TV Review: Hemlock Grove

You know what I haven’t gotten around to doing in quite some time? You’re mother. But she’s busy being kind of a bitch, so I think I’ll get to reviewing some shitty television show on NetFlix instead. But not just any TV show. This is one that was released recently, so not a retro review. And this is also one that is a “NetFlix” original, meaning that you won’t find it anywhere else (except for streaming sites that have everything else). What is the review of the day? Why, none other than Hemlock Grove. 

Let me make a few points clear. When I review a TV show I have several points in which I decide if I have formed enough of an opinion to stop watching and put out a review. If I make it through a whole season, the opinion has a better chance of being positive, and the less episodes I’m willing to watch, the odds are it didn’t quite meet my expectations of quality. But, as a standard rule, I try to give each show at least three episodes before I decide it’s too shit to withstand anymore. And while I normally like to hold myself to these low standards, I finally was overcome by the stupidity that is this show.

I only managed to watch two episodes before I started packing shit in and giving up on this mind-fuck of a show. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, what exactly is Hemlock Grove? It’s a show about a small, Twinpeaks-style town in which we follow an assorted cast of characters with a mixture of confusing motivations and inconsistent personalities doing who-the-fuck-really-knows. From the outset, the show tries to establish two main characters. 

Roman Godfrey, a tall, pale, dark-haired rich boy with an uncanny ability to hypnotize people and get any girl to spread their legs without hesitation. He also has a thing for blood as shown when he cuts himself during sex and then eats-out a girl when he sees she’s on her time-of-the-month. While it isn’t expressly said in the show, he might as well be wearing a sign saying, “I’m a fuck-mothering vampire.” His co-star, Peter Rumancek, is a gypsy that everyone hates on for no rational reason other than the fact he’s a gypsy. Aside from his completely hairless body, he’s considered to be a hairy individual and so people start spreading rumors about him being a werewolf… which eventually turn out to be true… sort of… if you count what he turns into as being a werewolf, though I consider it to be just a plain wolf.

There’s a murder in town in which a girl’s body is found and her vagina has apparently been ripped open by some creature, letting her entrails kind of stick out after the fact. Everyone in the high school (oh, and this spends the majority of the time in a high school) is already gossiping about how Peter is the killer because they all think he’s a gypsy-werewolf, but none of them have any real proof or rationale behind this accusation other than unfounded rumors and racism (or is this classism?). The other suspect is Roman, but no one actually speaks about his potential suspicion because… um… that’s never really explained since I’d consider him to be more of the suspect since he’s the rich asshole with a blood fixation that likes sinking his obvious-vampire fangs into some pussy… but whatever. 

There are plenty of points where this show goes wrong, in ways that make me want to pull my hair out in absolute frustration… and then jam that hair into my hears in hopes it will block out some of the horrible dialogue. Many scenes have long, awkward pauses between line deliveries that make scenes longer, quieter, and play out in ways in which the conversations don’t really make that much sense. For example, Roman’s date in the theme park his mother paid to give him and his date exclusive access to in episode one. He and his date are talking for a bit, but then there’s a pause in conversation in which they just stand around expecting the other to say something, but then one of them starts talking again, but the way it’s said and the delay make it come off as utter nonsense.

And whoever is playing Roman’s character comes off as someone they just pulled in who is completely uncomfortable delivering his lines with any real consistency. There will be moments when he’s talking to someone and then delivers a line that I expect some hack-writer to be clever, but it doesn’t even make sense in the context it’s delivered. But the way it’s delivered is worse, in that Roman’s actor says it fast and mumbles it so if you weren’t engrossed in the show to a point where you were listening intently as you do to your upstairs neighbor’s fucking into the night, you won’t know what the fuck he just said. 

As I already mentioned, the dialogue is absolute garbage. I get the feeling the writer or writers of the show were just taking various lines from more successful projects (episode two gives a really strong impression of this) and attempting to remake them in a way that fits this show, or simply find different situations for them in hopes they work here too. Episode two is full of horrible examples, like when some support character quotes Dirty Dancing in trying to ask a girl out, and she has no idea what the fuck he’s saying. Or, my personal favorite, when a girl is trying to explain to Roman that she’s pregnant because of an angel (and not another man) and he is having trouble wrapping his head around it, her response to his confusion is, “How do you explain dancing to someone who has no legs?” To which, Roman response, “Well I have legs that just won’t quit.” Oh, and this conversation is in front of a dying homeless man on the road in front of their car who they suddenly ignore because reasons.

A red flag should have flown up the moment I saw that Famke Janssen (Jean Gray of the X-Men films) is one of the main characters as well, Roman’s not-so-mysterious-but-obviously-psychotic mother. Her acting is just as plan as it was in X-Men: Last Stand, but with less fire and Ian McKellan to balance it out. She seduces her late husband’s brother, and they have some mutant daughter who I won’t even get into because I don’t really have time to explain her at the moment. My theory is she’s a succubus because of how she’s constantly trying to make men sleep with her and the aforementioned psychotic/evil aura around her. But perhaps that’s just the wretched acting making it difficult to tell what her motivation or purpose is. 

The town is built around a giant tower, the Godfrey Tower building, which is some genetic’s testing facility… I think. They do some kind of science there, given that we saw a lab with some scientists in it. Actually, in hindsight, I think it was stated to be a pharmaceutical company, but my lack of remembering shows just how interested in that I really was. But I bring this up because it seems like this building shows up in every shot it possibly can. Even when the camera is in the forest a ways from town, we can see the building in the distance being unrealistically tall and looming over the landscape to such a degree, that the Empire State Building would be envious.

There’s also a scene in which Roman releases the school’s pet snake during a dance (because it has one and why the fuck not, right?). The normal reaction you’d expect is for those near it and the squeamish women to get a little panicked, but ultimately nothing too troubling as the groundskeeper or whoever would just pick it up and everyone would go about their business. But the instant the head chaperone of the dance says, “Everybody keep calm and form an orderly line to the side of the room,” everyone instantly panics and runs out of the school like it’s Columbine all over again. And then the camera stays to lock on the single snake left in the empty room. And we didn’t even know the snake was released until that shot. The entire scene was absurd in terms of context that my head still hurts thinking about it.

Can I also ask why Peter’s mom offers him a glass of milk when Roman comes over to see the werewolf transformation, stating the moment after Peter declines to Roman that he’s lactose intolerant? Is she an ignorant mother or did the actress not realize this? Or was this just because she only had two glasses and they had to make up an excuse to not pour him one that didn’t require reshooting the scene with a third glass? Also, why the fuck is the first thing she offers to drink milk? I would think that people would be more inclined to drink water or juice or gasoline than just milk by itself (and I fucking like milk). 

Speaking of which, the werewolf transformation sequence… This scene reveals just how cheap and crappy this show really is. I’ve seen many transformation sequences, but this one is probably the worst and grossest one I’ve ever seen. If you didn’t like the scene from Dragon Ball Evolution in which Goku becomes Oozaru, please shut the fuck up because that is no longer the worst transformation sequence in live-action film and is in a different league of quality from Hemlock Grove’s werewolf transformation scene. Peter’s skin literally falls off and the wolf emerges from within (and then eats the bits of flesh that fall on the ground). Conceptually, I get what they’re doing, but the execution is cheap and looks terrible. Plus the idea of less-is-more is something that should have been exercised here. Don’t show us the full sequences, spending 10 minutes on some of the worst CGI I’ve seen on TV, and I watched a few Sci-Fi originals (sorry, Sci-fy).

From what I’ve read, the estimated budget for this first season was $45 million and I’m trying to figure out where in the bloody vagina fucking hell this money went to, because it certainly wasn’t the writing, the CGI, the acting, the staging, the lighting, the continuity of shots, the filming in general, or even the costuming. I want to believe some black hole just opened up and sucked out all the money, leaving the studio with virtually nothing left to make this show, which could also explain why it’s absolute crap. But I’m not in the business to make excuses for bad shows, just to point out how bad they are. Though it baffles me how this could possibly have gained enough of a following to earn a second season (which is in the works, meaning someone is pointing a camera at these people doing something void of any real emotion or talent).

 

All that said, thank Christ this show existed. I’ve been needing something to vent my frustrations on for a while (of which I have many) and I needed something to take a verbal pounding. So, thank you, Netflix, for providing me with a this sacrifice to feed into my bitterness and rage. This should suffice until I get around to playing Dark Souls. It’s a shame though, since genre television is certainly finding a good niche when done right. Walking Dead and American Horror Story have proven that. But I think what they have over Hemlock Grove (among many things) is just putting real effort into every aspect of that show. For the crap I’ve given Walking Dead this past season, you can tell the people working on it genuinely care about they work they do. And that’s not something I get from Hemlock Grove to any capacity.

That’s all for today. Tune in again for another exciting review!