Editorials
This Week’s ‘The Queen’ Just Elevated “Castle Rock” to Unforgettable Television
In the world of Stephen King, Sissy Spacek is of course known as Carrie White. But with “Castle Rock,“ Spacek has ensured King fans will never forget the name Ruth Deaver.
There’s a whole lot happening on “Castle Rock,” now seven episodes deep, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about there being *too many* ideas at play. The show feels a bit disjointed and in danger of coming off the rails completely at any moment, with disparate storylines involving a mysterious young man and “the voice of God” out in the woods that have become increasingly hard to follow. But this week’s ‘The Queen’ brought a temporary silence to much of that noise, primarily focused on one character and her deeply heartbreaking story.
It was the best episode to date, and one of the finest hours of horror TV in years.
From the beginning, the heart of “Castle Rock” has been the relationship between former sheriff Alan Pangborn (a well-known King character) and Ruth Deaver, a decades-spanning love story that began when the two were young and continued when Pangborn returned to town as an older man. Prior to this week, Spacek wasn’t given all that much to do as Ruth, mostly presented as a detached character in the fog of crippling Alzheimer’s. ‘The Queen,’ however, presented many of the season’s moments from her own point of view, completely immersing us in Ruth’s fractured head-space for a psychological journey into the devastating inner workings of the disease. With the chess pieces Alan gifted to her as her only means of returning back to reality, the episode took us on a trip into Ruth’s mind, plagued by memories (both good and bad) that rip her away from the present and temporarily lock her quite literally in the past.
Countless movies and television shows have featured characters dealing with Alzheimer’s, but we almost always experience their mental anguish through the eyes of another character. Boldly, ‘The Queen’ does something I’ve never seen any piece of entertainment do before, visually conveying Ruth’s daily experiences in the way that she herself is experiencing them; the episode essentially presents those experiences in the way that horror movies do nightmare sequences, bringing a sense of understanding to the horrors of a real-life disease that plagues so many. As Ruth jumps between space and time and reckons with past and present, we go through all of it with her, the episode brilliantly depicting Alzheimer’s on both mental and visual levels.
‘The Queen’ would hardly work if not for its incredible performance from Sissy Spacek, who of course played a prom queen in the aforementioned Carrie (the episode’s title an intended wink and nod to King fans, co-creator Sam Shaw admits to EW). The episode is essentially a one-woman-showcase of Spacek’s talents, and it’s because she’s so good at conveying deep, complex emotions without saying a single word that Ruth’s confusion, fear and heartbreak is so gut-wrenching to watch. If any episode of television this year instantly made one of its actors into a shoe-in for an Emmy, ‘The Queen’ is that episode. Spacek that actor. Over 40 years ago, Spacek landed an Oscar nomination for playing Carrie White in Brian De Palma’s film, and if there’s any justice, she’ll be an awards contender for her return to King’s world. It just seems right, doesn’t it?
Of course, the major talking point of the episode is its final moments, wherein Ruth accidentally shoots Alan multiple times, killing him almost instantly. Long story short, Ruth gets it in her head that she has to kill “The Kid” in order to be free from the time loop she’s been in, and she mistakes Alan for “The Kid” and guns him down instead. The moment of Alan’s death is played beautifully by both Spacek and Scott Glenn, with the character gracefully accepting his fate in his final moments. Even in that moment, lying in a pool of his own blood and with the love of his life holding the gun, Glenn makes it clear that Alan is at peace. He still loves Ruth, and nothing in the world could ever change that. As ever, his bleeding heart feels nothing but pure love.
The true heartbreak comes in the follow-up scene, when Ruth’s mind takes her back into the memory of Alan arriving on her doorstep, years after her emotionally abusive husband had died. The two embrace, and Alan promises Ruth that he’ll never leave her. In the final shot, we see two of Ruth’s chess pieces on a dresser. The King has fallen. Only the Queen is standing. But Ruth doesn’t reach for them. Instead, she remains in the warm embrace of her happy past. Perhaps she’s choosing to stay in that moment forever. A silver lining to the disease that’s ruined her life.
How does “The Kid” play into all this? Was he really channeling Ruth’s late husband during the events of ‘The Queen,’ or was all of that happening inside of Ruth’s not-quite-reliable mind? Honestly, I have no idea. The character’s inclusion in the episode’s storyline was a bit off-putting for me, again a side effect of the season’s issue with having a bit too much going on at any given time. Here’s hoping we eventually get all the answers we’re craving. In the meantime, ‘The Queen’ was the first truly unforgettable hour of “Castle Rock” so far.
If it wasn’t already, the Hulu series is now must-watch television.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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