Penny Dreadful, Season 2, Episode 3: The Nightcomers

Ethan decides the need to keep Vanessa safe means he can snoop in her rooms and is a little disturbed that her prayer ritual includes paintings of scorpions done in her own blood (I’m going to have to ask the genre to stop using scorpions as the go-to-creepy creature). That has to be bad for the hardwood floors. He asks her about it and we get some exposition of her back story, to when she went to the moors to find herself and came across her first witch – the Cut-Wife of Ballantrae Moore.

So to a beautiful Scottish summer’s day (yes there are several holidays’ and weekends of bitterness there) and a warded threshold Vanessa can’t pass. But being the stubborn, determined woman she is, she remains, day and night, until she collapses from exhaustion. Then gets up again.

The witch finally comes to see her, greeting her with a grope and smearing blood on her forehead, as one does apparently, then runs through a laundry list of why she thinks Vanessa is visiting. Vanessa claims she’s like no-one else and the witch drives Vanessa to use mystical insight to tell her how she gained a scar on her back – which Vanessa does. It’s all twisty and dark and gloriously gothic and what Penny Dreadful does so well.

Vanessa is there to learn from her and the Cut-Wife earned her name because she performs abortions. The witch speaks about how she’s loathed for what she does – yet they still come to her because they’re desperate and need her. The witch is harsh and demanding and kind of awesome – telling Vanessa all she has for her is knowledge she doesn’t want but Vanessa impresses her with more mystical insight

The witch still tries to discourage her but teaches her – and shows Vanessa the tarot, the same one we see her use in season 1. Again Vanessa shows her power and the Witch lets her stay. The card Vanessa pulled is the Devil

Though the witch, in her harsh awesome way, teachers her the Devil can mean many things – or demands that Vanessa realises her own insight, in between teaching her about herbs and trapping bunnies.

The witch continues to be creepy, awesome and insightful about Vanessa’s past and the danger in her life and how powerful and terrible Vanessa is – and how that’s going to attract others. That night (In between the witch mocking Vanessa’s quest to save Mina) three other witches visit. One of them Evelyn Poole, who calls the Cut-Wife sister and reveals she was the one who branded her. They note that the cut-wife is old, bit Evelyn is not; Evelyn demands Vanessa for her master. Evelyn nearly enchants the cut-wife past her ward stones – but Vanessa breaks the spell.

Vanessa helps the old woman to bed, seeing the pentacle branded on her back. The Cut wife talks of preparing for battle

Sundark (Elle Black Penny Dread #1) by Elizabeth Watasin

Elle Black lives a happily domestic life with her wife in the darkly gothic world of Victorian London; certainly an unconventional relationship but one she lives with pride and joy and love.

But Elle isn’t just a housewife – she’s a psychic and she considers it her duty to help those that Prince Albert’s Royal Commission cannot or will not handle – and when Josephine Durfish comes to her door with tales of Sundark, the haunted hotel in which guests have gone missing, Elle is spurred into action.

This book is set in the same world as the Dark Victorian series – and it has those same wonderful elements. We have the darkly Gothic Victoriana (which, I admit, I love so completely) with it’s beautiful style and aesthetic. And it’s not just conveyed by the description but the joyfully elaborate style of the writing. This is from me, someone who doesn’t like over-elaborate writing and find Dickens to be incredibly torturous – yet this elaborate joyful language is so evocative of style and location. Just reading the style of the writing, the way people talk to each other, the setting it’s all so gloriously Victorian. The writing is beautiful and it oozes style and setting, it’s perfect.

I also love Faedra and Elle’s relationship. They’re married (using legal contracts) and are proud and passionate about their marriage. Their love and passion for each other is never hidden and it’s wonderfully omnipresent. Even though Elle spends most of this book separated from Faedra, her wife is always on her mind and their love permeates the entire book. It’s a beautiful relationship

And it’s not just a beautiful relationship because of their love, but because of how these characters are portrayed. I often feel how the book wonderful touches on a lot of stereotypes of lesbians and bisexual women, but never ever makes that a reason for the character – Faedra goes out and earns money while Elle stays home and prefers to keep house and be domestic, they even refer briefly to the idea of Faedra being a “husband” (because of the stereotype, especially in the age, of the man being the one to earn money) but reject it because they think they’re imposing a power imbalance on their relationship. And even when they do that, they then turn round and make Elle the active character throughout the book and Faedra be the one who loves bright colours and beautiful clothes. These are traits of the characters, not tropes they embody it’s that well balanced and it works for them. I love these characters.

I do feel that Elle’s open pride in her relationship faces a dubious lack of reaction from everyone around her, but it could as much be the setting; guests in a hotel and everyone being properly polite to each other.

With this beautiful relationship and wonderful world we have a twisty plot with lots of investigation of creepy paranormal events in this haunted hotel. The setting of this hotel is beautiful and creepy and with an odd cast of characters (some of which really worked and some of them just seemed… a little random and ill-defined).

Penny Dreadful, Season 1, Episode 3: Resurrection.

Sunlight! Actual bright sunlight! Am I watching the right show? A boy walking through a sunlit field, quoting Wordsworth until he reaches the decomposed body of a dog, seething with maggots. It’s a young Victor Frankenstein. That night, a feverish and sickly Victor and his mother talk about death, right before his loving mother coughs up blood. She’s tended to by doctors and servants, but ultimately dies and is buried while Victor realises that, contrary to all the poetry, “death is not serene.”

This is when child Victor sets off on his voracious study of anatomy, of life and death.

To the present where a cowering Victor is facing his “first born”. The first monster demands Victor face him and dramatically confronts him (with beautiful, flowery language to prove his facility of speech). He recounts his own creation and we flashback – he didn’t peacefully wake, he work in terrified agony and how horrifying it was to Victor. Victor fled in terror – the Monster’s first human interaction was of rejection. He was abandoned to a small room, experiencing the world through a window where he saw humanity, its cruelty; he studied Victor’s books, his poetry. He points out the irony of Victor doing something so cutting edge that it was the very pinnacle of modern progress while still holding to the romantic, pastoral words of Keats and Wordsworth.

Victor tries to run but the Monster stops him, when Victor asks about the murder of Proteus, the Monster calls it a mercy – to abort him before he knows pain. He recounts coming to London to find Victor – being attacked but also being shown kindness by a wonderfully dramatic actor (Vincent) who introduced him to the theatre. Not the Shakespearean theatre he prefers – but a penny dreadful, gory spectacle theatre – the Grand Guignol. The wonderfully verbose Vincent dubs the Monster Caliban and gives him a job running things backstage.

We have a nod at the irony of him supporting actors who died every night on stage, then to be reborn; though he kept to the shadows because not everyone was welcoming of his disfigured face. His tale finished, Victor finally asks what he wants – and Caliban tells him to walk with him and see

As they walk, Caliban notes that Victor has learned and his “younger brother” was better made than him – prettier, faster learning, gentler – though he’s taken aback to learn Victor named his brother; even more when Victor calls Caliban “Demon”. Caliban wants love (not Victor’s and is quite angry when Victor rejects him again because Caliban doesn’t seek his acceptance), he wants a companion. And Victor will make him an immortal woman or Caliban will kill all Victor loves; Victor isn’t intimidated by death threats. It is life that hurts him, not death.

 At Sir Malcolm’s, Vanessa has a vision of Mina, begging her for help. And she goes to see him (interrupting his masterful performance of endurance and pain).

In their dockside pub, Brona and Ethan have sex. Afterwards she continues to struggle with her tuberculosis; he asks if she had medicine, but she can’t afford any.

Review of Dark Shadows

I really wanted to like this movie and it should have been a winner considering that it once again paired up Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, but alas, Dark Shadows represents two hours of my life that I will never get back.  Dark Shadows stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Eva Green. This movie was based on the television series Dark Shadows which ran from 1966-1971.  I must admit that I am not familiar with the series so I cannot judge how closely the movie aligned with the series.

Barnabas Collins and his family sail from Liverpool to the U.S. where they establish themselves in the fishing industry and become the richest family in the town Collinsport, Maine.  The family builds  Collinwood Manor.  This should have meant a happy life for Barnabas but when his parents are killed mysteriously he spends his time investigating the dark arts, certain that some form of evil is at play.  He continues to run the business in between sleeping with Angelique Bouchard.  When Angelique asks that he declare his love, he is forced to admit that he does not in fact love her despite sleeping with her.  When Barnabas falls in love with another woman, Angelique curses Barnabas and he becomes a vampire.  She bewitches Barnabas' true love and jumps to her death from a cliff.  Angelique then sets the townspeople against him and he is buried in a coffin for almost two hundred years.

When Barnabas is accidentally dug up by a construction crew, he finds the world much changed.  He discovers that not only are his descendants still alive, but so is the witch who cursed him.  He sets about attempting to restore the family fortune, denying the charms of Angelique, learning about this new age, and falling in love with Victoria Winters, who is clearly the reincarnation of his lost love.  Barnabas uses archaic language that is meant to humorous, for instance his idea of complementing a woman is to comment on her child bearing hips.

Depp completely commits to the character of Barnabas and plays up the quirky dated character who he is playing, but in mind it is not enough to make the film entertaining. There are times when Barnabas is downright irritating and camp.  At several points throughout the movie, I found myself looking at my watch wondering how much longer I still had to sit through the film. Cameos by Alice Cooper not withstanding and comments about him being the ugliest woman that Barnabas has ever scene was not enough to save this film.

If you have seen the commercials advertising Dark Shadows, then you have already seen the best parts of this movie.  Burton went into this attempting to give the viewer classic gothic horror with a touch of comedy but it all fell incredibly flat.