Tag Archives: SF

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (5) Fantasy: The Haunting of Hill House

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(5) FANTASY: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

(2018: SEASON 1. Yes – I’m only counting the first season. It’s an anthology series anyway)

As the title indicates, it is an adaptation based loosely on the book of the same name by Shirley Jackson.

It is psychological and supernatural horror, working effectively as both. The supernatural horror – the ghosts of the titular haunting and house itself – are certainly chilling, particularly as the director placed ghostly figures in the margins or peripheral angles of scenes (notably involving the stairs). You often didn’t see them, at least directly, but they were still there, squirming in your subconscious mind to unnerve or disturb you. The ghosts that you do see are unnerving enough, from the titular ghost in the very first episode, “Steven Sees a Ghost” – and from there on in, it’s a white-knuckled ride of suspense and creeping fear. And then there’s the psychological horror of a broken family of broken people, not to mention the occasional existential horror of life itself (such as that speech – you know the one, thank you Theo).

The plot revolves around the Crain family – Hugh and Olivia with their five children – moving into Hill House twenty-six years previously, with the parents intending to renovate it for sale, but the House – and its, ah, family – have their own hungry plans. And to paraphrase my poetic musings elsewhere – the Crain family came back from the black abyss, but they did not come all the way back (or all come back), and worse, they brought it back with them (and left part of themselves or their family behind). The story flips between the past and the present, as the family struggles with the aftermath – and that the House is still hungry for those who escaped it.

And then there’s that red room…

The only flaw for me was the ending, which was somewhat divisive for audiences in its tonal shift – although some have speculated a much darker twist in it.

And yes – I’m only counting the first season. It had a second season, retooled into an anthology series with the second season as an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw (and other works by Henry James). It arguably had a third season, an adaptation by creator Mike Flanagan of the Fall of the House of Usher (and other works by Edgar Allen Poe). However, they just haven’t had the same magic for me as this first season.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Dark fantasy – like all good ghost stories.

 

HORROR

 

Well, obviously – indeed, the entry in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series that is the most readily characterized as horror.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (5) SF: The Matrix (1999)

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(5) SF: THE MATRIX

(1999. There are no sequels).

 

The Matrix is perhaps the next most definitive cinematic Robot War after another entry on this list, and like that entry, it works best by combining the Robot War with another trope, in this case that of virtual reality. As such, it is the direct descendant of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, consistent with my pet theory that the heart of science fiction is still all Martians and Morlocks.

We’ll be looking at Martians later, but the Machines and their software Agents in the Matrix are Morlocks, except that it’s cyberspace travel rather than time travel. The original Morlocks were one of two evolutionary descendants of humanity, evolved from the working class – maintaining the advanced technology of the future for the Eloi, the other descendants of humanity evolved from its leisured upper class.

The dark twist of Wells’ novel is that the Morlocks eat the Eloi, “farming” them like livestock. This theme of evolution endures in the Matrix, albeit transformed from Wells’ unrealistic biological evolution (without genetic engineering or mutation) to cybernetic evolution – involving artificial intelligence and robots as machine Morlocks that rise up against their human Eloi, particularly as the machine Morlocks do actually farm us for their food or energy.

Ultimately however, this makes no sense – humans don’t produce more energy than they consume. The Machines would obviously use more energy keeping us alive than they would ever extract from us – and that’s aside from programming and maintaining the Matrix itself. My theory is that the human resistance have no idea what the Matrix is for and the Machines actually use the Matrix for entertainment, like television (or the internet) – “Let’s see what the humans are doing on the Matrix tonight!”

And for a Robot War against humanity, the Machines are actually quite nice to us, whatever the purpose of the Matrix. Morpheus lets slip that humans fought a genocidal war with the Machines, in which we nuked the sun (NUKED the SUN!) to deprive the Machines of their solar energy (and you know, hopefully wipe them out). It didn’t work and we lost the Robot War, but instead of the Machines exterminating us like cockroaches, they keep us in our own cozy virtual dream world. Indeed, Agent Smith (who, unlike Morpheus, tells it straight) says that the Machines even tried to make it a perfect utopia for us, but human psychology wouldn’t accept it.

As I see it, the Machines’ only mistake was not advertising the Matrix to sign people up for it as your own programmable (and not necessarily permanent) reality (like, say, the Playboy Mansion or World of Warcraft) – I should be so lucky to lose a Robot War! “Seriously, you feed me and take care of me in a pod while I live it up in any number of dream worlds of my own design and all you want is my body heat? Sign me up!”

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Yeah – the virtual reality world maintained by the Machines to farm humanity for energy after a Robot War? It’s obviously SF. Or is it? Well, yes, it is – but it does have substantial elements of fantasy, what with its mystical trappings of the Oracle and Neo as the (chosen or messianic) One.

And yes – I know there are no sequels, but if there had been a second film it at least might have the interesting spin on fantasy with fantasy creatures such as vampires and so on as leftover programs or perhaps glitches from previous versions of the Matrix.

 

HORROR

 

One can’t really rank it as horror but it has elements of SF horror and could well have been written more in that direction.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV (6) SF: Black Mirror

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(6) SF: BLACK MIRROR
(2011 – PRESENT: SEASONS 1-6)

*

Black Mirror – the cyberpunk Twilight Zone of the twenty-first century!

Okay, that cyberpunk label may be overstating it, but it certainly is a series of dark and satirical twists in the tale of the unanticipated or unintended consequences of technology and social media in modern society – or, in the words of series creator Charlie Brooker, “the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.”

It is an anthology series with no continuity between episodes – each episode has a different cast, a different setting or even a different reality, so you don’t have to watch them in order. Personally, I’d recommend starting with the later seasons and working your way backwards – particularly as the very first episode doesn’t extrapolate so much on technology or social media and can be a little confronting (although unforgettable – let’s just say you won’t feel about pork the same way again).

As for the premise and title of the series, it’s back to Charlie Brooker:

“If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The ‘black mirror’ of the title is the one you’ll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.”

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

SF, as per its title premise – among the least fantasy of my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series.

 

HORROR

 

As is typical for dystopian SF, it has a few borderline horror elements.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (6) Fantasy: Excalibur

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Nigel Terry as King Arthur in the 1981 film Excalibur directed by John Boorman – still the best cinematic adaptation of Arthurian legend

 

 

(6) FANTASY: EXCALIBUR

(1981)

 

“Forged by a god

Foretold by a wizard

Found by a king…

Excalibur!”

 

Yes – that’s the cheesy blurb from the theatrical release poster.

Yes – the film itself can be cheesy at points, or messy, reflected by Roger Ebert calling it both a wondrous vision and a mess.

Yes – it conflates various elements of Arthurian legend, although perhaps necessarily so for adaptation to film and not unlike the adaptations made by the various texts of Arthurian legend. In particular Perceval does some heavy lifting here, conflating in his character (at least) the roles of Galahad and Bedivere in Arthurian legend. He’s not the only one – the film also conflates Morgana and Morgause.

I know all these things but I still love it anyway. I can trace my fascination for and love of Arthurian legend directly to this one film.

 

For mine is the grail quest –

round table & siege perilous

fisher king & waste land

bleeding lance & dolorous stroke

adventurous bed & questing beast

 

And most of it is here. Well, except for the questing beast. Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His flawed father Uther. The wizard Merlin, played by Nicol Williamson in arguably the film’s best performance. The Lady in the Lake. The titular Excalibur, conflated here with the sword in the stone. Queen Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay, conflated with Morgause as the mother of usurper Mordred. The knights of the Round Table – most famously Lancelot but also Gawain and Perceval. The Holy Grail. Avalon – and so on.

That’s of course just the characters – despite its limited budget, the film’s cast is a veritable who’s who of actors who would rise to stardom. Helen Mirren. Liam Neeson. Patrick Stewart. Gabriel Byrne. Ciaran Hinds.

Then there’s its visual style and lighting, used to best effect to convey the ethereal nature of the mythic (and mystical) otherworld that overlaps with our own throughout Arthurian legend. Apparently there’s a study by Jean-Marc Elsholz that “demonstrates how closely the film Excalibur was inspired by the Arthurian romance tradition and its intersections with medieval theories of light, most particularly in the aesthetic/visual narrative of Boorman’s film” – and I’d say it shows.

And the music! It’s again used to much the same effect for the ethereal otherworld, but also for the heroic scenes of battle – I can trace my love of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana to this film, even if I was disappointed to subsequently learn that work is essentially about drunk monks singing.

Intriguingly, the film apparently started as an unproduced adaptation of The Lord of the Rings – and it makes me wonder what director John Boorman might have done with that property. Perhaps not quite as good as the Jackson film trilogy but I’d be prepared to bet it would have been the next best thing.

As it is, the film is still the single best cinematic or screen adaptation of Arthurian legend, although Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes in a close second. Although that may also say something about the adaptability of Arthurian legend, particularly to the sensibilities of modern directors or producers of film and television – and that it takes something like lightning in a bottle for a director such as Boorman (who after all made films such as Zardoz) to make it work.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Fantasy obviously. The film that is most fantasy in my top ten fantasy or SF films – not a shred of SF to be seen here.

 

HORROR

 

As with much mythology or legend, there’s elements reminiscent of horror, although perhaps less so than in the Arthurian legend from which it was adapted. .

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (7) Fantasy: Girl from Nowhere

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Netflix promotional poster art

 

(7) FANTASY: GIRL FROM NOWHERE

(2018 – 2021: SEASONS 1-2)

 

A little like my previous entry Sweet Home – in that I’ve found myself dipping into east Asian fantasy televsion series…you know, in the absence of consistency of enduring quality (or in some cases initial quality) in Western fantasy television series.

I’ve only dipped into this Thai series on Netflix just a little, but enough to find it intriguing. It prompts to mind Japanese anime (or live-action adaptation) in its staple school setting – one wonders why an apparently immortal supernatural being spends her time hanging around high schools as one of their students but why not, I suppose?

That supernatural being is the titular trickster Girl from Nowhere, who seems to delight in serving up karma with a side of mind-screw to wrongdoers – made even better by her beaming smile in her guise of how nice she is helping them to their own self-destruction.

Funnily enough, it prompts to mind one of my special mentions, the forgotten gem of American Gothic, where Sheriff Buck played a similar role but more in the way of deals with the devil (with himself as the devil of course).

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Fantasy obviously – dark fantasy. Although it would be interesting as an SF variant of Nanno as a telepathic alien – or perhaps AI?

 

HORROR

 

More than a few horror elements – although perhaps in the sense that the creeping doom of tragic drama has always reminded me of horror.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & TV Films (7) Fantasy: Indiana Jones

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The iconic poster image of the first film

 

(7) FANTASY: STEVEN SPIELBERG – INDIANA JONES

(1981-1989: INDIANA JONES 1-3 – yeah I don’t count Crystal Skull or Dial of Destiny)

 

“You call this archaeology?”

Indiana Jones is the pure awesomeness you get when you mix George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in a bowl of serials – the adventure cliffhanger serial films of the 1930’s. The centerpiece of that awesomeness is the film trilogy of the 1980’s, although there is a media franchise or expanded universe extending to books, comics and television. For Indiana Jones, archaeology was adventure – racing Nazis for mystical artefacts such as the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, as opposed to the much less adventurous reality of dusting off and sorting one piece of broken pottery from another, barely above watching paint dry in excitement. Who’d have thought that a bullwhip and pistol were such indispensable archaeological tools? In fairness, Indiana does actually teach archaeology at a university, but even then his classes are full of hot coed groupies, who spend their time writing love messages to him on their eyelids rather than studying.

It is hard to choose between the three films of the original cinematic trilogy (ignoring, as I do, the fevered dreams of a fourth movie nuking the fridge two decades later, let alone the hallucinations of a fifth film, hence my entry only extends to the first three films), but it is equally hard to beat the introduction in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the character and his historical world much cooler than ours. I assume it needs no further introduction? From the iconic opening scene in the South American tomb of terror to the equally iconic finale, it is a masterpiece of cinematic adventure. The plot of course revolves around the archaeological arms race between the United States and Nazi Germany for the titular Ark of the Covenant. (That’s right – they’re going Old Testament on each other). Indiana Jones is enlisted by the United States government to thwart the Nazi recovery of the Ark. (“Nazis! I hate those guys!” We all do, Indy, we all do). Which explains why Nazi Germany lost the war – well, that and they lost too many men in Castle Wolfenstein.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

It’s fantasy – the first film depends on its literal deus ex machina. There are rumors of a fourth or fifth film with SF elements but I don’t credit any such rumored films beyond the trilogy.

 

HORROR

 

And how! For adventure film fantasies, there’s surprisingly many elements of horror. Each film has a room full of horror – spiders or snakes, bugs, and rats. Also the second film has quite pronounced elements of horror with its cult of Kali led by Mola Ram.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (8) Fantasy: Sweet Home

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Netflix promotional poster art

 

 

(8) FANTASY: SWEET HOME

(2020 – 2024: SEASONS 1-3)

 

Monster apocalypse!

Adapted from a webtoon, apocalyptic horror hits South Korea, as people turn into monsters inside and outside an apartment building – with the second and third season expanding the setting from the original building, as well as featuring the remnants of the army and government studying the monsters in hope of finding a cure.

It’s distinct from a zombie apocalypse – as while the transformations have symptoms of onset, the transformations themselves are not contagious and don’t have the qualities of viral infection of your standard zombie apocalypse. Also, the monster transformations are metaphysical or even karmic in nature, usually reflecting some character trait in the person being transformed. Hence, some monsters are more monstrous than others, in appearance or in morality.

I mean, the first episode sets the tone with the series protagonist hears his neighbor complaining she’s hungry as she eats his ramen (ransacked from the package delivery outside his door) – and her cat.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Unlike a zombie apocalypse which usually is more SF than fantasy, the monster apocalypse is a little too metaphysical for SF and so I’ve ranked it as fantasy. However, it still retains some SF trappings, for being set in the contemporary world with the government or military trying to study the monsters for a possible cure.

 

HORROR

 

What part of monster apocalypse did you miss? You can pretty much rank it as straight-up horror.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films: (8) SF: Back to the Future

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Classic promotional poster art for the first film

 

 

(8) SF: BACK TO THE FUTURE

(1985-1990: BACK TO THE FUTURE 1-3)

 

“If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious sh*t.”

Alternatively, “McFly!”

One of the two definitive SF time travel franchises of all time – as per South Park, “Terminator rules” are that time travel is “one way only and you can’t go back”, in contrast with “Back to the Future rules, where back and forth is possible”. The other distinction is the mutability of time in the latter as opposed to the former – or to put it simply, you can change the past in the latter, for better or worse. Which in my opinion makes for the more entertaining franchise for the actual time travel – combining “fish out of water comedy with high-stakes drama, making deft use of threatened temporal paradox” (not to mention running gags based on similar events across time) and shuttling back and forth 30 years before and after 1985 as well as a century into the past.

The first film in the trilogy is the best, setting the basic themes and tropes for the sequels to follow:

“Marty McFly, a teenager from 1985, accidentally sends himself to 1955 in the time machine Doc Brown built out of a DeLorean, and requires 1.21 gigawatts of power to return home. After initial confusion, the 1955 Doc Brown agrees to help Marty get back home by striking his car with 1.21 gigawatts of lightning, giving Marty a week to make his parents fall back in love at a dance and put bully Biff Tannen in his place”

Not to mention inventing rock ‘n’ roll…

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Again, it’s obviously SF – one of the definitive SF time travel film franchises! Although time travel can work as a fantasy trope – and I do like it whenever it pops up in fantasy, although it is perhaps more limited in fantasy use because of its potential story-breaking power if done by means of magic controlled by a character or protagonist.

 

HORROR

 

Unusually for fantasy or SF, virtually no element of horror – unless you count the existential horror of erasing yourself from existence by changing the past….

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (9) Fantasy: House of the Dragon

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(9) FANTASY: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

(2022 – PRESENT: SEASONS 1-2)

 

For six seasons, Game of Thrones reigned supreme in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series, albeit the first four seasons set the gold standard while the fifth and sixth season started to show signs of silver or bronze wearing through.

Then came the seventh season in which it slipped from its supreme reign – but even worse, its eighth and final season, in which it definitely did not stick its Kings Landing, or perhaps, stuck it somewhere winter never comes and painfully at that. I don’t think it’s overstating just how bad this season was to state that it undid all the previous seasons – perhaps not to the point of erasing it from my memory but at least to shuffling it off into my special mentions instead for fond reminiscence of its golden seasons.

And there I thought Westeros and the world of Game of Thrones would remain, to be politely passed over for new fantasy fare.

So imagine my surprise that just when I thought I was out, the prequel series, House of the Dragon – or Hot D for short – pulled me back in. The first season seemed a return to the quality of the early seasons of Game of Thrones – or at least seasons 5-6.

In fairness, quality fantasy fare is hard to come by on screen – which is why my top tens for cinematic or television fantasy & SF is predominated by SF. For some reason – or indeed a number of reasons – directors and producers just seem to adapt SF better than fantasy to the screen, albeit usually with fantastic elements rather cold hard SF.

Also in fairness – once bitten, twice shy. I still have that taste in my mouth from Season 8 of Game of Thrones, particularly as I know that’s how it all ends up, even this prequel series set nearly 200 years earlier – and season 2 showed some signs of sagging or treading water.

But so far so good with that classic Westeros territory – wars of succession and civil wars. Also dragons – only more of them and bigger. And casting an Australian girl as the young Rhaenyra Targaryen, even if they then time jump to another actress for her as one of the two rival claimants for the throne (for the Blacks against the Greens, named for their house colors).

I’m at least in it for the next season.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

The most fantasy of my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series. No SF to be seen!

 

HORROR

 

Perhaps some elements but not as many as the original Game of Thrones series, with its wights and White Walkers…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films: (9) SF: Jurassic Park

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(9) SF: JURASSIC PARK

(1993 – yes I know there’s an ongoing franchise but I’m only really counting the first film)

 

Everything’s better with dinosaurs!

We all love dinosaurs, ever since we started digging up their bones – and we particularly love them in cinematic form. I’d argue that there is not one film that would not be improved by a dinosaur (or dinosaurs). Citizen Kane would have been MUCH improved by a dinosaur.

Anyway, Jurassic Park is the pure awesomeness you get when you combine dinosaurs with Steven Spielburg’s mastery of cinematic action and visual effects. Does it need any further introduction? You all know it. You probably can all quote it, from some point or other in the film or franchise.

I actually read the book first. Michael Crichton might have gotten a bit…controversial in his later years, but he sure knew how to craft a story – and Jurassic Park was one of his finest and certainly his most successful. Of course, there are the usual differences between the book and the film – the former had a starring role for the T-Rex’s tongue and the lawyer Gennaro was much more heroic (as lawyers should be), punching out a velociraptor and surviving rather than sniveling in a toilet before being slurped down by the tyrannosaur like the film’s lawyer.

Spielberg’s magic was of course to bring the book to life. The plot is the same – scientists discover how to recreate dinosaurs through a complex cloning process, involving dinosaur blood from mosquitoes fossilized in amber and filling in the gaps with other animal DNA, most notably transsexual frogs. Naturally, they come up with a dinosaur theme park to profit from this discovery, and equally as naturally, everything that can go wrong does go wrong – usually in the form of sharp pointy teeth.

Or in the words of character Dr. Ian Malcolm “Oh yeah, ‘oooh aaah’. That’s how it always starts. Then later, there’s the running and the screaming” – neatly summarizing each of the movies in the series, as TV Tropes pointed out. The same quotation might arguably apply to diminishing returns of the sequels, albeit with marginally less running and screaming. To which I offer the counter-argument – shut up, there’s dinosaurs! Even so, I’ll stick with just the first film for this entry – the franchise has been trying to capture the same magic ever since.

Of course, when it comes to the dinosaurs, there is only one true star. Despite the franchise’s effort to focus on the velociraptors (which I understand they beefed up from their actual and less imposing size of chickens), there’s only one true king (or more precisely, queen) of the prehistoric jungle – the tyrannosaurus rex.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Well, it’s obviously SF – genetically engineered dinosaurs! Although I do like it when dinosaurs pop up in fantasy, which they do surprisingly often. Everything’s better with dinosaurs!

 

HORROR

 

Elements of survival horror from animal predators – the tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptors in particular.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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