Bookmonkey visits Hemlock Grove: Post Twelve

And here we end our visit to Hemlock Grove.

In the end, the show is a different take on a classic monster mashup, think Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man but in an updated version.

Throughout the season, the series attempts to show how these mythical beings would act and interact in a contemporary setting. In many ways it can be considered Magic realism, but in terms of a Horror, rather than a Fantastic setting.

In many ways the show is a success in what it sets out to do; the vampire, werewolf, and monster elements work in a "real world" setting.  In many ways the story works more as a thriller with horror elements than simply a classic horror story.

The pacing of the series does sometimes work against it - as the story attempts to stretch across the course of thirteen episodes, most of the episodes work, but I ended up feeling like the series could have worked at ten, rather than thirteen, episodes.

The series works best when it focuses on the growing relationship between Peter and Roman, showing how their friendship changes and grows during the course of the murder investigation, and although my personal favourite character was Shelley (the series version of the Frankenstein's monster), the human side of these characters is what worked best for me.

In the end, I'm not sure whether I'll be following up with the later seasons - but as the first season was a pretty straight adaptation of the novel, I'd like to see what the creators end up doing with these characters once the go off book.

Thanks for hanging out with me for another Ocotober!