'Dancing With The Stars' Season 14 Dream Casting
MTV Sets Premiere Date For Pauly D's 'Jersey Shore' Spinoff
Harper's Island: Whap (series premiere)
by Kona Gallagher, posted Apr 11th 2009 6:00PM
(S01E01) Look, I'm going to just cut to the chase: You should be watching this show. Well, let me add a caveat to that. If you don't mind watching people get eviscerated, you should be watching this show. I put this on my DVR because it was new, but I didn't know much about it. Just watching the pilot, though, has got me totally hooked.
I love horror movies, and this is basically a thirteen-episode horror movie. It doesn't pull any punches either. Harper's Island isn't like most TV shows, where minor characters get killed off and the main cast always manages to survive: at least one character will be killed off each week. In the pilot episode, we had two deaths. Suffice it to say, they did not go quietly in their sleep.
Warning: Spoilers about who dies in the pilot are ahead.
Granted, Harper's Island isn't the most intellectually thrilling television I've ever watched, but it's fun -- in a gruesome sort of way. There are a lot of cheesy soap opera elements thrown in, that I'm guessing are just red herrings. The whole thing with Trish's dad calling her old boyfriend Hunter to try to break up the wedding is just tedious. We get it. He doesn't want his daughter marrying the guy who cleaned their yacht. It's a tired storyline, and it doesn't make me think that either Hunter or her dad has anything to do with the murders.
As tedious as some of the subplots are (Abby's whole homecoming thing isn't much better), Harper's Island totally makes up for it with the sheer badassery of the murders that take place. Their cousin gets his face torn off by a boat propeller. Come on! What's more, the killer outfitted him with SCUBA gear so that he can spend a while tied to the boat just waiting to die.
The other hardcore death comes to Harry Hamlin, who awesomely plays Uncle Marty, Henry's surrogate father who was set up to be a pretty important character on the show. He's walking across a bridge and gets his entire lower half cut off! It's pretty horrifying -- and pretty amazing.
If you're a horror buff who enjoys blood and gore, this is the show for you. I doubt the show is going to get less gruesome as it goes on. However, if senseless violence and entrails really aren't your thing, you should steer clear. For my part, I'm planning on enjoying the next 12 weeks.
16 Comments