TV Review: "The Following"

A college friend; fellow actor; writer and pretty smart guy, apparently despised the new FOX thriller "The Following." He gave his reasons (which I will address) and has every right to disagree with me. And while I respect his opinion, mine is different. Ebert and Roeper disagreed all the time. And that's as it should be.

James Purefoy ("Rome") is serial killer Joe Carroll, a Poe-obsessed professor of Romantic literature who finds beauty in the death of young women, having killed 14 of his students and removing their eyes (yeah, it's that kind of show). Kevin Bacon (in his TV series premiere) is former FBI Agent Ryan Hardy, who captured Carroll 8 years ago. Here There Be Spoilers:

The pilot episode begins with Carroll's escape from Federal prison just weeks before his scheduled execution, brutally murdering several guards in doing so. Hardy, on disability leave thanks to the pacemaker which had to be installed after Carroll stabbed him in the chest, gets a call to "consult" and finds himself once again hunting a deranged genius - but now Hardy has spent 8 years amassing a cult-like online 'following' who worship him and will do anything and everything he asks of them. The rest of the cast includes cutie Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) as young Agent Mike Weston - a computer savvy devotee of Hardy's True Crime book about Carroll; Maggie Grace ("Lost") as Carroll's only other surviving victim and Natalie Zea ("Californication;" "Justified") as Carrol's ex-wife, Claire.

Created by Kevin Williamson (Scream; "The Vampire Diaries") "The Following" is by no means perfect. Plot-holes abound; some dialogue is less-than-perfect; and plot twists can be seen coming like an MTA train on the 1-9 line. But plenty of cringe-inducing gore (ice-pick-to-the-eye, anyone?); terrific performances (Purefoy practically oozes 'Evil' and yes Mark, Bacon was 'twitchy.' Ever meet a traumatized alcoholic that wasn't?); a dash of by-now-familiar procedural; just enough backstory to set up an intriguing puzzle and loads of atmosphere manage to overcome it's flaws. The addition of the talented Annie Parisse ("Person of Interest;" "Rubicon") in the next episode only makes me more excited to see it.

Not for the squeamish or jaded, I found "The Following" to be one of the most exciting and intriguing new thrillers on network TV. And while it will certainly never replace the exiting "Fringe," I'll keep watching "The Following," willingly giving in to its conceits and hopefully finding the remaining episodes as just downright entertaining as the pilot. *** (Three Out of Four Stars). The trailer below may be NSFW for violence:

Creepy, gruesome fun.

More, anon.
Prospero

Does It Hurt to Be Dead?

Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Morrison

Sadly overshadowed by a more popular (though inferior) ghost movie released the same year (and one I will write about soon), writer/director David Keopp's Stir of Echoes is another example of the ghost story as a mystery, centered around the disappearance of a local girl.

Kevin Bacon plays Tom Witzky, an average Joe trying to support his family as a phone lineman. His pregnant wife Maggie ("Law and Order: C.I." alum Kathryn Erbe) and their son Jake live in a working-class Chicago neighborhood. One night at a party, Maggie's sister Lisa (the underrated and always wonderful Illeana Douglas), convinces Tom to let her hypnotize him. She implants a post-hypnotic suggestion in the skeptical Tom to be more 'open-minded.' 

Not long after, Tom starts having visions of a mentally-challenged girl named Samantha ("Once Upon a Time" star Jennifer Morrison) who disappeared a few years before. The visions lead to obsession and Tom is soon digging up the backyard and causing Maggie to question his sanity. Tom eventually demands that Lisa undo whatever it is she did to him, but she can't and Samantha continues to haunt him. Tom finally breaks through a wall in his basement to find Samantha's remains and confronts his landlord, who admits that his sons lured the girl to house with the intention of raping her. When she resisted, they killed her and their father helped brick up her body in the basement. Consumed by guilt, the landlord apparently kills himself. When his sons show up and confront Tom with the intention of killing them, the landlord emerges from the basement and saves Tom and Maggie. The mystery solved, Tom's visions abate and the family moves out of the house. But as they are driving away, young Jake is seen battling against the voices of the dead which now rage in his head.

Keopp, who also wrote the screenplays for Jurassic Park; Panic Room and Spider-Man (among many others), working from the novel by Richard Matheson ("I Am Legend"), crafts a creepy and atmospheric tale in Stir of Echoes, populated by believable characters reacting to forces and situations outside their realms of experience and aided by an extraordinary cast. Bacon is simply terrific as Tom, a man confused and frightened by what's happening to him and Erbe is solid as a wife and mother who doesn't understand why her world is being torn apart. Douglas gives yet another wonderful performance as the quirky sister-in-law who isn't fully aware of the consequences of her interests in the occult, while the rest of the cast embody Chicago's late-90's working class. Prolific composer James Newton Howard (Batman Begins; King Kong; The Hunger Games) provides an appropriately creepy score and the visual effects by BFTRE are spot on.

If you've never seen Stir of Echoes, you owe it to yourself to do so. If you have, then you already know what a terrific and underrated film it is.

More, anon.
Prospero