Friday, October 16, 2015

Bookmonkey visits Hemlock Grove: Post Seven

Okay, so there's actually both a Frankenstein (the scientist) and a Frankenstein monster in Hemlock Grove.

After four episodes filled with Vampire (sorry, Upir) and Werewolf stuff, the idea of a mad scientist creating a monster was a heck of a lot of fun for me.

Actually episode four does a nice job of both moving the murder mystery forward and fleshing out a one of the supporting characters through flashback; specifically Dr. Clementine Chasseur (played by Kandyse McClure, pictured left).  Initially in the series, she's introduced as an officer of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, but things begin to move pretty quickly to show she's covering for something.

Part of what I'm enjoying at this point is the fact that the show seems to be working to have traditional monster archetypes (vampire, witch, werewolf, etc.), but then attempts to deconstruct them; the witch has magic, but doesn't use it as it causes more trouble than it's worth, the werewolf hides his nature for fear of scientists, like the mysterious Dr. Chausseur and her interest in Peter.

So far, as an adaption, I'm definitely preferring it to the original book, which moved, chapter by chapter, through different narrative techniques, often feeling more style over substance, but the different transitions seem to work much better in a televised format.

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