|
|
Supernatural: The
Complete First Season (2005)
By: Markus Zussner on October 19, 2006. 
Share
 Comments (0) |
 |
|
| Warner (Australia). Region 2, 4, & 5. PAL. 1.77:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 2.0. English, Dutch, English FTHI Subtitles. 893 mins |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
 |
| Credits |
Creator: Eric Kripke
Starring: Jared Padalecki, Dean Winchester, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Screenplay: Eric Kripke, Brad Buckner, Eugenie Ross-Leming
Music: Jay Gruska, Christopher Lennertz
Tagline: Fear is a luxury
Country: USA |
It's been a while since I've seen a really
good genre TV series that delivers the goods,
but Eric Kripke (co-producer and screenwriter
of Boogeyman)
has finally created a supernatural horror TV series
aptly named Supernatural, which
has luckily managed to survive for another season.
Yep, there's nothing like getting into a
TV show which you think is the bees knees and
then they axe the show before it gets to Season
Two. If this were the fate of Supernatural,
I don't think that I would've written
this review. No point switching someone onto a
show that's going nowhere. Supernatural is a no bullshit TV show oozing with blood, guts
and horror and great stories.
Supernatural has Jensen Ackles
and Jared Padalecki playing brothers Dean and
Sam Winchester, who travel the countryside looking
for their missing father. Twenty two years earlier
when Sam is just an infant and his older brother
Dean just four years old, their Mother Mary is
horrifically murdered by a dark evil force on
November 2nd, All Souls Day. Their father John
notices blood dripping from the ceiling into Sam's
cradle. John looks up to find the source and is
shocked to see his wife Mary pinned to the ceiling,
stomach cut open and throat slit, and before he
can even react, Mary bursts into flames. John
tells Dean to get Sam out of the house as he attempts
to save Mary but the fire consumes everything
quickly and John is forced to flee. After a Psychic
tells John that a very nasty demon is responsible
for his wife's death, he becomes obsessed
with hunting it down, and this traumatic event
changes what should have been a normal upbringing
for both Dean and Sam who are raised by their
father as "Hunters" and trained to
find and combat evil supernatural forces. Eventually
Sam has a falling out with his father and pursues
a normal life by enrolling in Stanford University
while Dean continues to follow in the footsteps
of his dad. Its twenty two years later almost
to the day when their mother was murdered, and
this is where our story really starts. Dean turns
up one night at Sam's on-campus apartment
where he lives with his girlfriend Jessica, to
deliver the bad news that their father has gone
missing on one of his so-called "hunting
trips". Sam reluctantly agrees to help his
Brother Dean find their father so long as he is
back by Monday so that he can attend an important
job interview and get on with his normal life.
The Brothers follow a lead on their father that
takes them to Jericho California. Here they find
clues to help them with their search for dad,
but Sam decides not to continue on, telling Dean
that he is competent enough to do this on his
own. Dean's motive for having Sam with him
is the need to protect Sam from the impending
storm of evil that lies ahead. After all, he is
the older brother and that's what older
brothers do. Dean looks up to his father and he
made a promise to him to look after Sam. So from
here Sam goes back to his apartment. It is now
exactly twenty two years to the day that their
mother was murdered. Its evening and Sam finds
the apartment dark and quiet. He looks for his
love Jessica. She's not in the shower (you
wish) she's not in bed (you still wish)
oh, there she is suspended from the ceiling, stomach
sliced open and throat slit and then poof! There
she goes, lit up like a roman candle. Well if
there ever was an incentive to go and kick some
evil ass with your older brother, this would have
to be it. Dean is on hand to drag his little brother
to safety. Together they drive off into the night
in Dean's 1967 black Chevy Impala, armed to the
teeth with a trunk full of specialised weapons
and a CD stack with Dean's personal rock
music collection dating from the 70's onward.
As Dean says, "My car, my music, man".
Awesome, he has a copy of the first album from The Eagles of Death Metal in
that stack. The Impalas trunk has the secret weapons
stash containing various weapons that you would
use to combat supernatural forces such as a shotgun
that takes rock salt rounds to blow away angry
ghosts and critters, or blades made of silver
to use against certain nasties. The black Chevy
Impala with only one working headlight is featured
consistently throughout the first season, and
as far as I am concerned is the third member of
this team. The car is Dean's baby and he
will protect it with as much vigour as he does
his brother Sam. The car takes some damage by
the end of the pilot episode, but is repaired
and ready to take them on their cross country
search for their father and all things evil. Tragedy
struck me when I watched the Chevy being totalled
by a truck in the season finale (I cried for a
very long time), but sources tell me the car will
be repaired and ready to go for season two. As
the brothers go from one town to another they
battle all sorts of evil, such as Demons, Vampires,
mutants, monsters, ghosts, the possessed, screwed
up psychic healers, scarecrows that actually scare,
urban legends like Bloody Mary and the mythical
Indian beast, Wendigo. Nothing is complete without dropping by Hell House or a haunted and dilapidated
psychiatric hospital where all the dead patients
and staff like to come out at night and play doctors
and nurses on unsuspecting college frats, and
why not travel down Route 666 and avoid being
rundown by killer phantom trucks?
The first half of the Supernatural TV series is quite restrained, with most of the
violence and gore shown in its aftermath stage.
I didn't mind this at all because the storylines
of each episode are consistently strong and there's
plenty of tension to keep you occupied throughout
and the pacing of each episode is excellent. Couldn't
ask for much more could you? Well wait because
things only get better. Half way through this
22 episode first season feast the creators of Supernatural turned the visual
assault up a few notches and did what I didn't
expect, and that is to lay on the gore nice and
thick. Well as thick as gore can get on a TV show.
In Episode 1.15 Shadow, there
were three particularly nasty scenes involving
this lovely little blonde girl called Meg who
goes around slitting throats in the name of the
evil. We see two of her victims throats cut on-screen
and to great effect, but the third throat slit
delivered over the telephone had much more impact
on me. This kill was done for the sake of all
good sound effects. Just before our pretty blonde
girl with a knife does the dastardly deed, she
says over the phone, "this is the sound
of your friend dying" then you hear the
victim gurgling and choking in his own blood from
the other end of the line. This just goes to show
that blondes do have more fun. The character Meg
can be found in Episodes 1.10 Scarecrow,
1.15 Shadow and 1.20 Salvation.
I have a funny feeling we haven't seen the
last of Meg. There are plenty of monsters, mutants
and freaks of nature appearing throughout the
show, which means there's plenty of great
monster makeup FX to drool over. The SPFX are
a combination of CG and makeup FX and although
I am not a real fan of CG, the CG in Supernatural is of good quality and shouldn't put you
off.
Another thing I found great about Supernatural is that it only has one basic subplot that lurks
just below each self contained episode waiting
to pop up at the most convenient moment and it's
not annoying or intrusive in any way. Unlike The
X Files with it's subplot within
a subplot and four more subplots hanging off that
one, the subplot of Supernatural does not annoy and conflict with the whole body
of work and is welcomed when it does pop up. Despite
the subplot (finding dad and tracking down the
demon that killed their mother) popping up every
now and again, each episode is a well written
self contained story. Each story is so well written
that there really aren't any weak "space
filler" episodes in Supernatural that you can bypass (which is what I do with some
shows). Some of the evil guys and gals do get
away, only to be killed off in later episodes,
but a few, just a few, get away with seconds and
I believe that we won't be seeing the last
of them. Episode 1.19 Dead Man's Blood deals with Vampires Near Dark Style, where one nasty female biker chick with
a nice set of canines will be coming back for
another entrée in season two because our
dashing heroes have killed her vampire boyfriend
as well as most of her vampire biker crew. I am
not a real vampire fan, Near Dark being the major exception, but I liked this one
because it sort of reminded me of (yes you guessed
it) Near Dark. It's only
fair to mention Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Dean and
Sam's father, John Winchester who has a
recurring role throughout. Though there will be
fans that favour one brother over another, when
Jeffrey Dean Morgan pops up to chastise the kids
every now and again, expect a powerhouse performance
that deserves an Emmy. All I can say is Jeffrey
Dean Morgan's performance kicks ass. For
all the love that this family have for each other,
each of their personalities is flawed in their
own way. The Winchesters each have their strengths
and weakness' which is what I see in all
people in the real world and it's good to
see this sort of realism developed in the structure
of their characters. Maybe I'm just reading
too much into all of this. I guess you will make
your own mind up. |
| Video |
| Widescreen 1.77:1. There's not much I can
say about picture quality other than beautiful,
crisp and clear. I could not find a speck of dirt
on this one. Most of Supernatural takes place at night as all good Horrors should.
You won't find any grainy night shots. It's
as clear as a cloudless full moon evening. Like
the TV series Lost, there are no
opening credit sequences to Supernatural or theme music. |
| Audio |
| English Dolby Digital 2.0. We are talking about
a brand new state-of-the-art TV show with a decent
budget and high quality production standards. With
such a high standard, they certainly are not going
to skimp on the sound quality and they don't.
You won't be disappointed. Music selected
for the soundtrack is from some of the great rock
bands from the 70's onward. A good move, because
the music won't be dated in 20 years time
when Supernatural is on high rotate
on the repeat channel. We're talking classic
stuff here; AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones,
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rush, Foreigner, Def Leppard, Living
Daylights, Bad Company, Bachman Turner Overdrive,
Boston, Quiet Riot, Scorpions and Joe Walsh. Believe
me when I tell you that I haven't even scratched
the surface yet. If you have never heard of any
of these great bands, then you are probably too
young to watch this TV show. |
| Extra Features |
| Sadly there are none. The Region 1 and Region
4 format were released at exactly the same time.
The Region 4 format which we have here in Australia
is devoid of any special features while the Region
1 format for USA has two featurettes, deleted
scenes, and a preview of things to come, amongst
other features. Why the Australian version should
have had its special features gutted is a mystery
to me and a damn shame since every other box set
of TV shows that I have purchased come with a
full compliment of extra features. Maybe they
just vanished in some sort of supernatural event.
The only extra you have is that you can switch
the recap in the beginning of each episode off. |
| The Verdict |
Supernatural is a typical example
of less is more, and simple is just plain smart.
Chilling, frightening, edgy and scary at the best
of times. Comes in a slick, shiny, very slimline
6 disc set which won't hog up all the space
on the DVD rack. Folks, tuck the kids into bed and
grab a six pack of brewskies because Supernatural is Hardy Boys for adults.
Got something else to say? Spill your guts on the
Digital Retribution Message Forum! |
|
|
 |
|
|
Be the first to comment on this item!