Reviews
[TV Review] “Slasher” Continues to Get More Clever, More Brutal and More Socially Charged With “Solstice”
There’s hardly a shortage of horror-themed TV shows at the moment. If anything, there may be way too many of those, with some getting lost in the mix. One show that is not getting enough hype is the Canadian anthology series Slasher, partly due to its uneven release schedule and lukewarm reception of its first season. Yet its third season, subtitled Solstice, just premiered on Netflix, following a pretty lengthy hiatus (Guilty Party came out in October 2017). Was it worth the wait? A big bloody yes.
For the ones unfamiliar with the series, the premise is pretty simple: each season is a gory murder mystery that follows a new masked serial killer who stalks yet another core group of characters over the course of 8 episodes. It all concludes with a big reveal in the end with only a handful of bruised survivors. In the first season, The Executioner was reducing the population of a small Canadian town while finding inspiration for his kills in the seven deadly sins. The second season took place during winter at the former summer camp, where ex-counselors and residents of a modern yoga retreat were target by a nickname-free psychopath.
The horrors of Solstice unfold inside the neon-lit apartment complex exactly one year after one of the residents, a human equivalent of YOLO ‘philosophy’ named Kit (Robert Cormier), was brutally killed by a masked killer known as The Druid after a wild summer solstice-themed party; all while none of the neighbors answered his desperate pleas for help. As revealed over the course of flashbacks, Kit’s death had kick-started a whole chain reaction of tragic events that finally led to a full-blown murder spree on the anniversary of the original murder.
Apartment complex settings allow Slasher to introduce, perhaps, the most diverse set of characters in the history of slashers. The lead, for example, is Muslim teenage girl Saadia, whose family fled a war zone only to run into a slasher territory. The script makes a great use of its Final Girl’s heritage and this additional level of socially-political commentary alone helps elevate the story higher than previous seasons of the show, taking several unexpected turns.
The season also goes way deeper into exploring the LGBTQ issues: there are lesbian, gay and bisexual characters, each having an interesting and multi-layered storyline that goes beyond tired “let’s tackle as many issues as we can” formula adopted by many contemporary TV series, both within and outside the horror genre.
Out of three seasons so far, Solstice is the most “woke” one yet. Many plotlines rely on the issues of cyberbullying, online stalking, online dating and the rise of VR. We discover a lot about these characters via their online presence, whether it’s a snarky tweeter account or a full-blown racist website one of the characters not-so-secretly runs.
At some point it gets hard to tell what the overall message of the season is, but it surely makes more than a few interesting points about our obsession with filming everything, constant need for attention and inability to put our differences aside. Some of it does feel forced and over-the-top, but eventually does what it sets out to do: it shows us what a slasher movie/show should look and feel like in the year 2019.
While the first season had little to offer in the gore department, the second season saw the FX team going full out and offering us one gruesome death scene after another. Solstice sets out to out-smart, out-torture and out-shock its predecessors with astonishingly bloody, violent and creative murders. People get boiling water poured inside their mouths, skulls are drilled, faces are melted off with acid, heads are cut off, organs are carved out and countless swings of an axe turn limp bodies into gooey puddles. You thought Brighburn was graphic? You consider that infamous Octavia Spencer murder in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 hard to watch? Well, The Druid is here to show you what the world-renowned Canadian hospitality really looks like.
One downside of Slasher’s initial season was the predictability of the killer’s identity and the overall slow pace, which dragged due to its “one episode/one kill” approach. The second season had course-corrected the guessing game and added a pretty sweet twist towards the end (one that even seasoned genre fans would probably not have predicted). Solstice keeps a few aces up its bloody sleeve, too: while some of the elements of this bloody puzzle are easy to piece together halfway through the season, the other ones still come as a surprise. Unlike many other horror shows (I’m looking at you, American Horror Story), Slasher knows the power of throwing a good red herring our way while not leaving any plot points unresolved. Without spoiling the finale, let’s just say the script flips a lot of what we usually expect regarding both the killers and the survivors in a classic slasher.
As for the pacing, the season barely runs out of steam. Although there is a bit of a setback towards the end (done in the good name of character development and suspense building), most of the episodes move fast and the pilot alone leaves three characters dead.
Scream fans will also be thrilled to know there’s a very Gail Weathers-esque character played by scene-stealing Paula Brancati (she had a brief appearance in Season 1 but was promoted to a lead in Season 2). Her character Violet runs a vlog called “Sex & Violets” and tries way too hard to become Canada’s leading social media detective. In the overall dark season, she’s somewhat of a comic relief, while Jim Watson is also memorable as a smug hipster barista named Xander. Trust me, you’ll love to hate them.
The teenage cast, led by Baraka Rahmani (Saadi), Mercedes Morris (Jen) and Gabriel Darku (Connor), present a tight union of believable highschoolers who turn out to be way smarter and resilient than their adult neighbors. Hopefully they’ll be back for further seasons of the series.
With each season getting more clever, more brutal and more socially charged, it’s been very interesting to see how Slasher has used countless familiar tropes to create something modern, exciting and unapologetically gruesome. What’s next? A crossover season somewhere down the line sure would be a nice treat…
For now, don’t piss off The Druid. Binge Solstice over on Netflix today.
Writer Adam Rockoff reteams with director David DeCoteau on a new Lifetime thriller that bears a striking resemblance to this month’s earlier title, Million Dollar Lethal Listing.
In Fatal Fixer Upper, Vivian (Jasmine Aivaliotis) and Ryan (Philip McElroy) are a young married couple preparing to purchase their dream home. Just like in Million Dollar Lethal Listing, the deal is too good to be true: the house is wildly underpriced, the owner is looking for a quick sale, and they’re asked to make a hefty cash deposit.
Unlike the former title, though, there’s no mystery about who the villain is in Fatal Fixer Upper. The film opens with a classic Lifetime cold open that immediately establishes that there is a bad man keeping an eye on things. His identity is quickly revealed as Josh Thomas (Duke Van Patten), the home’s original owner and the person spying on Vivian when she checks out the property with her father, Roger Fields (an underused Dorian Gregory).
Alas there’s no room for subtlety in Van Patten’s performance as he immediately goes from spying on Vivian to snapping at realtor Sandy (Eliza Roberts) and neighbour Jill (Grisselle Escotto). Considering how easily he flies off the handle, it’s a surprise that Josh stays calm long enough to ingratiate himself into Vivian and Ryan’s lives by doing repairs around the house.
Because Josh is revealed as the villain early on, Fatal Fixer Upper is an exercise in patience. The audience is always one to two steps ahead of Vivian and Ryan, which requires the screenplay, co-written with Jeffrey Schenck and Peter Sullivan, to find entertaining ways to fill the time until the characters catch up in the last act.
Unfortunately the film relies too heavily on clichéd characters and formulaic developments. Naturally there’s a concerned therapist, Dr. Shaw (Diane Robin), who questions if Josh is taking his meds. There’s also Ryan’s cousin, Casey (Randy Jay Burrell), a police officer-turned-PI who investigates Josh after the homeowner explodes at a BBQ in front of everyone. And you know that Sandy’s in danger the moment she confirms to Vivian that Josh lied about where he’s living (sidebar: the film treats this as a reveal, but anyone who has ever seen a horror film will immediately call it).
The fact that danger and injury befalls anyone who questions or gets in Josh’s way is inevitable, though the way DeCoteau shoots action leaves something to be desired. Characters tend to die easily in Lifetime films, and Fatal Fixer Upper is no different: one person is briefly strangled before they’re dragged off screen and another is struck in the back of the head. Considering a third act hit and run looks far worse, but the victim barely uses crutches a day later, the impact of violence in the film feels wildly inconsistent.
Another Lifetime trait is the presence of ineffectual police officers. Here the role is played by Detective Jones (Rachel Wong) who does believes the couple about Josh’s increasingly unhinged behaviour, but doesn’t assign a police guard outside their home until after dark (perhaps she believes Josh is a vampire?).
While Fatal Fixer Upper rarely surprises, there are a few notable moments of inspiration. Like Million Dollar Lethal Listing before it, this Lifetime film’s secret strength is interrogating the integrity of the central couple’s marriage. As the film progresses, it’s revealed that Vivian and Ryan aren’t as solid as they initially appeared to be, and their doubts about the other help to sustain the film until its violent climax.
In terms of performances, Aivaliotis is a sympathetic lead with a decent amount of agency. It’s nice that she refuses to take crap from Ryan when he questions her about Josh’s continued presence around the house. McElroy is likewise solid as the suspicious husband, though Ryan makes some questionable decisions in the finale that seem more motivated by plot than by character.
That leaves Van Patten, who has arguably the trickiest role. He’s best when Josh is awkwardly trying to flirt with Vivian, even going so far as to initiate a rom-com moment when he’s sprayed by water and has to change shirts in front of her. Unfortunately when Josh loses his cool, Van Patten always plays him at a 10, so there’s no range or escalation. The performance needed to be dialed back to give it levels.
Fatal Fixer Upper‘s other fatal quality is that there are simply too many characters. Jill and her husband exist solely to offer vague exposition at convenient moments, but because they’re new parents, they’re equipped with plot armour.
Then there’s Josh’s ex-wife, Michelle (Savoy Bailey), who only returns after the cold open to diagnose Josh with a ridiculously laughable (and highly fabricated) disease that “explains” his behaviour. Fatal Fixer Upper has its share of deaths, but there are a few too many red shirts wandering around by the time the credits roll whose deaths might have helped to make the film more memorable.
Overall, this is pretty standard Lifetime fare. Fans of DeCoteau and Rockoff’s previous collaborations will undoubtedly appreciate it, but for the uninitiated, Fatal Fixer Upper is solidly mid-tier.
Fatal Fixer Upper premieres on Lifetime Thursday, April 25 at 8/7c.
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