CULT: First Thoughts on CW’s Ode to Creepy, Obsessive Fans

Cult (2013) – Created by Rockne S. O’Bannon – Episode 1, “You’re Next” – Starring Jessica Lucas, Matt Davis, Alona Tal, Kadeem Hardison, and Robert Knepper.

Apparently, cults are to 2013 what real world fairy tales were to 2011.

One of the really nice things about Hulu is that occasionally you get a TV show before your TV gets your TV show. Such is the case with CULT, CW’s new show from Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon. I watched it this afternoon, a full week before it makes its network debut on February 19th, and clearly the CW lets it out early in an attempt to build some good vibes for the show. It’s a smart move if your show is a good one and CULT is …

Well, it’s a mixed bag, to be honest, but it’s decent enough for me to add to the Hulu queue for the time being.

The premise is a good one, utilizing the show-within-a-show concept: we tune in to watch CULT on the CW, and people in CULT tune in to watch Cult on the CW. O’Bannon is interested in exploring the blurring of lines between reality and entertainment that consumes a certain segment of fandom. Already in the first episode, CULT touches on chat rooms, fan sites, and cosplay. The show is clearly aimed at exploring the most dangerous possibilities the most dangerous aspects of fandom could concoct, so this show has a dark vibe to it. We’re not talking about Bronies or shippers here, either, but people who appear to have an equal love of The X-Files and Lost and a desire to take the fantasy into reality in order to do bad things to them.

It’s that last bit that the show needs to crank up the creep factor. What little we’ve seen of the fans here aren’t descendants of Russell Crowe’s Beautiful Mind dissecting every aspect of a show to try and figure out what a symbol on a truck that drives by our main characters means, but something closer to Scream/Stab, where fan obsessive leads to dangerous consequences.

Unlike FOX’s The Following, which gives us a Wannabe Hannibal Lecter and his flock of needy grown-up children, the first episode of CULT keeps us in the dark as to what’s going on. It takes its storytelling cues from The X-Files more than anything else, where our male and female investigators are trying to penetrate a shroud of darkness.

Which is reinforced by having almost everything spooky take place at night.

It’s sort of effective here. By giving us both the “real” story of Jeff Sefton (Matt Davis) searching for his brother, who goes missing in episode 1 after acting all weird with Jeff. His brother has had some issues (including drug abuse) over the years and Jeff is at the end of his rope with him, especially when he starts spouting off about this new TV show and people being out to get him.

After his brother goes missing (complete with one last creepy phone call to Jeff) and Jeff finds a bloody chair in his brother’s apartment, he starts watching the show and gets sucked down the rabbit hole. He decides to stop by the set, pretending to still be a reporter for The Washington Post (where he used to work before being fired for allegedly faking a source), and as he’s getting kicked out, his pleas are overheard by Skye Yarrow (Jessica Lucas), who works in production on Cult, and together they start investigating the missing brother.

When the show was setting up Jeff dismissively rejecting his brother’s pleas for help, Skye was seen asking one of the show’s producers about the show’s creepy fans, and we later learn through a phone call from one of her friends that Skye is becoming a bit obsessive about the people who are obsessive about the show she works on.

In terms of tone, CULT is pretty successful – again, it’s totally using the X-Files’ playbook, going to creepy places at creepy times of day to have creepy things happen. On the interior show, we follow two detectives (lead female and her male sidekick) who are looking for a missing sister, which obviously mirrors the show we’re watching. Besides a gender swap, what also separates the two versions of CULT is that the female cop on the interior show is an ex-cult member, so she’s totally swallowed the red pill, while Jeff goes from non-believer to confused believer over the course of the episode.

Jeff falls in line pretty quick, which is a conceit given to the show’s formula, I’m guessing. It still rings a bit false, and it’s not the only place where the show trades smarts for plot or mood. Jeff finds a secret CD in a place where, as he says, only he could find it. That place? Between two glued together pages of a journal. Easy, the Riddler. As viewers, we can tell who’s in the CULT cult, because they always stare at people with creepy eyes. There’s a female cop investigating the disappearance of Jeff’s brother, but as you can guess in the first 2 seconds she’s on screen, she’s a cult member, too. With her, you don’t figure it out because of her creepy eyes, but because of the tattoo she has.

On her forearm.

Skye is willing to help Jeff because her father was a newsman who went missing, and she feels no one should ever go missing or something. It’s a little weird that she jumps in Jeff’s car when they head to a seedy motel in the woods, but then after they watch his brother’s lady friend blow her brains out, Skye gets a cab ride home. It’s not Jeff’s fault the woman committed suicide, but Jeff seems to get some kind of silent blame.

Of the two leads, it’s Jessica Lucas’ Skye that’s the stronger half. Smart, inquisitive, gorgeous … I kept expecting to hear the TARDIS land so the Doctor could snatch her up and bring her to a better show. Matt Davis’ Jeff is supposed to carry the show, but he’s a bit empty. CULT is on the CW, so you would imagine most of their fans are internet savvy (because they’re either young or cyber stalking Blake Lively), and thus don’t need a character like Jeff acting dumb and asking questions so the show can explain how things work. There are times when I can’t help but roll my eyes at Jeff, who seems utterly bewildered at the idea that people could be fans of a show and want to talk about it on the internet.

What we have, then, is an uneven but not terrible show that succeeds more on mood than story. The best parts are when CULT and Cult begin to merge together, and I hope once we get past the opening episode the show settles into a formula that gives us decent stories and lots of mood. I don’t love what I’ve seen, but I like the promise enough to stick around for a few episodes and give it a shot.

666 PARK AVENUE: First Thoughts on ABC’s New York Horror Story

666 Park Avenue (2012) – Season 1, Episodes 1-6 – Starring Terry O’Quinn, Vanessa Williams, Rachael Taylor, Dave Annable, Robert Buckley, Mercedes Masohn, Erik Palladino, Helena Mattsson, and Samantha Logan.

If you’ve read any of my reactions to WAREHOUSE 13, you know that it’s a show I do not love, yet always watch. I like the characters, I like the welcoming vibe, I like the stories, but none of it moves me. When it pops up in my Hulu queue, I watch it, but when it’s not there I’m not wondering what happened. Eventually, SyFy will stop making it and I’ll go, “Oh, that’s too bad,” and then go have lunch and forget about it. I bring this up as a means of introducing ABC’s new horror show, 666 PARK AVENUE, which I watch and like and will likely not mourn when it goes away.

To be certain, 666 is a better show than 13. It’s better written, better acted, better directed, and has a better visual style. There’s also actual consequences to the things that happen in 666, unlike WAREHOUSE, which hits the Cosmic Reset Button so much that it makes Russell T. Davies uncomfortable. 666 is even, in it’s own way, a more enjoyable show than WAREHOUSE is, which is a fair comparison to make, I think, since both shows deal with unexpectedly weird things happening. WAREHOUSE is full of more likeable characters, but both shows know who their characters are and deliver copious amounts of their signature traits.

666 PARK AVENUE focuses on two couples living at the Drake, a residential hotel in New York City. (Outside of the TV, the Drake is the Ansonia, one of those buildings that’s so cool looking it gets used repeatedly in TV and film.) There’s an older couple and a younger couple, and the show sets up a mentoring relationship between the two couples. The older husband and wife are the owners of the Drake, Gavin and Olivia Doran (Terry O’Quinn and Vanessa Williams). Gavin not only owns the Drake, but he’s the mastermind of much of the creepy stuff that’s going on, and Olivia seems blindly aware of what’s going on, perhaps aware of what Gavin is capable of, but unconcerned with the details.

O’Quinn and Williams are fantastic. They play a wonderful carrot and stick game with the younger couple, Jane Van Veen and Henry Martin (Rachael Taylor and Dave Annable), in which they offer mentoring but never allow them to forget their place. Jane and Henry have been hired to be the Drake’s new building managers, which is the only way they can afford to live in the residence. Gavin and Olivia each want something from the younger couple; Gavin is lining up Henry for “bigger things” and Jane fills the missing role of the Doran’s dead daughter.

The structure of 666 has our four leads doing basically the same thing every episode: Gavin manipulates people for his benefit, Jane experiences something supernatural and spooky inside the Drake, Henry struggles with his desire for political power, and Olivia goes to lunch and shops.

It’s not a complicated format but everyone does their part. The show enhances this format by having various subplots about other tenants in the building. Typically, these plots last an episode or two and then cycle back in some other format, such as when a reporter writes a killer into existence, only to be killed by her creation. The killer is sent to jail, but then Gavin conspires to get him free by using another tenant to assist in the escape.

O’Quinn is always good, and his quiet ruthlessness provides the show’s rock-solid foundation to counter Jane’s spiraling sanity. Rachael Taylor’s Indiana-girl-in-the-Big-City is a curious mix of good and bad; I like that she’s inquisitive but she’s also a bit annoying. As a leading lady in a horror story (and an attractive blonde, at that), you know she’s going to endure the largest psychological damage the hotel can dish out, but I can still appreciate and understand why she goes forward into the creepy room instead of backing away. Her quest for knowledge supersedes her desire for personal safety, and it feels like believable character trait instead of simply a perfunctory plot device.

It’s in the non-detective moments, however, where Jane tends to grate. When she’s hanging out with Olivia and playing the surrogate daughter, or when she’s doing her job and being the Drake’s manager, she’s far less interesting and far more annoying. Luckily, the writers tend to keep her busy with ghosts appearing in her apartment or luring her to the basement or by having birds fly out of the walls.

One of the best aspects of 666 is that it’s clearly learned the lessons of all the failed LOST knock-offs. This show is going someplace and is not taking forever to get there. By the end of episode 6, Gavin has lost his magic box, Henry wants Jane to get help because he thinks she’s crazy, and Jane realizes her grandmother used to live at the Drake, which is why the latest ghost is trying to kill her.

666 PARK AVENUE certainly isn’t the best show on television but it is a rather enjoyable one. It’s effective at delivering some creepy moments and, if nothing else, it provides a good weekly dose of Terry O’Quinn. The show has a darkly slick style and engaging characters, and it’s got the Drake, with all of its dark secrets, to keep me coming back every week.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: First Thoughts on FX’s Dull New Excuse to Say Naughty Words

American Horror Story (2011) – “Pilot” – Starring Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, Evan Peters, Taissa Farmiga, Dennis O’Hare, Frances Conroy, Alex Breckenridge, Jamie Brewer, and Jessica Lange.

It was nice of FX to debut a new horror show just in time for Horror Month here at the Anxiety, but unfortunately the first episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY is an absolute piece of sophomoric dullness that’s not shocking, not sexy, and decidedly not scary.

There’s a multitude of problems attached to STORY, but let’s start with the biggest: the story. Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott) cheats on his wife Vivien (Connie Britton) with one of his college students, and so to make things better they move from the Greatest City in America (Boston) to the Most Superficial City in America (Los Angeles), where they buy a haunted house so Ben jerk off in front of a window overlooking the backyard and Vivien can be threatened by the “mongoloid” (her mom’s words) next door.

Woo-hoo! Sign me up for 13 episodes of that!

STORY feels like a pastiche of worn out horror cliches: we’ve got the haunted house, a monster lurking in the basement, creepy shots POV shots from hidden locations at our protagonists, body parts in jars, kitchen cabinet doors opening on their own, a couple of creepy twins, creepy past residents of the house, historical bad happenings in the house, and a whole lot of bad decision making.

Let’s start at the end: if people make smart decisions, lame horror stories fall apart. Lucky for us, the Harmons (especially Ben) are completely full of bad decisions just waiting to burst out onto our television screens. For starters, there’s the matter of the house they buy, which is “twice the house for half the price” or some nonsense and like complete idiots they buy the house anyway, even after the real estate agent tells them there was a murder-suicide by the previous owners. They don’t look around for houses, they don’t consider other options, they just buy it because their daughter says they’ll take it. So far, their decision is at least understandable, but after Vivien is threatened by the next door neighbor Constance’s (Jessica Lange) daughter Addy (Jamie Brewer), who tells her she’ll die in this room, and after Ben is told by another former owner of the house that he burned his entire family to death because the house made him do it AND tells him that he was sleepwalking, too, and after their daughter Violet lures a schoolgirl into the basement where Ben’s patient Tate and some creepy monster do a number on her, Ben, Viven, and Violet never say, “Hey, you know, I don’t believe in any of that Amityville Horror stuff, but let’s get the f*ck out of here anyway and try Rutland, Vermont.”

No, they can’t discuss anything because they’re too busy being self-absorbed.

Ben is a complete tool. Not only does he cheat on his wife after she had a miscarriage, not only does he constantly seem to think of his wife only with his dick, but, as I mentioned, he thinks it’s a good idea to rub one out in front of a big window after he sees the hot new housekeeper (Alex Breckenridge) cleaning. And by cleaning I mean playing with herself in a room where Ben is sure to see her.

The housekeeper is the one interesting part of the show. To everyone but Ben, she appears as an older woman (Frances Conroy), but to Ben, she’s a smoking hot redhead who dresses like she’s playing “Maid #3″ in a Maxim photo shoot and tries to seduce him. Now, Ben is in hot water because he was caught “piledriving” a student (Viven’s phrase) back in Beantown, but he thinks it’s perfectly cool when Viven wants to not only hire a hot new temptress but then says nothing when the new maid tries to screw him in his office.

Which, by the way, Violet sees, but she doesn’t say anything and Ben doesn’t say anything and, you know, if I got the feeling that STORY was going to be about how self-absorption allows crazy bad stuff to happen, I might be intrigued, but there’s nothing in this episode to make me think the real interest on the producers’ part is to make great characters and take them on a journey. Twin Peaks wasn’t awesome because Bob was the scariest f*cking thing my teenage brain had ever seen; Twin Peaks was awesome because creepy ass Bob was not only externally scaring the crap out of me, but internally doing damage to some really interesting characters.

Because whatever tricks and shocks and fancy editing and cool visuals you throw up on the screen, I still need great characters to keep me interested and STORY doesn’t have any of them, yet.

Instead, STORY seems more interested in being creepy for creepy’s sake. Right, spooky basement, we get it. It’s 2011, you know. If you can’t find a director to film a good spooky basement sequence, it’s probably because you refuse to hire someone other than your 12-year old nephew. There’s whatever monster is living down there, but the fact that it is a creepy monster makes it decidedly not scary. You know what is scary? Bob was scary. Not because he looked like a dolled up Nosferatu, but because he looked real. Here, there’s all kinds of tricks with editing and lighting and blah blah blah. Combined with all the swearing and gimp-screwing, the first episode of STORY gives off the impression that it isn’t going to be about much more than an excuse to do things the networks can’t or won’t do. Aren’t we beyond this?

Oh, did I mention gimp-screwing? That’s right. There’s a man or ghost or Ben dressed in a gimp suit who screws (and likely impregnates) Viven after she finally gives in to having sex with her cheating husband again. And the sex scene is supposed to be creepy because there had been a gimp suit in the attic that Viv ordered Ben to throw out. Which he did. And now it’s back! And it wants to have sex with Connie Britton!

That’s not creepy. That’s understandable.

The silliest/stupidest part of STORY is Ben’s patient Tate. Ben is a psychiatrist and has decided to see patients in the house because he’s a big fan of The Cosby Show. I mean, because it allows him to spend more time with the family. So he has this kid Tate as his first and only client and he meets with him a couple times and each time the kid ends up hanging with his daughter. Oh, and why is Tate seeing a shrink? Because he has violent fantasies about dressing up as Skeletor and killing his classmates. And yet he seemingly has full run of the house. Doesn’t Ben, I don’t know, escort his only patient outside?

Nope. Why? Well, because he’s a self-absorbed douche, that’s why.

Now, I’m just looking at the first episode, so perhaps some of the story elements that seem so cliche here will improve, but I won’t be sticking around to find out, as much as I like Jessica Lange and Connie Britton. If I hear good things, I’ll check back, but there’s little to nothing in this first episode that makes me want to stick around. AMERICAN HORROR STORY throws a lot of sex and horror on the screen but it doesn’t take the time to create believable characters for me to give a crap what happens to them.