Bite me!
This episode a great example of why I love Supernatural. It's embedded in it's genre as a whole, but in the terms of episodic TV tacks risks, and can achieve something quite amazing in 44 minutes.
Found footage/hand held camera shooting has been a staple of horror since The Blair Witch. Like any device its been used well, indifferently and awesomely. The most recent example was the movie Chronicle, which succeed so well because it was a twist, not so much on the device itself but that it used it to tell a story that played with genre. It posed the question - what if you're a teenager who got superpowers, and it wasn't all lycra and heroics?
Chronicle was the obvious inspiration for this week's episode, which also focused on the relationship between three friends who stumble into a werewolf in their midst.
First - wow - going 20 mins without an ad break (and no credits) was just a great way to immerse us in the story. Which now I think of it is a bit how Lord of The Flies works. And a huge amount of respect for both the direction and the editing in this episode. Handheld camera work is a hard one to pull off and this was an amazing example of how it can still be great cinematography.
I thought that the relationships in this group felt quite real - and the individuals each well sketched. Michael is the jock who's really a hopeless romantic. Someone people might look to as a leader - but he's much more Beta than Alpha really. The Ralph of the group (to play with the Lord of the Flies metaphor. Also - was I the only one deeply scarred by that book? I studied when I was about 15).
Brain is Piggy, only in that is how he sees himself. Brain looks up to him, loves him. Kate sees him as an intellectual equal.
Maybe it's because I've been in this sort of triad (usually as Brian!) that it really resonated with me. Well that and the giant bong! But certainly helped by three amazing performances by the leads. 30 mins extra footage and they would have made this a good feature film.
Of course, like Lord of the Flies, the characters end up in a dark and murderous place. But the question is asked, as it was in the book, is this some inherent darkness within these people, bought out by circumstance, or are they just victims of what happened to them? What choice do they have?
Ludensky (played by David Lewis and looking like a brother to Homeland's Damien Lewis) has controlled his behaviour - mostly. And again we return to an ongoing theme in the show - are all monsters bad? Is the potential to do harm threat enough. And how different really are the "humans" in the show, who also kill?
This theme, examined since Lenore in Season 2, and also through Sam and Castiel, and a number of the MOTW, was foregrounded last year with Amy, and later Emma (Dean's Amazon offspring). There is no "right" answer of course, as Sam said back in S2, maybe the whole point is that we are meant to struggle with these things.
This season we have Benny and Dean's relationship with him that seems to be informing his decision here. But I note also Sam, who killed Emma, agrees. I think maybe Sam - the freak who's had a chance at normal - relates.
Outside Point of View is something I love - I run the (rather neglected) spn_outsidepov. Here we get two bites of this cherry. We do get an outside POV on Sam and Dean, but more than that we get a whole different POV on the stories told each week - what happens when Sam and Dean aren't around. And in a way it's from both the monster and the victim's experience.
I like this, being taken out of our Winchester bubble, back into the normal world. "Normal" of course, despite Sam's rose-hued memories from the last year, is never safe. And we aren't all simply victims. As with Brian, some relish the chance to be transformed.
We also do get to glimpse Sam and Dean through their eyes. And I love that the two things they notice are that "they get a "workplace romance vibe" from them. And that Dean says awesome a lot.
And the fact that Dean is concerned about the latter and not the former observation?
Awesome.
Found footage/hand held camera shooting has been a staple of horror since The Blair Witch. Like any device its been used well, indifferently and awesomely. The most recent example was the movie Chronicle, which succeed so well because it was a twist, not so much on the device itself but that it used it to tell a story that played with genre. It posed the question - what if you're a teenager who got superpowers, and it wasn't all lycra and heroics?
Chronicle was the obvious inspiration for this week's episode, which also focused on the relationship between three friends who stumble into a werewolf in their midst.
First - wow - going 20 mins without an ad break (and no credits) was just a great way to immerse us in the story. Which now I think of it is a bit how Lord of The Flies works. And a huge amount of respect for both the direction and the editing in this episode. Handheld camera work is a hard one to pull off and this was an amazing example of how it can still be great cinematography.
I thought that the relationships in this group felt quite real - and the individuals each well sketched. Michael is the jock who's really a hopeless romantic. Someone people might look to as a leader - but he's much more Beta than Alpha really. The Ralph of the group (to play with the Lord of the Flies metaphor. Also - was I the only one deeply scarred by that book? I studied when I was about 15).
Brain is Piggy, only in that is how he sees himself. Brain looks up to him, loves him. Kate sees him as an intellectual equal.
Maybe it's because I've been in this sort of triad (usually as Brian!) that it really resonated with me. Well that and the giant bong! But certainly helped by three amazing performances by the leads. 30 mins extra footage and they would have made this a good feature film.
Of course, like Lord of the Flies, the characters end up in a dark and murderous place. But the question is asked, as it was in the book, is this some inherent darkness within these people, bought out by circumstance, or are they just victims of what happened to them? What choice do they have?
Ludensky (played by David Lewis and looking like a brother to Homeland's Damien Lewis) has controlled his behaviour - mostly. And again we return to an ongoing theme in the show - are all monsters bad? Is the potential to do harm threat enough. And how different really are the "humans" in the show, who also kill?
This theme, examined since Lenore in Season 2, and also through Sam and Castiel, and a number of the MOTW, was foregrounded last year with Amy, and later Emma (Dean's Amazon offspring). There is no "right" answer of course, as Sam said back in S2, maybe the whole point is that we are meant to struggle with these things.
This season we have Benny and Dean's relationship with him that seems to be informing his decision here. But I note also Sam, who killed Emma, agrees. I think maybe Sam - the freak who's had a chance at normal - relates.
Outside Point of View is something I love - I run the (rather neglected) spn_outsidepov. Here we get two bites of this cherry. We do get an outside POV on Sam and Dean, but more than that we get a whole different POV on the stories told each week - what happens when Sam and Dean aren't around. And in a way it's from both the monster and the victim's experience.
I like this, being taken out of our Winchester bubble, back into the normal world. "Normal" of course, despite Sam's rose-hued memories from the last year, is never safe. And we aren't all simply victims. As with Brian, some relish the chance to be transformed.
We also do get to glimpse Sam and Dean through their eyes. And I love that the two things they notice are that "they get a "workplace romance vibe" from them. And that Dean says awesome a lot.
And the fact that Dean is concerned about the latter and not the former observation?
Awesome.