Women in Horror: Penny Dreadful Season 2

Penny Dreadful continues to be an amazing show in its second season. Here are my spoilery thoughts.

The Good

Vanessa Ives

Although the cast is quite extensive, Vanessa is clearly one of the main characters. She is both the most tortured and complex character on the show. I love her ability to be opposing things at the same time: disciplined and wild, weak and powerful, prickly yet deeply sympathetic and kind. This season goes more into her history and shows how she harnessed her powers with the help of the Cut Wife, an abortionist and witch that locals hate but ask things of on a regular basis. In this season, we see new sides of Vanessa. She spends episodes in solitude, frightened out of her mind because of the new villain's torments, most uncharacteristic of her after last season. She grows throughout the season, deepens her relationships, creates new relationships, and comes out stronger than before. Her conversations with John Clare/Caliban were some of the best written and it was nice to have them interact since they previously hadn't. I'm glad the writers turned away from continually punishing her evil vagina and harping on her past, one time transgression. Of course she can't be happy though. She and Ethan developed a relationship, but he left due to his wolfy state even though she accepts him completely just as he accepts her. Eva Green is always magnetic on screen, but especially as the most intriguing Vanessa.

Brona/Lily

At first, I was upset by Brona's transformation into the subservient Lily. Brona was fiery and defiant where Lily was just happy to be whatever Victor wanted her to be. Victor and Brona's relationship was frankly kind of gross and disturbing to watch. He creeped on her naked dead body, convinced her he was her cousin, and then manipulated her while she was vulnerable and ignorant. Victor grew controlling and brutish as their relationship progressed. He wanted her to be only his and didn't even want her to leave the house. Brona pretty much manipulated him and fooled everyone from day one. She turned into this vengeful angel for women and highlighted the discrimination, abuse, and degradation of women during this era. The speech below is amazing and gratifying in a show set in the Victorian era. Much of the shows events are unrealistic in regard to the treatment of women and it's nice to see that acknowledgement and such a strong response to it. The end of the series has her teaming up with fellow immortal Dorian Gray, dreaming of world domination.



* The Villains

This season's villains are a coven of evil witches that worship and serve the devil in return for youth and power. These ladies don't mess around. They cross taboos of all different kinds to achieve their goals. One particularly controversial scene features one of the witches brutally killing a couple and their baby, taking the baby's body back to their lair, and using its heart to cast a spell. In 2015. it's still taboo to kill a baby or child on film. It gets under people's skin to destroy the most vulnerable and innocent of society. Even though these villains are women, they don't spare the innocent and have no stereotypical maternal instincts towards children. They are formidable opponents and send Vanessa cowering. I wish the ending hadn't been so lackluster.

* Angelique

Angelique is a transwoman during the Victorian era. It's well known how women have fared and transwoman had it much worse. She was rejected by her family and decided to live as her real self instead of pretending to be someone else for their benefit. Angelique works as a prostitute, but has the freedom to be who she is for the most part. She's a bright light in the show because she's so confident, untouched by all the horrible shit in this world. Her boldness, confidence, and joy made the show a little less pitch black. It was nice to see someone not totally depressed or crippled with fear. Her relationship with Dorian was sweet. It was refreshing to see a couple happy instead of tortured, trying to keep each other apart for whatever reason. The other controversial scene of the season features Dorian and Angelique having sex in one of the most explicit scenes I've seen on TV. Angelique is obviously still physically how she was born since there is no alternative at the time, so this scene ruffled a lot of feathers and had people clutching their pearls. I love how the show always treated her as a women no matter her physicality or her dress. Of course this world isn't accepting of her, so we see some of that plus some of her ensuing doubt and temptation to pretend to be what everyone thinks she should be. The only problem with her story line is that it didn't really relate to anything else going on except revealing Dorian's portrait and the ending of her story line.

* The Cinematography and Costumes

There are so many gorgeous scenes in this series even though it's bloody and messy.

* Things to look forward to next season

On top of more beautiful costumes and sets, so many things are in store next season: Dorian and Lily teaming up to take over the world, Ethan's trial, Caliban's next steps, Vanessa's more healthy future, and Dr. Frankenstein's self loathing and pain over creating homicidal creatures.

The Bad

* Dorian Gray

Most of his story is outside of the main story and he becomes pretty evil for no apparent reason. I like him with Lily, but not at the expense of Angelique and her life. She was accepting and he rejected her in the end after treating her like garbage when he found someone shinier and newer. I get that his whole thing is being a hedonist, but that doesn't necessarily mean evil.

* Caliban/John Clare

Caliban is an interesting character and outside of the threatening to kill everyone in Victor's life and mooning over Lily, he hasn't really done much. His stagnant story line became interesting the end when the people he worked with tried to imprison him as a sideshow freak. That end is predictable but satisfying. I did really enjoy his scenes with Vanessa in the shelter for cholera patients where they spoke of literature, poetry, and life. She treated him as a human and he acted his best. He's a philosopher and romantic at heart. His threats and violence are more a reaction to people's horrible treatment of him than an inherent part of his nature.

* The ending

The witches were formidable villains and I was genuinely worried about Vanessa and her friends. Unfortunately, the final battle was a bit anticlimactic and of course one of them easily gets away to make trouble later. It's just a bit anticlimactic.

Overall, Penny Dreadful season 2 is much more even than the first. Almost everything has gotten better and the problems I had were few.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Blog Tour: Favorite Scene

I have been a long time fan of the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. My review of it was the very first post ever on Fishmuffins of Doom, so it has a special place on my shelf, on my blog, and in my heart. Now with the new film coming out, I was asked to write about the scene I would like to see in the film.

I'm most looking forward to the epic fight between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth Bennet. As in the original tale, Lady Catherine demands that Elizabeth admit that she isn't engaged to Darcy and that she will never become engaged to Darcy as he has been promised to her daughter since childhood. Elizabeth of course refuses and the fight begins. Lady Catherine is also supported by her cadre of ninjas, so it's not only an unfair fight, but a daunting one for poor Elizabeth. Lady Catherine is being played by Lena Headey who is always amazing, although I expected someone a bit older in the role.

I'll be reviewing the film later on in  Women in Horror Month, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, watch the trailer below, read the book, or check out the film in theaters.

Women in Horror: Shallow Graves

Breezy Lin remembers leaving the party, kind of drunk and stinging of hurt, but nothing until she wakes up in a shallow grave. She's also confused about the dead man laying by her grave who died when she touched him saw the darkness within. Her heartbeat also isn't a constant like it has been her entire life. She decides to look for answers, hitchhiking with all types along the way and only killing the hostile ones happy to take advantage of a young girl on the road. At a random rest-stop, an intense boy gives her a flyer for a religious homeless shelter. Thinking (wrongly) that she has nothing else to lose, she ventures into their trap. The events following through her into a world she never knew about, of creatures of myth and legend and the dubious humans who want to either control or destroy them.

Shallow Graves is a dark tale of revenge, but it also has a fairy tale undercurrent that sets it apart from the usual supernatural horror fare. The story takes mythical monsters like zombies, banshees, and revenants and makes them into everyday people except for their longevity, their diet, and their power. They have all the normal problems of human life like income, food, shelter, and all that with the added concern of their special diets, their automatic actions of their nature plus wizards and humans alike hunting them down and killing them. For example, Breezy meets zombie brothers whose parents were killed. They live in a small apartment and struggle to get by. Plus they have to figure out how to get corpses to their house to eat on a regular basis without attracting unwanted attention. These people who are marginalized and don't quite fit into society like the minorities, LGBT, and other disenfranchised people in our society. The cult in the story doesn't seek to destroy these people, but to "fix" them to how the cult thinks they should be: without the abilities that they were born or reborn with that are a core part of themselves. Afterwards, these "fixed" people are shown to be shells of who they once were at best. This practice is akin to typically religious programs to brainwash the unsuspecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people into at least acting like they are heterosexual or cisgender to be what the perpetrators of this abuse think is normal. This metaphor is well done as it shows problems with our own society and builds a unique world with complex characters.

Breezy Lin is a revenant, a creature I haven't seen recently. She's basically a vengeful undead drawn to those who have murdered someone. Their sins are in a dark aura around them. The more people they have killed, the larger and darker the aura is. Her ability also includes latching onto this aura and pulling, usually causing death. Because she's undead, she can take devastating amounts of damage without dying and heal in a short time. She also has remarkable strength and speed. After waking up after a year of being dead, Breezy goes home only to find her family gone. She decides to hitchhike around, stealing from the evil murderers until she runs into the cult. We get some glimpses to her life beforehand: she was interested in science, specifically space, and wanted to be an astronaut. This is also shown in her scientific way of evaluating herself objectively to find out her abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. She was a fairly normal high school teenager with a focused interest. The day she died, she had a fight with her best friend because of an attempted drunken kiss. Her friend slaps her, disgusted, and Breezy runs out. It's interesting that the first rejection of Breezy's sexuality ends in her death and makes her a target for this cult bent on making the noncomformists normal. Breezy Lin sounded and acted like a real person with a delightfully morbid sense of humor. After having so much direction to her life before she embraced wandering around wherever people would take her. The story itself also wanders and doesn't take a linear journey, but it feels more like real life. Everything isn't tied up with a bow at the end.

Shallow Graves is an engaging horror novel with a side of fantasy. I was a little weary when it started out a lot like Kendare Blake's short story On the I-5, but it branched out and became something wholly different. I love how the characters break down a lot of sexist ideas: Breezy is into and successful at science as are other women in the narrative. Breezy is faced with a predestined fate near the end of the novel and she chooses to do something else. Nothing is set in stone and she doesn't care about what anyone else wants. One of my favorite parts of the book is that whatever someone was born with is pretty irrelevant in regard to being good or evil; it's their actions that make the determination between the two. The humans end up looking way more monstrous than the monsters. I want to explore the world more and see her take on other supernatural creatures. I hope there will be a second book. Either way, I will keep an eye out for whatever else Kali Wallace writes.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: Kristy

* spoilers *
College student Justine has worked hard for everything she has and continues to do work study washing dishes to earn money, achieve a high GPA to keep her scholarship, and try to have a relatively normal life in the meantime. Thanksgiving rolls around and she can't afford a plane ticket to visit her parents, so she opts to stay at her college basically alone rather than vacation with rich friends who have everything handed to them. She borrows a friend's BMW to pick up some ice cream and inadvertently insults a women in front of her by offering to buy her sunglasses. That woman then storms off, tries to crash into her on the road, and brings a gang of masked intruders to wreak havoc on her campus trying to kill her. Can Justine keep it together and fight back or escape?

The beginning of the film establishes both the heroine and the villain. Our heroine is Justine, a super hardworking college student. Although she is surrounded by the privileged and rich (including her boyfriend and best friend) at an Ivy League level school, she is not rich and has to work hard to achieve and keep everything she has. Her scholarship could be taken away at one bad grade and her work study is mandatory for her to be able to afford living at the school. When she isn't studying, in class, or working, she swims on the swim team and spends time with her boyfriend. Justine is the underdog, someone who doesn't quite belong but who we want to succeed because she deserves it. During this time in the film, the colors are bright and some unexpected camera angles are used. Her life is vibrant and full even though it's busy. I couldn't help but like her. She wasn't beaten down by her misfortunes even though it isn't ideal. It's ironic that her financial situation left her by herself at the school for Thanksgiving.

The villains are part of a faceless online collective called the Fold that hate Kristy. Kristy isn't any one girl, but she has everything; she's blessed, a follower of Christ, pretty, weak, and pure. They find girls like this, hunt her, torture her, kill her, carve a K on her face, and film the process for others to watch and delight in. To them, killing Kristy is the closest they can get to killing god. These faceless people are all over the US, killing innocent girls and leaving their trademark K. They could be anyone. This group taps into the audience's fear of the dark side of the internet, Satanists, the unknown, and the invasion of safe spaces. The university is shown to be secure with guards, but a group of 4 pretty easily dispatches all of it. The latter half of the film (and the first 10 minutes when the Fold is established) is monochromatic with red being the only vibrant color shown, contrasting the earlier establishment of Justine's normal life. The only character whose face is shown voluntarily and has some sort of character establishment is Violet (screen name Drkviolet801). She never hides her face and she's the one who chooses Justine as their next Kristy.

They bump into each other at a convenience store by chance. Violet sees Justine's borrowed car, her innocent demeanor, and her face as prime Kristy material. It's ironic that Justine doesn't even have any of the things the Fold resents except for being pretty. She has worked hard for everything she has. Justine and Violet are foils for each other and the main conflict is ultimately between these two women. Justine could have been Violet and vice versa. Justine could have been bitter about her lot in life, took solace in on an online collective set upon punishing the people who have what she doesn't have, and resolved to create chaos instead of her current state of being. Violet could have been Justine if she worked hard to overcome her obstacles instead of simply punishing individuals for having more than her. Violet also symbolizes all of Justine's anger and bitterness at the people around her, but she eventually overcomes it and moves on.

The home invasion aspects are well done and suspenseful. If you've ever seen a film like this, the tropes are pretty standard and it's usually pretty clear where it's going to go, but Kristy was different. Both sides had new tricks up their sleeves. At one point, Justine calls 911 and Violet answers, gleaning her position in the process and torturing her mentally further. Justine is physically fit through her swimming and uses her knowledge of the university due to her various jobs and responsibilities to evade and trick her attackers. All of the things she did were established in her intro, which shows that the writers know the horror audience. We hate when people are conveniently good at things for no reason, so they showed why she handles herself well underwater, has stamina, and knows the university layout well. Justine does fall into a few of the final girl pitfalls like crashing a car to kill one of the attackers instead of simply driving away, but this can easily be explained by her heightened emotional state. People don't think clearly very well under duress. She did an admirable job through most of the film, but mistakes were made. Ultimately, even though some people tried to come to her aid, she dispatched all of the assailants on her own through her own efforts, her own ingenuity, and her own drive to survive. At the end, she says my name is Kristy because of how the event changed her and how she came to change her own fate. This figure of scorn to a whole organization hunted them in return and won.

Kristy is mostly a typical home invasion film at a college with a few things like characters, cinematography, a small injection of cyber horror, and a few twists to make it stand out. I enjoyed the film, especially the main conflict between Violet and Justine. Both Ashley Greene and Haley Bennett carried the film and provided contrasting, yet compelling characters. The cinematography makes the two parts of the film as different as the two female leads. I enjoyed how her beating this small group of people led to a huge breakthroughs in arresting and dismantling the Fold, but the after credits scene shows that not all of them are caught as they target their next victim. I hope a sequel isn't made because it feels right as a stand alone, but I would probably watch it if it were made.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: Hellevator

I'm not a big fan of game shows in general, so I tuned in to see Hellevator just to see Jen and Sylvia Soska as hosts. I was pleasantly surprised how creative and entertaining the show is. Each episode features a different tale of terror with a central figure who committed horrific deeds of murder and torture including a deranged nurse, a murderous undertaker, and ghostly triplets. I love how the stories seem real because of the antique photos, newspapers clippings, and aged video footage shown. My personal favorite was The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker. It sounded really cheesy going in, but the three brothers are a murdering team that dispose of their victims in delightfully disgusting ways.

Three hapless contestant go through the entry room full of odd things and blood splatter to set the mood. They eventually enter the Hellevator after usually cringing over everything and have to endure 3 stages of challenges they each have to face alone. Their only comfort is the walkie talkies provided to communicate with their teammates while they watch on a monitor in the Hellevator. I love this aspect because it's all the more jarring to have to face the unknown all by yourself. Each challenge is unique to the theme and the overarching story. Sometimes they have to endure electric shocks or rats on their heads or dig through corpses. Some challenges depend on the teammates help and some don't. In this season, no challenge has ever been repeated, which makes things even more interesting. Even if contestants have seen the show, they still won't know what lies in store for them. If the contestants pass their particular challenge, they get to endure the Labyrinth where bundles of money and one central item worth thousands of dollars are just laying around for them to pick up as they are scared, sprayed, and lunged at by the creatures of all types. If the contestants fail their challenge, they are claimed by the Hellevator, never to return.

What really gives Hellevator its flavor is its hosts, Jen and Sylvia Soska. The contestants running around screaming and the stories are interesting, but their attitude and the way the Soska sisters deliver the macabre stories are always entertaining. They are dressed in their gothic best and adopt a sardonic and sinister yet playful attitude with their guests. It personally offends them when their guests succeed in a challenge and steal money from them. They delight in their fear and failures. Many times, they say exactly what I'm thinking and have genuine reactions to what the contestants are doing. The show could have easily been ruined by robotic or lackluster hosts, but the Soska Sisters bring just enough deranged delight and sinister anger to make the show cohesive and fun to watch. I've always enjoyed their films, so I urge you to check them out if you haven't seen them. I look forward to another season of making contestants squirm and unique tales of horror.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: Dead Spots

Mackenzie Babin needs a new start. A few months ago, she was pregnant and blissfully happy with an adoring husband. Now, her baby miscarried and her husband left, already happy with someone else. Everyone tells her to get over it, but she can't escape the crushing sadness. Alone and miserable, she sets off to drive back to Texas to live with her alarmist mother. On the way, she narrowly misses hitting a deer and stops in front of a defunct diner. Resolved to show she can do adventurous things and open a new chapter in her life, she enters the abandoned restaurant only to become trapped in a dead spot, a nightmarish place between the worlds of the living and the dead. Mackenzie has no idea who is a real person and who's a parasitic monster or a wraith. The odds are stacked against her and she just wants to go home.

Dead Spots is an unexpected read. I've read a few Rhiannon Frater books before and this one is a bit different than her usual. It all starts out fairly normally with a typical blissful day between a very pregnant Mackenzie and her husband Tanner. Then everything falls apart when she miscarries. Tanner stays around for a little bit, but can't handle her sadness and her grief. Most of her friends were his friends, so her circle has dwindled to her mother, who insists that she did something to make the miscarriage happen. Everyone just expects her to move on and get over it, but she simply can't. Grief has to be worked through, not forgotten for the convenience of the people around them. Everyone grieves differently, but all people see after a while is a depressing person they don't want to be around. I've seen this happen in real life as well and it's horrible. Rhiannon Frater writes the situation realistically (and partially autobiographically) and it makes the reader feel the crushing sadness of losing everything significant to you plus your support system.

When Mackenzie happens into a dead spot, everything changes. She thinks she's going insane as the world tries to kill her using shades of her husband and her mother at their worst as well as any other fear or anxiety she has to hurt her the most. In a dead spot, merely thinking or worrying about something can trigger the production of wraiths, a change in the setting, and of course an attempt on her life. In this world, a person can die multiple times, but part of their soul is eaten away each time. The mechanics of the world are creative. Regular people can shape a dead spot to its former glory and make it a safe haven with everything they need if they have enough power and haven't died too many times. They can also create objects and heal themselves with this power. These people are varied, so they don't always work for the greater good. A creepy clown made an amusement park into his torture chamber where he finds the same girl over and over and kills her in different ways. Other creatures in the world include incubi/succubi who suck energy from people until they become wraiths and shades that are kind of like ghosts.

Rhiannon Frater really shines with her character development and character relationships. Mackenzie starts out pretty broken and she finds it hard to cope with the dead spots as she found it hard to cope in real life. This supernatural place is a way for her to work through her demons and her grief and come out stronger the other side with some hope. Right when she comes in, Grant, an actor from the 50's, latches on to her in the guise of helping her. At first, he seems nice and normal, but small things he does start to bother me like putting her down, telling her to only listen to him, keeping her ignorant to the true rules of the world, and isolating her from potential friends who he brands as enemies. He is revealed to be an incubus who tried to manipulate her into a parasitic romantic relationship. Although he is a supernatural villain, so many of the strategies he used are employed by real life manipulators: the isolation, the gaslighting, the negging, and the exploitation her weaknesses. This part of the novel is where Mackenzie is at her weakest. She follows Grant around and falls into his manipulative traps.

After they are separated for a while, Mackenzie runs into a little boy named Johnny and another shaper named Luke. Mackenzie's and Luke's relationship contrasts hugely with her relationship with Grant. He respects her boundaries and her wishes. He's honest with her, teaches her the true rules of the world, and allows her to make decisions herself. They work truly together and support each other without ulterior motives. They both want to leave the in between world and go back to having normal lives. Their romance develops organically by getting to know each other, taking care of Johnny, and fighting to protect each other. It highlights all the things horrible things that went on between Grant and Mackenzie that felt off at the time, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

Dead Spots is one of my favorite books by Rhiannon Frater. It feels like an emotionally honest book that delves into some truly dark territory. I appreciated the author's note at the end that tells the real life events that happened to inspire the story. Frater dreamed the world after her own miscarriage, which she took months to physically and emotionally recover from. She does a wonderful job of grounding this tragedy in reality and using the fantastical world to work through her grief. The only criticism of the book is the fairly flat depiction of Mackenzie's mother who is consumed with OCD and the abrupt ending. Other than that, it was enjoyable and exciting throughout.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror Month 2016

It's Women in Horror Recognition Month! This will be the fifth year that I've participated in this joyous month full of highlighting the women of horror and the seventh year of the event itself. I always look forward to February because of the promise of kickass women and bloody horror. The horror genre hasn't really been known to treat women the best. Their bodies are torn apart for the bloodthirsty audience; their breasts are bared for the presumably male dominated audience (which really isn't the case anymore). They are relegated to stock, barely written characters only to be killed off not too long later. They have to choose if they want to be completely virginal or promiscuous with nobody in the middle and suffer the deadly consequences if they choose incorrectly. In some cases, their rape is filmed to titillate instead of horrify the audience. These unfortunate tropes and conventions of the horror genre are not dead, but fast declining.

A rising number of films show that women are merely people with different sides and flaws. Women can be delightfully psychotic villains like Lola Stone from The Loved Ones, brave fighters like Erin from You're Next, awkwardly sweet like May Canady from May, desperately ambitious like Sarah from Starry Eyes, or stoic surgeons like Mary Mason from American Mary. These films expand and change women's roles in horror. Of course, others cling to the past and still pigeonhole their female characters in flat caricatures or stereotypical roles, I will be examining films from both camps and in the middle as well as spotlighting actors, directors, and musicians in the horror genre.

If this movement interests you, please check out the Women in Horror Recognition Month website to submit your own event, find events of interests, or visit their merch store.