Paul Schneider | Through the Shattered Lens

Gentle Readers, it’s time to take a break from my stand alone film reviews and get something we can all sink our Teeth Into (you’ll get the pun later). It’s the Syfy Channel’s return to their awesomely dramatic roots. I will begin by writing that they delivered! If you dig suspense, good writing, and intricate plots, this show is not a bad bet.

Cold Open: A nightmare. Mike Painter, America’s Child Psychologist, is being interviewed by an asshole. The host pries deep into Mike’s private life and how his twin brother disappeared, several children were murdered in 1988, his blood type, and pictures of his colon – ok the last two were false, but the interviewer is a jerk. The host gives Mike water that has a dying fly in it. He puts Mike on the spot to talk to a creepy kid on the phone… who says “Why are you afraid to go home?” Then, the cameraman is a mannequin. What we got here is an unreliable narrator. We smash to the first of many odd smash cuts: a scarecrow on fire.

Mike heads home and briefly talks to his mom. She’s concerned that he is looking into the murders. He lies and says no. Mike goes to the Sheriff’s office and it’s a bit of exposition time, but not too bad. We learn that Mike’s buddy has become Sheriff and that the Sheriff’s son is a bit of a misfit. Mike wants the files on the murders. Mike dissembles that he’s writing a book about the murders. Sheriff wants to makes sure the book will be respectful and mentions that the victims were missing their teeth. YEECH! Sheriff is worried that his son is a weirdo and offers to trade files for some free psychoanalysis…. as you do. We also get a clue as to weirdness: there are reports of a person breaking into homes, but not stealing anything. Yikes!

Dinner Party: They discuss how the kids are watching too much tv. Mike checks in on Katie – the Sheriff’s daughter – who is watching a creepy puppet show. Mike mentions this when he returns to the dinner table. The show was called Candle Cove. The same show that they watched as children in 1988. It has a super creepy host called Jawbone – a puppet skeleton. The adults discuss the show some more and Mike leaves abruptly.

Mike has a flashback to bullies messing with his brother and he does nothing. They go home and the tv turns on and it’s the creepy puppet show Candle Cove. This show really ratchets up the creep factor. Seriously, you will be scared. We flashback back to Mike’s childhood room. He wakes and sees Jawbone in his room and Mike approaches him. When he touches Jawbone, he wakes in a field looking out at the woods. He notices a man in the woods as well.

Diner: Mike runs into his old English teacher and she quizzes him on grammar. We cut away to Katie’s room. She’s vanished. This show’s creep factor really goes up and up and up. A search party forms to look for Katie. Katie’s mom Jessica confronts Mike because she’s learned that he was not home for five hours the previous night. We learn that he was in psych ward a week ago. He begins to rave that it’s the show that somehow took Katie away. She rationally calls for help and he disappears. Mike is convinced that he can find Katie.

Mike goes to the Sheriff’s house and sees Dane the Sheriff’s son. Dane says, “She said you would ask” Taking a moment. This is becoming The Ring, Ju-on, When a Stranger Calls levels of creepy. Mike is convinced that he knows where Katie is. He flees into the woods towards a place called “Crow’s Nest”. We see a number of cutaways of burying bodies and hooks to the chest. Yep, hooks to the chest.

Mike sees Jawbone and reaches to touch it. Jawbone flees and leads him to Katie. Mike rescues Katie and when they leave, we see the MONSTER: a Thing Covered in Teeth. The Tooth Monster reaches out where Katie was sitting and takes away two bloody teeth. You wanna be scared, watch this series!

They have thrown Mike in jail because he rescued Katie…come again? Well, he’s in jail and gets released. When he gets home, he mentions Candle Cove to his mom. She responds that show was just static. We cut to all of the children of the town watching Candle Cove.

This show is absolute gooseflesh inducing. Where Stranger Things was dripping with nostalgia and gothic horror, Channel Zero taps into sheer Hitchcock suspense and Rod Serling terror. It’s a great show for October and just a great Thriller!

Love Is a Four Letter Word (2007) – This was really disappointing. I could say something like shit is also a four letter word, but disappointing is really a better word for this movie. The movie is about three couples. The first are newlyweds. The second are an older couple who are getting divorced. The third are the two divorce attorneys handling each end of the older couples divorce. What’s so disappointing is that the beginning of this movie has some of the sweetest, affectionate, and genuine moments between two lovers I have seen in a Hallmark movie. However, it then just degenerates into a pitiful attempt at a 1940’s screwball comedy while trying to keep the emotions of the beginning of the film alive on top of cutting between the three couples to tell their stories in parallel. It doesn’t work! Why couldn’t the movie have stuck with the couple we met at the beginning and just tell a nice simple love story. Is it a sin to follow the principle of KISS when making a movie? That being Keep It Simple Stupid! There’s no reason to waste your time on this movie.

Jack’s Family Adventure (2010) – This movie is okay, but that’s the problem. It’s so okay that it’s not really worth watching. A guy played by Peter Graves dies and leaves a cabin to his son played by Jonathan Silverman. No! I’m not going to make that joke.

Jack decides to take his family to said cabin because we all know that getting away from city life brings families together. While they are adjusting, a guy called Wild Bill (Peter Strauss) shows up. They all have a good time and the family emerges closer than when they arrived. That’s it! Like I said, it’s just so okay that boredom sets in pretty quickly. Not worth seeking out, but you’ll survive if you end up seeing it.

Dear Prudence (2008) – Was Jane Seymour always this annoying? I think I have only seen her in Live And Let Die (1973). She is like the living embodiment of the wig from Lies Between Friends. Awful! Well, Seymour plays some TV show host who basically shows you life hack type stuff. She gets sent to a special place in Wyoming. It doesn’t take long for her to stumble upon a crime. I didn’t even know this was going to be a murder mystery going into it. I mean it doesn’t have “murder” or “mystery” in the title to tell me. Sadly, that is so common with Hallmark that I was honestly surprised when she came across blood on a carpet. However, I wasn’t surprised to quickly figure out this was actually shot in Canada. Little tip for Canadian productions trying to pretend they are in the U.S.: Don’t have your Canadian actors say the word “about”.

So in between fantasies of Jason showing up to cut off Seymour’s head, a murder mystery unravels. It’s not an interesting mystery by any means, but Seymour and her trusty side kick giving out all these stupid household remedies for everything will suck any fun you might derive from it right out of it. Skip!

Murder 101: College Can Be Murder (2007) – This is easily the best entry in the Murder 101 series. Despite “murder” being in the title of the movie, it is actually all about Dick Van Dyke trying to get his bike back after it is stolen. It’s an old bike that has a lot of sentimental value. He of course hires his friend played by his son Barry Van Dyke to help him track it down. It’s so funny! Dick keeps seeing people on campus riding his bike around and tries to chase them down. He never catches them. He goes to the gym to try and get in shape in the futile hope that it will help him catch the thief. Barry keeps going around questioning people all about this bike. Posters are put up all around campus. There’s even a scene where Dick is in class and has what I can only describe as a spidey sense that his bike is nearby. He runs out into the hall to find the thief waiting for him on his bike. A hilarious chase ensues.

I would have totally loved this movie if that was what it was actually about. In reality, the stolen bike is just a subplot. I made up some of that stuff, but he does keep chasing after the bike, goes to the gym to gain speed, and Dick does put up posters. Why couldn’t the movie be one long joke about that bike? Instead, some college professor gets killed by eating an orange. At first it’s natural causes, but after Barry does some dumpster diving to retrieve the orange (how the hell did he do that?) they discover he was poisoned. It all winds up revolving around the saying of “publish or perish”. It’s a decent entry in the Murder 101 series, but I really wanted that bike movie instead.