Harper's Island: My New Weekly Fix of Cheesy Horror
This show is gonna be some awesome cheese, people. Here’s the awesome. It’s cut and shot like a horror movie, a big fancy expensive one. In fact, the first few moments of the show—murdered people hanging from trees and whatnot—were genuinely creepy. Also in typical horror movie style, the first extra-gruesome death happened before the fifteen minute mark, and then the scenes where something actually happens began to be significantly outnumbered by the scenes where nothing of importance happens. Modest radio hits are playing in the background of every scene to trend things up a bit. Little droplets of mystery are being spread everywhere—someone’s getting mysterious phone calls! Someone else hints at a cloaked past! People “don’t want to talk about what happened”!
The dialogue is terrible, a determination I made two minutes in. “That’s why you’re my best friend!” one character chirps to another, to ensure that all of us at home are clear on the character’s relationships. “How do you not know that story?” one character says to another. “Let me tell it to you at length so the viewers at home have the benefit of hearing it as well!”
Characters? Also playing exactly to our expectations, every cliché accounted for. Otherworldly child? See below. Fat party guy with sideburns? Check! But he does know the word “debauched” so good on him. Mean girls? Absolutely, and they all talk like Paris Hilton and have the exact same hair. Earthy, ponytailed, denim-jacketed girl with the tragic past? And as soon as the director was sure we were rooting for her plain Jane charms, they hotted her up in a pink satin sheath dress! Pill-popping drunkle (drunk + uncle)? Harry Hamlin’s on the job. Sweet-faced groom who’s too good to be true? He’s there and I hope he’s the killer.
Unanswered questions: Why is everyone walking around the damn woods so much? Does the hotel not have indoor bathrooms? Also, why are people talking endlessly about the original murders (other than that they will definitely be somehow connected to this series of murders)? You’d think no one had ever been murdered in the history of the world except on this island. “People died here,” drones the requisite creepy girl who probably has the shinning. People die everywhere, moppet.
For the spoiler report (i.e., what the predictable huge twist at the end was), follow the jump!
Aw, man! They killed Drunkle! Well, I knew Hamlin wasn't gonna be the killer--he already played that gig on a vastly superior show.
Catch you next week.
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