Harper's Island, the thirteen episode long slasher television show which has just finished its run, was terrible. There's no question. It's a terrible show which my sixteen year old self would have loved, but he wasn't the brightest. It's not even so bad it's good; there's a sprinkling of campy trash throughout the series, but not enough to make it watching for that reason. Sure, there are some stupid tropes: a little girl who does double duty as being creepy and in need of rescue; a lead character with a tragic past; a strange man with a scarred face. But those things are laughable without being actually funny.
So then, I have no idea why I watched it to the end, and, more than that, really wanted to know what happened.
The show was about Abby Mills (Elaine Cassidy, a young Parker Posey but not funny), who goes to the island she grew up on for the wedding of her best friend Henry (Christopher Gorham). It's a week long celebration culminating in the ceremony, but plans change when the a copycat of the serial killer who murdered Abby's mother starts killing the guests. Promos promised, sort of awesomely, that at least one person will be killed each episode. Sometimes more! If this isn't a tipoff of the quality, how about that every episode's title was an onomatopoeia of the sound of that episodes big murder? Episode one was called "Whap". Episode eight? "Gurgle". It's amazing. It's just a shame there wasn't an episode called "Spurt, Spurt". Or "Ungh!". There was a "Ka-Blam", though.
Also there's a death caused by a dude accidentally shooting himself in the leg and then keeling over immediately; then his friend buries him without telling anyone else, and then later, that dude gets thrown into a furnace. It's brilliant.
Look beyond that it's a network TV show, thus staples of the slasher genre - nudity, gore, swearing - got downgraded to bikinis, offscreen violence and splash of blood, and a couple of "hells" and "damns". More important is that slasher movies tend to be short. More than one hundred minutes is stretching it. Without ads, Harper's ran at five hundred and forty minutes. So, you know those stupid bits between death scenes in bad slasher films where plot and characterisation are attempted? There's a lot of that. Subplots with exes, flirtations, adultery, and even a big bag o' money. Not even a HBO-sponsored truckload of skin, graphic violence and enough foul language to make Al Swearengen blush could make that into good TV.
Slasher movies have to decide if they want their characters aware of any threat. If they aren't, it gives more room for them to banter and less time for crying over lost loved ones, which is kind of a buzzkill. We're watching for the violence, not the mourning! If they are aware, it's usually more believable, but characters running around scared gets repetitive after a while. Harper's goes both ways; for the first half of the series, characters get knocked off while the rest of them go about happily planning their wedding and having little dramas. It got increasingly entertaining to think about just how long these people were going without stopping to ask "Hang on, where did she go?" Halfway through, the father of the bride cops a spade to the head that splits his skull in half in the middle of the wedding rehearsal; this tips the rest of the characters off. Then the show becomes a series of increasingly more unlikely reasons for characters to split up and move around the island.
The show presents itself as a mystery; episode ten the revelation comes: the man responsible for the murders seven years earlier - Leoben from Battlestar Galactica, apparently taking time off from being creepy with Starbuck - is alive and back to his old, stab-happy ways. This feels like a cop out until it's hinted that there is a second killer. Cop out number two comes when we find out that Henry, the groom, is the other killer (and Leoben's son - Cylons can spawn!) which was obvious for one reason: not once in the series run had we had a close up of the guy underscored by ominous music. The show had never once hinted that he was the killer, so of course, it had to be him.
The brilliant part of the reveal, however, was his motive:
He was sad because he was adopted. So his friends and family and the friends and family of his wife to be, they had to die.
Take that, adopted kids!
Okay, it was a little more complicated than that; he wanted to start a life alone with his best friend (and, it seems, half-sister). Which is still quite a weak motive, and not as funny as the adopted thing is on its own.
The moral of the story is Harper's Island is lame, but had an audacity that was almost admirable. Its premise seemed interesting, but never would have worked; you can't really ask people to tune in for an hour each week to be scared by a continuing story; horror shows work much better as anthologies or procedurals, not serials. Don't take that as a recommendation of Supernatural, that shit still stinks. But to try something that would never work, in the name of making a super-sized slasher film? Almost makes you proud. Not enough to make it worth a recommendation. Or to refrain from telling people that it sucks. But enough not to wish death on its creators. Good work, Harper's!
So then, I have no idea why I watched it to the end, and, more than that, really wanted to know what happened.
The show was about Abby Mills (Elaine Cassidy, a young Parker Posey but not funny), who goes to the island she grew up on for the wedding of her best friend Henry (Christopher Gorham). It's a week long celebration culminating in the ceremony, but plans change when the a copycat of the serial killer who murdered Abby's mother starts killing the guests. Promos promised, sort of awesomely, that at least one person will be killed each episode. Sometimes more! If this isn't a tipoff of the quality, how about that every episode's title was an onomatopoeia of the sound of that episodes big murder? Episode one was called "Whap". Episode eight? "Gurgle". It's amazing. It's just a shame there wasn't an episode called "Spurt, Spurt". Or "Ungh!". There was a "Ka-Blam", though.
Also there's a death caused by a dude accidentally shooting himself in the leg and then keeling over immediately; then his friend buries him without telling anyone else, and then later, that dude gets thrown into a furnace. It's brilliant.
Look beyond that it's a network TV show, thus staples of the slasher genre - nudity, gore, swearing - got downgraded to bikinis, offscreen violence and splash of blood, and a couple of "hells" and "damns". More important is that slasher movies tend to be short. More than one hundred minutes is stretching it. Without ads, Harper's ran at five hundred and forty minutes. So, you know those stupid bits between death scenes in bad slasher films where plot and characterisation are attempted? There's a lot of that. Subplots with exes, flirtations, adultery, and even a big bag o' money. Not even a HBO-sponsored truckload of skin, graphic violence and enough foul language to make Al Swearengen blush could make that into good TV.
Slasher movies have to decide if they want their characters aware of any threat. If they aren't, it gives more room for them to banter and less time for crying over lost loved ones, which is kind of a buzzkill. We're watching for the violence, not the mourning! If they are aware, it's usually more believable, but characters running around scared gets repetitive after a while. Harper's goes both ways; for the first half of the series, characters get knocked off while the rest of them go about happily planning their wedding and having little dramas. It got increasingly entertaining to think about just how long these people were going without stopping to ask "Hang on, where did she go?" Halfway through, the father of the bride cops a spade to the head that splits his skull in half in the middle of the wedding rehearsal; this tips the rest of the characters off. Then the show becomes a series of increasingly more unlikely reasons for characters to split up and move around the island.
The show presents itself as a mystery; episode ten the revelation comes: the man responsible for the murders seven years earlier - Leoben from Battlestar Galactica, apparently taking time off from being creepy with Starbuck - is alive and back to his old, stab-happy ways. This feels like a cop out until it's hinted that there is a second killer. Cop out number two comes when we find out that Henry, the groom, is the other killer (and Leoben's son - Cylons can spawn!) which was obvious for one reason: not once in the series run had we had a close up of the guy underscored by ominous music. The show had never once hinted that he was the killer, so of course, it had to be him.
The brilliant part of the reveal, however, was his motive:
He was sad because he was adopted. So his friends and family and the friends and family of his wife to be, they had to die.
Take that, adopted kids!
Okay, it was a little more complicated than that; he wanted to start a life alone with his best friend (and, it seems, half-sister). Which is still quite a weak motive, and not as funny as the adopted thing is on its own.
The moral of the story is Harper's Island is lame, but had an audacity that was almost admirable. Its premise seemed interesting, but never would have worked; you can't really ask people to tune in for an hour each week to be scared by a continuing story; horror shows work much better as anthologies or procedurals, not serials. Don't take that as a recommendation of Supernatural, that shit still stinks. But to try something that would never work, in the name of making a super-sized slasher film? Almost makes you proud. Not enough to make it worth a recommendation. Or to refrain from telling people that it sucks. But enough not to wish death on its creators. Good work, Harper's!
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