Harper’s Island

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Rating 3¼


Created by Ari Schlossberg

Executive Producers: Jeffrey Bell and Jon Turteltaub

Episodes written and directed by: EP1 Whap (Ari Schlossberg / Jon Turteltaub); EP2 Crackle (Jeffrey Bell / Sanford Bookstaver); EP3 Ka-Blam (Jill E Blotevogal / Steve Boyum); EP4 Bang (Lindsay Sturman / Guy Bee); EP5 Thwack (Tyler Bensinger / Steve Gomer); EP6 Sploosh (Robert Levine / James Whitmore Jr); EP7 Thrack, Splat, Sizzle (Jeffrey Bell / Scott Peters); EP8 Gurgle (Tyler Bensinger / Rick Bota); EP9 Seep (Nichelle Tramble Spellman / Craig R Baxley); Ep10 Snap (Christine Roum / Steve Boyum); EP11 Splash (Dan Shotz / Rick Bota); EP12 Gasp (Christine Roum and Robert Levine / Seith Mann); Ep13 Sigh (Jeffrey Bell / Sanford Bookstaver)

Starring Elaine Cassidy (Abby Mills), Christopher Gorham (Henry Dunn), Katie Cassidy (Trish Wellington), Cameron Richardson (Chloe Carter), Adam Campbell (Cal Vandeusen), C J Thomason (Jimmy Mance), Jim Beaver (Sheriff Charlie Mills), Richard Burgi (Thomas Wellington), Dean Chekvala (J D Dunn), Matt Barr (Christopher ‘Sully’ Sullivan), Brandon Jay McLaren (Danny Brooks), Chris Gauthier (Malcolm Ross), Sean Rogerson (Joel Booth), Gina Holden (Shea Allen), David Lewis (Richard Allen), Cassandra Sawtell (Madison Allen), Claudette Mink (Katherine Wellington), Amber Borycki (Beth Barrington), Sarah Smyth (Lucy Daramour), Ben Cotton (Shane Pierce), Anna Mae Routledge (Kelly Seaver), Ali Liebert (Nikki Bolton), Beverly Elliott (Maggie Krell), Victor Webster (Hunter Jennings), Callum Keith Rennie (John Wakefield), Jay Brazeau (Dr Ike Campbell), Sarah-Jane Redmond (Sarah Mills), Dean Wray (Cole Harkin), and Harry Hamlin (“Uncle” Marty Dunn)


Seven years ago on Harper’s Island John Wakefield brutally murdered six people in a ritual killing spree before being shot dead by the local sheriff, Charlie Mills, whose wife was one of victims. Mills sent his daughter Abby away from the island following the killings and she has been estranged from him ever since. She comes back to the island seven years later for the wedding of her childhood friend Henry Dunn, but when the wedding guests start to die or disappear it seems as if there is a copycat killer on the loose, continuing where John Wakefield left off.

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‘Harper’s Island’ is a murder mystery / thriller / drama series broadcast on the CBS network in thirteen episodes between 9 April and 11 July 2009. It differed from other American network shows because it was never intended to extend past its one and only season, which might partly explain why CBS allowed the full run to be broadcast despite an alarming drop in ratings after the opening episode. This was rather out-of-step with the usual trigger-happy response of the television networks, which are often quick to cancel anything that does not make a sustained instant impact. The first episode was watched by 10.2 million viewers. The series hit a low with episode nine, which was watched by just 3.2 million viewers. The final episode had an audience of just over 4 million viewers.

The show was created by Ari Schlossberg, who was in charge for the original short pilot presentation. However, by the time of the first episode Jeffrey Bell and Jon Turteltaub had been brought in as executive producers and Bell extensively rewrote that opening episode. Several actors cast in leading roles in the pilot had also been replaced. Jeffrey Bell’s previous credits included ‘The X-Files’ and ‘Angel’. Jon Turteltaub is a successful film director whose credits include ‘While You Were Sleeping’ and ‘National Treasure’. He was an executive producer on ‘Jericho’, a show that ran on the CBS network between 2006 and 2008.

An obvious reference point for ‘Harper’s Island’ is the famous 1939 Agatha Christie crime thriller novel ‘And Then There Were None’, which was originally titled ‘Ten Little Niggers’ and is also known as ‘Ten Little Indians’. The horror franchise ‘Scream’ has also been widely mentioned, although I would say ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and, even more so, its sequel ‘I Still Know What You Did Last Summer’ would be a closer fit. The show bears similarities to numerous other sources, deliberately so. It was always intended to pay homage to a particular brand of murder mystery and horror.

I watched the opening episode three times before making the leap to the second episode. Each time I felt a sense of disappointment because I wanted to like it so much more than I did. However, once I had moved on to episode two I quickly found myself enjoying it more and more and soon became hooked, watching all thirteen episodes (on DVD) in the space of four days.

I quickly decided that it was best not to give too much thought to holes in the plot and the myriad of implausible happenings. The action takes place on an island that is not isolated or otherwise unoccupied. It has a fully established community, who remain largely invisible, other than a small handful of characters. There would, we must conclude, be any number of boats available to take people off the island and yet the destruction of one boat and the disappearance of another is seemingly enough to strand the wedding guests there. Early on various wedding guests and others seem to just disappear without anyone noticing anything in particular. We, the audience, know they have been killed, but within the story their absence is either not mentioned or it is assumed they have returned to the mainland, apparently doing so without saying goodbye and letting anyone know they were leaving. To some extent this is explained by the fact that everyone is hard at work making last-minute plans for what is clearly an elaborate and very expensive wedding, and are somewhat oblivious to what is going on around them, but when we don’t simply accept the ride for what it is there is no doubt that it all becomes rather silly.

Having said this, it is a very enjoyable piece of hokum. The cast is great, including Christopher Gorham, who will be familiar to many people from ‘Ugly Betty’, Cameron Richardson, who was in the short-lived ‘Point Pleasant’, a show I adore, and stalwarts like Richard Burgi and Jim Beaver. The lead role of Abby Mills is played by Elaine Cassidy, an Irish actress I am sure I recognise, although I cannot bring to mind anything else I might have seen her in.

The show is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and the various red herrings are so transparent that they often serve little purpose. It takes a few episodes to really get warmed up and it does start to unravel a little bit in the final few episodes; I am still undecided about the dénouement. However, for all of these criticisms, it’s the most enjoyable American television series I have watched in quite a while, although I am not sure how well it would stand up to a second viewing.

Reviews were mixed. Twenty-two reviews are collected at Metacritic, resulting in a 61% rating. Not all critics were impressed. Matthew Gilbert, writing in the Boston Globe, called it “this enervating, vapid and obscenely over-promoted thriller,” while Daniel Carlson of the Hollywood Reporter thought it was “boring”.

Review posted 23 March 2010

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Adrift

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Rating 2½

Directed by Hans Horn

Written by Adam Kreutner and David Mitchell, with additional dialogue by Collin McMahon and Richard Speight Jr

Starring Susan May Pratt, Eric Dane, Richard Speight Jr, Ali Hillis, Niklaus Lange and Cameron Richardson


A group of old high school friends reunite to celebrating the thirtieth birthday of Zach (Nicklaus Lange) and spend a weekend on a luxurious yacht out in open sea. When they find themselves cast adrift from the vessel and unable to get back onboard they are plunged into a desperate struggle for survival.

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In 2004 the husband and wife team of director Chris Kentis and producer Laura Lau made ‘Open Water’, a film based on a true story of two people who found themselves stranded out in open water off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Their bodies have never been recovered. That film reportedly cost just $130,000 to make. It went on to gross nearly $55 million at the box office. It would therefore come as no surprise to learn that a second film followed, exploring a similar theme. Outside of the UK, ‘Adrift’ is known as ‘Open Water 2: Adrift’. It’s a German production, although English language, and was first released in September 2006. It did not receive a theatrical run in the U.S., being released direct to DVD in February 2007.

I have never seen ‘Open Water’, so I cannot compare the two films. ‘Adrift’ is well made and reasonably effective, although I cannot say I felt any emotional connection at all with any of the characters. The situation and the way in which they become cast adrift would seem to be plausible enough. What isn’t especially plausible is why the character Amy (Susan May Pratt), who apparently suffers from a severe phobia about open water, would actually go on this trip in the first place and take her baby with her.

The film does succumb to a degree of tedium at times, which is perhaps to be expected; basically, we are watching a group of people bobbing about in open water for 90 minutes and there is not much more to it than that. I don’t know that I would want to watch it again, but it was reasonably entertaining watched once.

Review posted 28 March 2009



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Rise: Blood Hunter

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Rating 3


Written and Directed by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, James D’Arcy, Carla Gugino, Margo Harshman, Cameron Richardson, Marilyn Manson and Robert Forster


Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu), a young newspaper reporter, is raped and murdered when investigating the activities of a secretive cult, but wakes in the morgue to discover that she is now a vampire-like creature, neither dead nor alive and craving human blood. Discovering that she cannot die by any normal means, she sets out on a quest to kill those responsible. In doing so, she crosses paths with Clyde Rawlins (Michael Chiklis), an alcoholic police detective who is pursuing an obsessive investigation into the murder of his teenage daughter.

‘Rise: Blood Hunter’ gets off to a very bad start. Following a pointless cameo appearance by Robert Forster, we are treated to some truly cringe worthy soft-core “girl-on-girl” action involving Lucy Liu and Cameron Richardson. It is wholly gratuitous and serves no purpose whatsoever, other than providing a bit of cheap titillation for the boys. I feared the worst, but with that nonsense out of the way, the film settled down and became surprisingly effective.

The influences are blatant – ‘Blade’, the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez school of filmmaking. There is nothing new here, but it moves along briskly and the two leads are rather good. I have not particularly liked Lucy Liu in anything I have seen her in previously, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that I enjoyed her performance. I liked Michael Chiklis in ‘The Fantastic Four’ and he is equally as likeable here.

The film has a 36% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 14 reviews. Its box office gross was under $3 million, of which just $114,000 was grossed during its limited theatrical release in America. Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez also wrote the screenplays for ‘Gothika’, ‘Snakes on a Plane’ and the Hollywood remake of ‘The Eye’. It was produced by Sam Raimi's Gost House Pictures.

Review posted 28 December 2008


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