Series Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 4 (1999 – 2000)

Disclaimer: This is not an official Month of Spooks post. I know it could easily slot into that, but it’s not. Mom and I simply got to this point in our rewatch of the show, and I might as well review the season now before I forget. So anyhow, let’s go.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 4.

With high school behind them, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends can finally move on to something new and exciting… College! But just because they’re attending a new school it doesn’t mean they’ll get away from the vampires, demons, and a shadowy military organization… Yeah, this season gets a little different. Season 4 is a very ambitious one. Sure, that could be said about seasons 2 and 3 as well, but at least that ambition felt somewhat reasonable. However, the ambitious nature of the fourth season doesn’t always yield great results. There are a lot of problems with the overarching narrative this season, especially in the second half of the season, where a particular narrative choice happens. And even some of the one-offs aren’t great. Sure, this season does have the terrifyingly fantastic “Hush”, and the gut-wrenching “Wild at Heart”. But then there are some less than stellar ones too. Do I hate the story/stories here? No. I do kind of enjoy it, but it does feel slightly off overall.

As per usual, the characters of this season are what make it… for the most part. The main cast of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Head, and Seth Green are all great and all get some good development. Some recurring guest stars such as James Marsters, Kristine Sutherland, and Emma Caulfield are also great. Now, let’s talk about newcomers… or at least one. Marc Blucas plays Riley, a teacher’s assistant who Buffy meets at college, and he serves as a bit of a new love interest. And while his character development is fairly whatever, I do think Blucas does a damn fine job with his performance.

As with the previous two seasons, the music was composed by Christophe Beck, and once again he did a damn good job. It was bombastic, it was subtle, it was emotional, it was fun… Beck is just a great composer. And as per usual, there was a fair bit of licensed music throughout, and all the songs worked well for their respective scenes.

As with the other seasons, writing and directing for season 4 of “Buffy” was handled by a whole bunch of people. And while some of the writing could be less than stellar (as alluded to earlier), the directing generally kept a decent level of quality. Of course this is highlighted the best in the season’s best episode “Hush”, which is just fucking masterful. But most other episodes are really well handled too. Even the effects are for the most part quite good. You can tell that they had found a rhythm with the craft of the show.

This season has gotten some mixed reception. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 67% positive rating. On Metacritic it has an audience score of 7.3/10. And while there’s no season average, on imdb.com the show sits firmly on an 8.2/10.

Season 4 of “Buffy” is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I do still enjoy it (maybe my bias for these characters is showing). It has okay story, great characters, great performances, great music, and really good directing. Time for my final score. *Ahem*. My final score for “Buffy” season 4 is a 7.23/10. So while quite flawed, it’s still worth watching.

My review of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 4 is now completed.

I guess college does ruin things… I’m joking, stay in school, kids.

“Hellboy” reboot announced

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I hope you’re all having a good day. As you read in the title of this post, a reboot of the “Hellboy” movie franchise has been announced. Now, this was announced earlier this week, but I had to take a few days to really think about this. For those who have lived under a rock for the past 15 years, “Hellboy” is a movie directed by Guillermo Del Toro, based on the comic book series of the same name written by Mike Mignola. The movie starred Ron Perlman as the titular hero. It also got a sequel in 2008 called “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”. Both of these movies were critically acclaimed, being loved by both critics and general audiences. For the longest time there were rumors and speculation regarding a third movie in the series, something both the fans, the star, and the director wanted. So Del Toro had a meeting earlier this year with Perlman (Or Da Perl, as he lovingly called him) and Mignola regarding the possibility of “Hellboy 3” happening. It was then announced that it wouldn’t happen, which made a lot of fans (including myself) really fucking sad.

Sad Hellboy representing us fans.

Skip ahead a few months to earlier this week and we get an announcement that a new “Hellboy” movie is being made. Then it turns out it’s a reboot that doesn’t include Del Toro, Da Perl, Doug Jones, Selma Blair, or any of the people from the first two movies. Instead it would be directed by Neil Marshall, the director behind the very popular horror film “The Descent”, as well as directing episodes of “Game of Thrones”, “Constantine”, “Hannibal”, and “Westworld” (among a bunch of other things). And the titular red one would be played by David Harbour, the man who most people probably know as Sheriff Jim Hopper from Netflix’s “Stranger Things”. And this is why I needed to take a few days before I actually talked about this rebootification. Because I’m a huge fan of the two “Hellboy” movies, so if I had written anything right as it was announced, I would probably have nothing but negative things to say, and I’m only human so change is obviously not something I’m happy with. But now that I’ve taken a few days to think about it and I’m ready to say something.

Lower the gun, Red. We have to be calm and reasonable.

While I’m not the most thrilled to be getting a reboot of this series, I am not 100% against it. The director has made some good stuff, and while I haven’t seen “The Descent”, people seems to love that movie. Plus, the shows I mentioned before are good, so I know that the man has serious talent. And while I would have loved to see Da Perl don the Red makeup and prosthetics again, David Harbour is a good choice for the role. The man is big, and his performance in “Stranger Things” has me convinced that he can do the gruff but still good-hearted style very well. My biggest problem here is how the effects will be handled. The original movies had amazing creature effects, both practical and CGI. So this rebootification has some big fuckin’ shoes to fill. I forgot to mention, this reboot will apparently be rated R. I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know if the age rating can serve the story in any way. If someone out there has read the comics, please tell me if the R-rating can be justified for the movie.

So in conclusion. I’m not too excited for this reboot, but I’m not gonna hate on it too much either, because there are some genuinely talented people behind it. I just needed to get this out there because I love the movies so much. Feel free to share your thoughts on all of this in the comments.
Have a good one.

HB: Is this asshole for real? AS: It seems like it. HB: Damn.

Movie Review: Crimson Peak (2015)

BOO! Ha, got you! That’s right folks, the Month of Spooks is continuing. So instead of writing the typical clever intro, let’s just get into the review and see what spooky antics we’re facing today.

Ladies and gentlemen, please beware of… “Crimson Peak”.

Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is a young, aspiring writer who falls in love with the mysterious Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and moves in with him is a shitty, old house. There we also find Thomas’ sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain) who will be staying with them. However, everything might not be as it seems. And from that we get a story that was kind of mismarketed. The trailer and ads made this seem like a straight-up horror movie, but that’s not really true. This is more of a romance with some spooky stuff to it. And the plot from the start seems really pretty interesting, presenting some compelling mystery in combination with the gothic romance. However it is bogged down a bit by some mediocre pacing. I mean, there are scenes that are pretty slow and don’t really add to much plotwise. The last 15 – 20 minutes on the other hand… fucking great stuff, I telll you. That bit is exactly what I wanted the movie woverall to be like… intense, suspenseful, bloody. So yeah, interesting overall plot with some mediocre pacing, and a pretty great final act.

The characters in ths movie aren’t the most interesting. The only truly interesting characters are the ones played by Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain, and that’s mainly because you can tell that there’s something off about them, as well as their backstory being interesting. Though their backstory is not revealed until pretty late into it. But where the characters in the movie aren’t that interesting, it’s almost made up for by the performances, all of which are really good. Mia Wasikowska as Edith is great, Tom Hiddleston is great, Jessica Chastain is great, and even Charlie Hunnam is great… even though he shouldn’t attempt an American accent. Then we also get a few smaller supporting performances from Jim Beaver and Burn Gorman, both of which do really well in their roles. So okay, the characters are maybe not that interesting, but the acting in the movie is really good.

The original score was composed by Fernando Velázquez and I thought that it was really good. The score fit the movie perfectly, helping create the atmosphere that would be needed for each scene. Sure, it’s not the best score I’ve ever heard, but I really did think it was good and it worked very well for the movie.

This movie was directed by Guillermo Del Toro, and when it comes to him I can’t help but be excited for something new. He’s a fantastic director who has an eye for making some really creative and awesome stuff. From “Pan’s Labyrinth” to “Pacific Rim”, the man knows how to make a visually interesting film. And god damn it, he did it again! The sets, the directing, and the cinematography all look fucking fantastic! That is something you can always count on with Del Toro’s movies, the visuals will always be terrific. What I also really liked is that he set up a creepy atmosphere with his direction here. The movie isn’t really scary per se, but it definitely gave me some chills with it’s atmosphere. And I guess we have to talk about the ghosts that pop up every now and then. I think that they are visually interesting and look really cool. I’ve seen some behind the scenes stuff of how they did it and it’s practical makeup/prosthetics enhanced with CGI, which gives it a very great look. And of course, Doug Jones was the one under said makeup/prosthetics, just being creepy and stuff.

This movie has gotten some mixed reception. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 71% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 66/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6,6/10.

“Crimson Peak” isn’t really one of Del Toro’s best, but it’s also not a bad movie. It has a somewhat interesting plot, really good acting, really good music, fantastic directing and cinematography, fantastic sets, and a really good final act. However it is dragged down a bit by some occasionally mediocre pacing and the characters not being that interesting. Time for my final score. OOOOOO, SPOOOOOKYYYYYY. My final score for “Crimson Peak” is an 8,55/10. So I’d say that it’s worth buying.

My review of “Crimson Peak” is now completed.

For the ladies (and possible men) out there, you do get some Hiddle-butt in this movie.