormick, who plays the character really awesomely (if that's a word). Here is a compilation of her scenes in the episode where Lilith is being featured most. Like Ellen, she is one of the female characers that can be on the show without being extremely hated because even though she's a demon, she's not a love interest (especially considering she often possesses little girls and eats babies) and with the fangirls, that is ok.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBFSYVJiH0


Oh god, Castiel. Castiel is the main angel character of the show, and he is played by Misha Collins. He is the one that pulls Dean out of Hell in between seasons 3 and 4 on God's instructions. He is the main angel on the show and he was originally only intended for a five-episode story arc, he was so popular that now Misha Collins generally receives third billing next to Jensen and Jared. Castiel is very different from most angels generally portrayed in the media. He has angelic powers, but he is willing to kill to achieve his goal and eventually, he rebels against God, eventually declaring himself the new God (if you watch the show, you'll understand) possibly setting him up as a villain for the next season. He also pulls Dean out of Hell because God has work for him, which involves becoming Michael's vessel and leading the Angels in the war against Lucifer, which Dean does not want to do, because once a human is occupied by an angel and the angel leaves, then the human is a vegetable, a shell of a person, not unlike what would happen with the man that Castiel is taking up residence in, who Collins plays as well as Castiel in a fourth or fifth season episode. Plus, if Sam said yes to Lucifer, then Dean might have to kill his brother I kind of have a weakness for this character, because.....well....look at the picture. I don't care if Castiel is a villain next season, I'll still love the character. Misha Collins plays the part absurdly well and Castiel is probably my favourite character on the show currently, a lot of that having to do with his performance.



There is one last character that I would like to talk about, and that character is Bella Talbot, played by Lauren Cohan. She exists solely in Season 3, and we learn that she is not a hunter, but rather a highly skilled thief that purveys supernatural objects and sells them to the highest bidder. She screws over the Winchesters on many occasions and makes them look like asses, and for those reasons (and also the fact that she is female), she was unpopular with the fans. The Winchesters cross paths with her a few times over the course of the season and we don't really know much about her, but she dies just as she is getting interesting, and that kind of pisses me off. I won't give away too much more about her, but she is a definite antagonist in the series, because outside one brief dreamt sex scene and one comment about angry sex, there is not a trace of love interest in her. I don't really feel sympathy for her character, especially during her big reveal, but I don't mind her being on the show. Out of all the female characters that are hated on the show, she's probably the one I like most, because even though I don't like her all that much, I still like her a hell of a lot better than Ruby. Lauren Cohan is a decent enough actress, although she is far from the best female performer on the show, and Bella is a decent enough character.

There are countless other hunters, angels, demons, and other human characters, but describing all of them would be extremely time-consuming (even more so than this whole venture is already)

RECURRING ELEMENTS AND THEMES

Brotherly relationships are an obvious theme in the series, whether being with Sam and Dean or Michael and Lucifer, who intend to use Sam and Dean as their vessels. The elder brother (either Dean or Michael) is the good brother, the son that is loyal, almost blindly so, to the father. The reason for the brothers being the vessels is quite ironic, because Dean is the good brother who is blindly loyal to his deadbeat dad and Sam actually has the audacity to question their father, which Dean genuinely does not understand. The same applies with Sam's relationship with Dean, another father figure. Sam has the audacity to question him and Dean continues to treat him like the weak little brother when he is getting stronger, becoming a better hunter, or becoming more independent. Like John did to him, Dean insists upon keeping Sam tethered to him. They do part ways occasionally, but it is and will always be temporary as Sam and Dean literally cannot live without one another. Plus, no matter how far away they are from one another, being brothers and being all that eachother have, they will be tethered together for life.

There are many common weapons used over the course of the show. The brothers use salt (including shotguns that are loaded with it) and holy water, things traditionally believed to drive away demons, as well as standard weapons like guns and knives with creatures that can die by them. They also use Devil's Traps, mystical symbols that render demons powerless.  One of the recurring weapons on the show is the Colt, a magical gun that can kill anything, which is stolen by Bela in Season 3 and recovered in Season 5.  Ruby also has a special knife with similar powers to the Colt, that being it can kill anything, which is heavily used in Season 4 and late in Season 3. One other significant prop that isn't a weapon is the Impala. Dean is absolutely in love with his car, which used to belong to his father, another symbol of Dean's worship of his dad. They also have to commit various illegal acts like breaking and entering, grave desecration (salting and burning the bones of the dead to rid them of the demon posessing them) earning money through pool hustling, poker, and credit card fraud, and they are framed for bank robbery by shapeshifters. They also imitate various federal agents using clever aliases based on rock music or movies. Their troubles with the law end through an explosion at a police station caused by Lilith (in her first appearance)  ending in the FBI thinking the brothers are dead, when they had left the building a day earlier.

The Winchesters seem to have a chain of soul-selling going on. In a time-travel episode, we learn that Mary Winchester (back when she was Mary Campbell) made a deal with the demon that killed her to save her then-boyfriend John Winchester's life for permission to enter her house in ten years. She was unaware of Azazel's intentions to feed demon blood to Sam (as Sam hadn't been born or thought of yet). After Mary essentially sells her soul for John, he sells his soul for Dean after Dean is badly wounded in a car accident, resulting in one of the most tragic moments on the show. Sam being stabbed in the Season 2 finale ends up with Dean making a deal with the Crossroads Demon to give his soul in exchange for Sam's life, with one year between the time of the deal and the time the hellhounds come for him. His death (however temporary) is also one of the saddest moments, and considering the Season 3 finale was made in 2008 during the writer's strike, the last image seen in Supernatural very well could have been Dean in Hell strung up by countless meathooks in genuine agony screaming for Sam. Bummer. The chain of soul-selling stops at Sam, who essentially has to do the same to save the world from Lucifer.

Speaking of bummer, this show can be quite depressing when it wants to be, especially in the season finales. In the first season finale, John, Dean, and Sam are all hurt in a car crash, Dean more so, which ends in John selling his soul. In the second season finale, Sam is fatally stabbed and Dean sells his soul. In the third season finale, Dean goes to hell. In the fourth season, Sam accidentally starts the Apocalypse. In the fifth season finale, Sam sacrifices himself to save the world. In the sixth season finale, Castiel declares himself God and tells Dean and Sam to bow down to him or be destroyed. That's quite the ordeal, and probably the main reason why the quintessential song from the show is "Carry On My Wayward Son". The show has other depressing episodes, but it has some episodes that are quite funny as well, like "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester" where Dean begins aging rapidly after losing a poker game. He's played by Chad Everett, and it's awesome, especially his interaction with Bobby. The show strikes a fairly even balance between comedy and drama, although some episodes are more focused on one particular element. I was going to do season overviews, but I figured that I've talked enough about them that you guys basically get the picture.

THE POINT OF ALL THIS

All in all, Supernatural is a fantastic show, and it is currently my favourite show on television. It may just be well-known because of its mostly attractive cast of both male and female actors, but there is much more to it than that. It has memorable characters, genuine drama as well as moments of great comedy, and genuine humanity. The actors are great, and a few weak spots aside (*coughJocough), I just can't run out of good things to say about it. Another great thing about it is that for a show of this subject matter, it still maintains an extreme sense of realism. We feel like this could actually happen, but we know that it's highly unlikely. If this isn't your cup of tea, then that's fine, and thank you for reading my blog. If you are interested, the show is still on, and the seventh season is going to start in a few weeks. Thanks to any and all who read and feel free to comment on the RT page I post the link on.