Sunday, April 21, 2013

I spent my entire weekend binge watching Hemlock Grove, and I'm not sorry.

After watching House of Cards back in February, I was excited when I heard about Netflix's next foray into original series', Hemlock Grove. This past Friday, the 19th, the entire series became available on Netflix streaming, and suffice to say, I went a little ham, in that I watched the entire series in 24 hours, with a short break to, you know, sleep. 

I am not usually one for Eli Roth's films (I saw the first Hostel and was kind of over it), but I loved this. The story centers on the small Pennsylvania town of Hemlock Grove, with a main cast of characters including gypsies, werewolves, angels, and of course, regular people. I'm not exactly sure of what drew me in, though - I tried to like Twilight and that never happened, and fantasy stuff like werewolves I think should have been left with the Universal Monsters.

What I liked most about it was each storyline really fleshed itself out, and you didn't have many questions (of course, unless you count the question of just what the hell Roman's mother, Olivia is). The characters include Peter and Lynda Rumancek, a mother and son duo of gypsies that moves into the town right before strange things start to happen, Roman, Olivia, and Shelly Godfrey, one group of the large Godfrey family, who owns an institution/medical facility that is essentially the center of the town, and Norman and Letha Godfrey, a father and daughter duo, another part of the large Godfrey family - Norman being a psychiatrist at the town's mental institution. 

From the point that Peter and Lynda move into town, they are outsiders. Nobody cares for gypsies in the small town, and they are cast off by many just because of who they are. Peter and Roman strike up a friendship, however, and are often found together after the first girl from the high school is found murdered - no, disemboweled, in a park in the small town. It is found out that the girl was not killed by a human, but rather a creature, and the rumors going around town of Peter being a werewolf cause him to become the prime suspect. He is a werewolf, of course, but is not the culprit. In an early episode, he allows Roman to watch him change in the goriest, most interesting human to werewolf change I've ever seen. 

Without giving too much away, let me just say that Hemlock Grove is definitely a show worth your time if you're into any kind of supernatural television, crime drama, or even just campy horror. Reviews have either been extremely positive or extremely negative, but if you watch it in the right mindset, you will love it just as much as I did.

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