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‘Pretty Little Liars’ – The Modern Day Giallo Fit for Family TV

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A mysterious psycho only seen in silhouette with a penchant for black leather gloves and the almost supernatural ability to see and hear everything you do? Deeply buried family secrets that seem to link you directly to the masked lunatic? Elaborately convoluted motivations that hardly make sense upon first viewing? And dolls – lots and lots of creepy dolls? It must be a 70’s Italian giallo picture…or ya know, the formerly known as ABC Family hit drama series, Pretty Little Liars.

SPOILERS BELOW

The show tells the tale of a group of friends besieged by a highly resourceful madman who has no problem sneaking nasty messages into the gang’s fortune cookies or alphabet cereal. A stalker who seems to have the eye of God on their side who can send perfectly timed texts and build elaborate underground torture bunkers. Granted this psycho’s identity has changed over the years, the baton being passed from one slighted foe to another, but the method is always the same: a barrage of threats, blackmail, and manipulations relying upon the type of hacker skills that would make even the NSA envious.

The series has just returned from hiatus to begin airing the final few episodes detailing the cyber-stalker nightmares of Aria, Spencer, Hannah, Emily, and Alison along with their various beaus, weekend girlfriends, wine moms, lecherous fathers and, of course, Mona! As the show’s creators and advertising have proclaimed, “This is #EndGame!” PLL (as its known to its ravenous fans) is a bubble gum slasher with all the stalk and very sparse slash. There have been several deaths throughout the series’ 7 years, though a lot of those murders were in self-defense. Deaths that are in majority enacted by the hands of the liars (our heroes) more so than that of the various incarnations of the show’s villain, A (or more recently “A.D.” or “Uber A”).

While the mystery has always been the driving force, who is behind the endless texts and torturous games aimed at the liars? There is more than plenty “Will They/Won’t They?” relationship drama to constantly break up the suspense. Are you Team Spoby or Spaleb? Amidst all of the soap opera theatrics, the occasional bit of bloodshed and gore is all the more shocking. Let us not forget the fatal car crash that took the life of Rollins or the absurd decapitation from this past fall finale. However, despite the shows 90’s horror aesthetic, it shares more in common with antiquated giallo films than anything that sprang from the post Scream cycle. The show has always straddled the line between teen drama and outright horror, “back door horror” if you will.

Much like the classic gialli of the 70’s, we get plenty of obstructed views of the tormentor “at play”, snipping out paper dolls or enacting their own twisted puppet shows. Every episode involves at least one POV shot lingering outside the liars’ homes, through their large suburban windows, as they gather and hypothesize about their would be attacker. There are whispered conversations just out of earshot of our heroes who believe that every interaction will bring them one step closer the truth and the end of their nightmare. There’s the aforementioned fetishising of dolls and masks, and some truly top notch cinematography for what must be a lower budget TV production. These guys have never met a colored filter they didn’t like. Now if only A would get busy hacking their way through the cast with a straight razor in these final few episodes, we’d be cooking with gas!

While that probably won’t happen, the many call backs to the genre’s past is one of the reasons this grown ass man and avid horror fan has no problem plopping down in front of the TV every Tuesday for an hour-long visit to the sordid town of Rosewood. Yes, at the end of the day it’s a show made for teenage girls, but it’s always been just a bit smarter than that. PLL isn’t afraid to aim higher than the expected “Teen Beat” worldview of its target audience, from incessant allusions to classic literature in the first handful of episodes to the stylish black and white season 4 installment, “Shadow Play”. The younger viewers of PLL were given their first dose of film noir with that take on the classic, Laura.

These horror tropes get even more specific and extend beyond simply being integrated into the show’s style. The homages abound from productions of The Bad Seed to the infamous “Red Coat”, a mysterious blond-haired girl in, well…a red-hooded coat that appeared to be ripped directly from Don’t Look Now. There was even the shows’ first Halloween special that featured “Zombie Baby Doll Stalker”. While the villain’s look seemed stolen from the underrated slasher Hills Run Red, he was really just a stand in for any number of masked-faced slashers from the 80’s.

In the earlier seasons it was commonplace to find numerous nods to the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, especially during the epic finales. From the town’s local coffee shop, Rear Window Brew, to fatal showdowns at the top of bell towers. More to the point, an entire episode was filled to the brim with homages to Psycho centering around the discovery of A’s lair at the Lost Woods hotel. That ep included its own take on “the shower scene” and a chilling shot that slowly pushed in on the first unmasked A of the series, Mona. She sat, bound by a straight jacket, her inner monologue clued us into her master plan, “Loser Mona’s going to the nut house and those precious liars are going home to sleep with their windows open and their doors unlocked. Don’t they know that’s what we want?” Echoing Norman Bates’s final moments in Hitchcock’s proto-slasher opus, Mona cemented herself as the series most complex and compelling character.

There are some fans who make it their mission to obsess over and pick apart each and every detail. Trust me, search YouTube for “PLL Fan Theory” for some doozies, but at the end of the day, it’s breezy fun that no one expected to become the breakout hit that it has. Certainly, I can’t in good conscience recommend PLL to just your average horror fan. It is, afterall, a teen soap. However, for those who don’t mind their chills with a side of sass and a parade of stylish and sometimes questionable fashions (there’s that giallo parallel again), Pretty Little Liars might just be worth a spin on your Netflix queue. Hurry up, with only eight episodes left until the series finale, time is running out to be there with the rest of us for the final reveal of Uber A.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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