Tag Archives: FOX

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (Episode 5 review!)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Come the hell on FOX! The first four episodes were great setting up characters and deploying a whole game constructed by the Poe inspired killer Joe Carroll, but the fifth episode was stagnate and boring that I nearly wanted to drop the show like a bad habit. I was on the edge every week wanting to know what kind of bizarre turn the show will take, but with episode five, I waited and waited and waited. Deceived we were! Subjected to soap opera drama and given less blood than a PG horror movie. Where was the edge? Where was the thrill?

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Hell, even Kevin Bacon’s character Ryan Hardy made some non-sense choices. The show begins to feel forced and I worry about the writing and where the show might be heading. What might have redeeming factor in me wanting to see the next episode was the finale of episode five where Hardy is captured by the Emma, Paul, and Jacob – the twisted threesome. Kevin Bacon gave off some interesting lines such as if he gets near me, “I’ll break his spine.” Hardy holds his ground and I like a little feistiness!

Other than that little taste of aggression, episode five seemed a bit tamed and lacked grit that has been instilled in the series from the beginning. The teasing of murder, the implied death, and the roundabout way of explaining to us how great their exploits had give them were painstakingly aggravating. Please FOX, Please – lets be a bit more risque next week!

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (Eps. 4 review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Good morning My Acolytes!

I finally had the opportunity to watch the fourth episode of The Following last night on On Demand – trying to catch up is harder to do when there are a billion other shows on your plate. Anyway, enough of my problems and lets move on to Ryan Hardy’s issues. Episode four was probably my least favorite so far because the majority of the episode was the focus on Ryan Hardy’s past – his off and on relationship with his sister Jenny, his deadly cursed family, and his inner morality battles in being with Claire (Joe’s Carroll’s ex-wife). Though knowing more about Hardy’s tragic and sad personal background is important for the premises is key and the way Hardy’s life comes to light is executed well with heart pounding emotion.

Unlike the last three episodes, the blood hardly flows in this one – no gruesome deaths. Instead, one victim receives a flesh wound and the other victim dies of a fatal gunshot, but we are subjected to neat form of torture by the use of magnets! The human body, especially Ryan Hardy’s, is a unique machine and that scene will makes us all feel a little bit weaker.

Like I’ve been writing about, this episode is all about emotions and especially between the three kidnappers of little Joey Carroll. After some deceptions and tensions, the three stick with each other and decide to “share” each other, if you know what I mean. The two who have killed before will not give up on the one who lied about killing before and this will make for some interesting dynamic.

Lets all hope that the next episode can fulfill the body quota the first three had while continuing to be studded down with a heavy heart! Until next Monday, or for me, next Thursday, keep watching!

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (Ep. 3 review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Following is the new hit horror thriller that audiences can’t get enough of and I see why!  With every twist in the story, the anticipation grows until you find yourself on the edge of the soft, neck arched toward the screen, and your mind with racing with what will happen next?  Episode three had a couple of betrayal, a couple of big deaths (already!) and another couple of the homosexual kind.  Every character is likable because every character has an interesting disposition about themselves.

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In this episode, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) and his Debra Parker (Annie Parisse) find that being duped sucks and can cost lives.  With these two main characters on the fence about who to trust, who can the audience trust?  I still don’t trust Debra Parker nor do I trust golden boy FBI agent Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore).  There something about these two characters that seems off, but this could be the result of the way the story is unfolding and perhaps intentional by the writers to have the audience second guessing your judgement.  The jury is still deliberating on these two.

I’m craving to see more of Joel Matthews son, Joey Matthews, being taught how to kill by starting with animals.  The ultimate Charles Darwin theory – nature versus nurture.  Will Kevin Williamson play on that and see if nurture over comes nature because Joey is an innocent kind with his action figures and his affection for mom, but his kidnappers are teaching him that death is okay, that you should embrace death and treat death as a constant reminder of how precious our lives are to ourselves.  My gut feeling is yelling at me telling me that Joey’s mother Claire will be more than just a bystander and will go to the extreme in finding her boy.  After years of watching horror and thriller movies, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have years of experience in deciphering what might happen next.  This sounds a bit presumptuous on my part, but one can only speculate on how the writers will take this series.

The fake gay couple next door to Joey’s first victim Sarah on in the first episode are actually, and secretly, hot for each other creating turmoil and deceptiveness among the three homicidal individuals.  When you mix in a menage a trois with killer instincts, you have a recipe for a good episode next Monday night!  Until then, keep watching!

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! (TV Series – Eps. 2 Review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

like-killer-475x703I’m hooked.  I’m all about The Following because we don’t know who has fallen under Joe Carroll’s twisted spell, his literary sequel to his first 14 female victims.  Ryan Hardy is now the center of this story and he’s still able to play Carroll’s game by sometimes being one step ahead of the brilliant Carroll.

Episode two focuses the kidnapping of Carroll’s son from his mother, Jordy, the serial killer apprentice, and his first kills,  and more background on the two fake gays and the nanny who are following Carroll.  The police are always two steps behind a man who is incarcerated, but Hardy manages the see the pieces of the puzzle.  There is a new agent on the scene who claims to be a cult specialist, but we don’t know where her loyalties lie because she visit Carroll in prison and without saying a word to the murderer, she hands him a book of Edgar Alan Poe’s work.  Is this a sign that she is also under his influence and could play a more sinister role against Hardy?

One thing I forgot to mention in the last review was the going back and forth in years.  We retrieve much of the backstory not through only exposition, but also through a non-linear story that goes back to when Carroll was murdering or just after he was arrested.  I much rather have the story play out this way because just by exposition alone takes away from darkness of the story.  Fox has yet to let up on the brutality of story’s nature and so far I’m grateful for that.  We explore Anna (or Emma) and her past.  She is an awkward child who grew up disturbed because of her degrading mother.  Carroll’s influence was easy on this one.

I can’t way for episode three and I look forward in dissecting more of The Following.

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (TV Series – Ep. 1 Review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The-followingFox usually has some pretty entertaining shows.  I was a religions Hugh Laurie House M.D. follower and Tim Roth’s Lie To Me really had me going until the show was canceled for some, most likely, idiotic reason.  After that those two shows were no longer running new episodes, I occasionally watched Family Guy, The Simpsons and Football whenever the Detroit Lions were playing.  This new crime/horror thriller show called The Following had aired January 21st and I can’t say I was eager to turn away from Monday night’s The Biggest Loser that airs at the same time that The Following airs.  I’m not ashamed to say that my wife and I caught The Following on On Demand and I’m impressed.  What a great first episode to set up all the characters and their stories and now I am eager enough to start being a religious follower; however, I will not turn away from watching obese people sweat to death and curse at their trainers for a killer’s killer cult.  Something about big people struggling to lose weight has more of an appeal, but thank you On Demand for being so convenient in helping me catching up on my shows (Dexter, American Horror Story: Asylum)!

The Following is about a charismatic and powerfully persuasive English professor Joe Carroll who is also a murderer of young college women to capture the essence of Edgar Alan Poe’s literary work.  FBI agent Ryan Hardy tracks down Carroll and single handedly arrests him despite being stabbed in the heart.  Years later, Carroll escapes just a week before his execution and now the ex-FBI agent Ryan Hardy has to once again track him down.  Before Hardy is able to apprehend once again, Carroll sets forth a plan that involves his loyal followers doing his murderous bidding for him which will tie up loose ends and most certainly involved the wash up agent Hardy.

Kevin Bacon in the first episode had a good first impression, but I didn’t empathize with him.  This is not to say that his character will develop more into something more in depth and I can’t wait.  My third eye tells me that there will be more to his character and his story.  Bacon isn’t a stranger to horror (Tremors, Stir of Echos, Flatliners, Friday the 13th) and his performances usually stands out.  I believe in the Bacon.  Plus, with being the brain child of Scream series screenwriter Kevin Williamson, I have no doubt that we’ll get some great thrills.  Episode one delivered some fantastic and dark scenes, especially with Joe Carroll’s potential serial killer prodigy and his dog experiments.  The cast is well rounded out with Shawn Ashmore (Lord of the Rings, Frozen), James Purefoy (Resident Evil) and Natalie Zea.

What I seriously hope to be a brutal series, I kind of have my doubts that this will be anything like American Horror Story.  Unlike it’s more edgier little brother F/X, FOX seems to be a tamer, more conservative counterpart and FOX, much like ABC and NBC, have had too many shows that are a hit and a miss and are canceled before you can say seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.  I see The Following lasting beyond the first season and I see my ass in bed turning in a couple of days after the airing to catch up!  Keep your eye on this one from FOX.