the jaded viewer

I just want to say, for the record that I do watch TV. :-P I'm a big Lost fan and an even bigger Joss Whedon fan (as you can tell from my very active reviews of Dollhouse). But a DVD release of a TV show I had watched years back jogged my memory of a few other TV shows that I use to watch back in the day.

I'm guessing you may have forgotten these. And if by some miracle, you remember any of these shows (which is why I'm writing this post), it'll be awesome to reminisce about em.

So here are a few cult TV shows from back in the day that had me as a devoted follower. Were you one too?

5.) Dark Angel

Network: Fox

Before Jessica Alba was being invisible and starring in various romantic comedies, I fell in love with her uber hotness in James Cameron's futuristic sci fi weirdness called Dark Angel.

Fun Fact!: I developed a serious disease because of this show. See below.

Dark Angel Syndrome
noun

1.) Watching any particular form of entertainment (movie, tv show, etc.) because the hotness of lead actress outweighs the horrible plot, bad acting and totally shitty experience of the show.

2.) Dark Angel is a reference to the hotness that is Jessica Alba and the reason why men watched in pain 2 seasons of this James Cameron inspired show.

Mind you the plot of super engineered soldiers, an electromagnetic pulse crippling the USA and covert government searching for said soldiers was kinda cheesy it did have Alba riding a motorcycle in the outfit above.





4.) The Kindred: The Embraced

Network: Fox

I'm a big vampire TV show fan. Something about vampires, I just dig. Angel and Buffy are tops on my list and so was this short lived show called Kindred: The Embraced which debuted on Fox in 1996.

Show was about warring vampire clans and starred the oh so hot Stacy Haiduk.

The show was a little confusing, lots of cop drama mixed in with Godfather like squabbling. Overall, a decent soap opera vampire drama that was kinda cool.





3.) Freaky Links

Network: Fox

Yet another Fox show that bit the dust too early. Freaky Links was spawned by Haxan creators of The Blair Witch Project after their success with the film.

The fun part of the show was the viralness and the social community it spawned. It was the first show that ran in conjunction with a website that sort of tied it in.

Starring some 20 somethings, the group would get an e-mail from somebody claiming paranormal or supernatural or urban legends and they'd investigate it.

It was way ahead of its time. It's like a reality show of Snopes.com.





2.) Forever Knight

Network: CBS

Forever Knight was part of the Crimetime after Primetime schedule before Letterman got his Late Show.

It had similarities to "Angel" in that it was a show about a vampire named Nick Knight who wants to atone for his evil by doing good and working as a Seattle cop.

I'll admit, I have all 3 seasons of this show as it was filled with some interesting characters ( he had a comic relief partner, his pseudo BFF was a medical examiner and his sire was Nigel Bennett, a very old vamp).

Good cop show which had vampire mythos mixed in. Glad I can rewatch this anytime I want.





1.) She-Wolf of London

Network: Syndicated

So this is the show that sparked this post. It recently got released on DVD and I'm thinking of buying it.

It sounds like its from the old classic movie but it has more in common with An American Werewolf in London.

Starring the hot Kate Hodge, she gets bitten by a werewolf which leads to one of the funniest werewolves you'll ever see on TV. She teams up with an English professor (we call them Gileses) and they investigate supernatural cases all over England.

I mean it wasn't the most awesomest TV shows but for its time, it suppressed my appetite of werewolf fancy. I have to say, I thought it was a bloody good time.





If you remember any of these shows, drop a line and go all nostalgy. Don't be ashamed that you too watched Dark Angel for Ms. Alba. The fact that these shows have gained cult followings and warranted DVD releases years later is pretty amazing.

Are there other supernatural/paranormal/horror/sci-fi shows that you want to see again?

Labels: dark angel, freakylinks, jessica alba, vampires, werewolf, werewolves

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Wild Country

Wild Country (2005)

Directed by Craig Strachan

When you have turn on the English subs for an English language movie, aye mate, this is going to be eh fuckin hell of a movie.

Well invoke Braveheart, because the Scots seem to be monopolizing the werewolf genre. Oops. I just ruined the entire movie for you. That's ok, because I saved you 70 minutes.

Wild Country is a step above Sci-Fi channel-ish quality. With mucho gracias gore and blood, a backdrop of the Scottish woodlands and teenager fodder to be killed, it was watchable enough to be somewhat interesting.

So by ruining it for you I saved you so you didn't have to see gratuitous running, dull kill scenes, more running and more duller kill scenes.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

16 year-old Kelly Ann gives birth to a baby boy, which is immediately given up for adoption. Six weeks later, trying to get over the emotional upset, she goes on an overnight hike with her church youth group.

The group is joined by 18-year-old Lee, the father of Kelly Ann’s baby. Kelly Ann isn’t pleased to see him. The rest of the group get worried when Kelly Ann starts thinking she hears a baby crying on the moors. But they do indeed find a baby abandoned in a ruined castle.

As they hike back to take the baby to safety, the group is stalked by a wild beast that picks them off one by one.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Made 3 years after Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers (who did Wild Country's effects), one of the best werewolf movies made on either side of the Atlantic, it seems the Scottish have a werewolf fetish. And thats the shadow that Wild Country eventually falls into. It can't match Dog Soldiers pinnacle chaotic awesomeness and falls into the teenage monster used DVD bin.

Kelly Ann is our final girl, who with her dorky uncomprehensible, Scot heavy accented friends are camping out in the Glasgow woodlands. They are brought to the woods by Father Steve, a most unusual priest for some R&R youth ministry-ing.

As our Scottish scoobies toss around Scottish slang, they soon realized something is hunting them. We soon get our generic, Grade B munching wolf kills. Beheads, ripped throats, intenstinal rippage.

The gore is gore-verage. Blah Blooh Blah. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ. I found myself snoozing through some of the most ridiculous cliches scenes of carnage.

And splatter cliches o plenty come up.

Lots of running and falling down. I mean tie your shoelaces mate. Other clich o matics were flashlight scares, quick cuts and the gratuitous semi twist ending.

Only one scene actually registered on the gore Richter scale has a poor schmuck have half his body ripped apart by our wolf beast.

And boy is our wolf-bear monster thing look like it was bought at a 99 cents store.

The quick shots at night as our fodder run away are effective but once daylight hit and we got see what the hunting manimal was, it looked mega super duper cheap.

It was like a cross between a grizzly, a wolf and a really fugly looking dog. The effects are all done el natural, without the aide of CGI. But here it looks mega weird and plasticy. I mean there were better effects in an episode of Buffy then there are here.

As we get to our max conclusion and ending, I was hoping we'd get some bang for our buck. Something different. Some big last howl to kick this up a notch. But the only howl at the end was me howling in pain wishing this movie was over.

If I want to see nature gone wild or man vs beast, I'll hit up National Geographic or *gasp* a Sci Fi Channel original movie.

At least I can MST3K those flicks into something somewhat watchable.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Arterial throat slayage
Ripped neck hemmoraging
Intenstine spewage
Monster munching
Ripped apart body attack
Cow explosion

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Breastfeeding (does that even count?)

WTF moment

The semi twist ending which made me smack my head in stupidity because I saw it coming, then actually said "Nah, they not gonna end the movie like that, that would be too obvious". But then they ended the movie like that which was so fuckin obvious.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The choice is clear.

If you're going to see one Scottish werewolf movie this year. See.............

Dog Soldiers.

The fact I ruined it for you by just saying this movie is about werewolves has pretty much ruined the ending for you.

My bad. But trust me that's actually good for you.

Rating:


Watch the trailer here. Check out the official site.


Tags:
wild country, wild country review , werewolves , werewolf, lycans, lycanthrope, scottish horror, dog soldiers,scotland,wild country trailer

Labels: dog soldiers, glasgow, scotland, scottish horror, werewolf, werewolves, wild country, wild country review

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Tags:
animals trailer, animals horror trailer , werewolves , werewolf, lycans, lycanthrope, the wolf man, animals, werewolves,splatterpunk,naveen andrews

Labels: animals, animals horror trailer, animals trailer, lycans, lycanthrope, marc blucas, naveen andrews, splatterpunk, the wolf man, underworld, werewolf, werewolves

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post