Movies
[Review] MTV’s ‘Death Valley’ Episodes 3 and 4
After a brief hiatus, we’re checking back in with the most recent episodes of MTV’s new comedy/horror series, “Death Valley“. When vampires, zombies, and werewolves wreak havoc in the San Fernando Valley, it’s up to the Undead Task Force to investigate undead malfeasance and dispatch swift justice. The last two weeks have introduced a running storyline and featured the series’ funniest episodes so far. As the cast begins to click, Death Valley has slowly evolved from the episodic, sometimes aimless comedy bits that dominated the first two episodes. This show might actually live up to its potential.
Read on for a detailed discussion of Episodes 3 and 4.
I was out of town last week and neglected to submit a review of Episode 3, (“Blood Vessels”). My apologies to the growing fan base of what has slowly progressed into a consistently funny series. With episodes clocking in at around 21 minutes, it’s difficult to devote thousands of words to each week’s program, but I’m still committed to giving Death Valley the coverage it deserves. Once not so long ago I ignored my instincts to cover something called Scream Queens–a show so godawful it practically begged to be mocked on a weekly basis–a decision I’ll regret for the rest of my life.
I understand that Death Valley still has its detractors, and yes, I’ll admit, it can be very uneven and not always as funny as it wants to be. But the attractive cast has proven that they’re game for anything, and as the comic rhythms have improved over the last two weeks, each episode has been progressively funnier. Take Episode 3, “Blood Vessels”, for example: when zombies trap an ammo-less John John and Rinaldi in a overturned blood-mobile, Stubek and Pierce are only willing to lob boxes of ammo if animal crackers and fruit punch is lobbed in return. What could have been a scene of high-tension zombie claustrophobia straight out of The Walking Dead degenerates into laughs as Stubek and Pierce munch cookies and argue about whether being a varsity high school baseball catcher is more valid than being a JV high school quarterback. Meanwhile, still trapped in the blood-mobile, John John utters those timeless words known to zombie hunters everywhere: “The bat never runs out of ammo.”
Captain Dashell (who’s strangely absent from Episode 4) becomes concerned when his teenage niece is invited to a party that promises “G.B.G.B.”, and he sends Officer Landry undercover to investigate. Although Dashell speculates madly as to the possible meaning of the initials (“Get beers, get banged; green bananas, Gary Busey”), it turns out to stand for “Give Blood, Get Buzzed”, and with a little sparkle from its magic wand, Death Valley introduces some mythology: the black kiss. According to the urban legend Landry hears at the party (and Caity Lotz can spend the whole series in that little black strappy thing, as far as I’m concerned), if you donate blood and then get kissed by a vampire, it gets you high and tastes like Jager. Sleazy vampire Rico shows up to kiss all the female blood donors, and a curious Landry gives in to the seduction. I doubt this will be the last we see of Rico.
In Episode 4, “Two Girls One Cop”, the gang finds themselves “waist-deep in porn” as they investigate a werewolf attack on the set of an adult movie, a set-up that provides some of the series’ funniest moments to date. With the werewolf on the loose, Stubek and Rinaldi search the area for a missing make-up girl so talented she can “make a vagina look like a pair of Swedish baby thumbs.” John John and Pierce decide to hole up on set with the porn stars, taking a particular interest in “the insert guy”, whose role in the adult film perpetually confuses poor Stubek. Even without the always reliable banter of Bryan Callen, the banter during the first 15 minutes of “Two Girls One Cop” depicts Death Valley at its finest and funniest. Yeah, it’s too bad about the wasted subplot that had Landry checking homes for “werewolf compliance” ahead of the full moon, or the somewhat stiff final third, but as I get to know the characters, I’m digging this show more and more each week.
Is anybody still watching? (Cue crickets.)
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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