Kannaman Reviews

Scream: The TV Series (2015–2019)

Noah Foster is the best character, barring Beth.

[8/10 · 31 July 2020]

I'll admit, I was skeptical. I looked at it for a week and a half before watching it. And when I did watch it I was struggling with how you make a slasher flick into a show. But then, my boy Noah (the best character in the entire series) decided to break the fourth wall in the first episode, and explain exactly what was going to happen and how it would work.

As he so elegantly put when asked "whodunnit", "it's not about who the killer is, it's about getting to know the characters, and really feeling for them when they die". After he said that, and perfectly outlined the plot, I gave it a chance. And then promptly lost an entire night of sleep watching the first season.

This show is everything that made the old scream movies great, and then some. From the heart wrenching kills to the "big reveal", it will keep you enticed and enthralled. The show leads you to believe it's one character, before throwing evidence at other, and following it up with then clearing the latter. It got so good that I could tell who was the killer. I had probably 7 theories over the course of the first season, and 5 of them were proven wrong. The plot twists and sudden, and the kills are gruesome. Truly a classic slasher show.

On the other hand, the sequel. Season 3 was a surprise to me, who never reads descriptions of an episode before watching. And at first I was extremely skeptical. Sequels can often ruin a perfectly good movie. I felt like the token characters were shoehorned in with little regard for whether or not they would fit. But eventually they all settled into their right spots, and really brought out the story's themes of racism and secrecy. As soon as best girl Beth pointed out it was a sequel I changed my expectations from reboot, to sequel and everything fit better. Every character made more sense. And I must admit, I did not guess the killer correctly. But also I feel something more could've been brought into the show. More about the characters. I didn't feel for the characters in season 3 in the same way I felt for the first two seasons. And having grown up in the slums myself I should be able to relate to these public school breakfast club types. But I really think that was a lack of development on the side characters. Deion gets a lot of development, but the others kind of fall to the wayside. Very little is actually revealed about them and for the most part I suspected everyone to be the killer due to lack of proof otherwise.

Still, a fantastic show I highly highly recommend watching! Including season 3, it's still amazing.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

The fastest slow movie I've ever seen.

[8/10 · 24 July 2020]

The Hateful Eight is a fantastic movie worthy of at least two or three times of watching. It is slow, yes, but the essence of this movie can be harvested from it's dialogue alone. More specifically this is notable in the extended version, where they pretty much play out every scene to it's logical conclusion. Leaving us with no querry about where these people stand and what they think. The movie skips over the ends of several conversations and the extended version just addendums that. Which I believe makes it the definitive version.

The pacing while slow, I'd argue is perfect. You open with some gorgeous shots of snowy mountains, and you're stuck looking at it for what feels like ten minutes and you start to get tired of it. You start to feel as the characters do, that the snowy world out there is an inhospitable wasteland thanks to the blizzard. You meet characters who have done despicable things, and are simply going about their business on this mountain. At first you want to find someone to like, but soon you'll realize the only likable person is Obe. But no less, these despicable characters must interact due to the circumstances and the paranoia they feel seeps into your bones as you listen to them talk. The paranoia and suspicion ebbs and flows, and you don't know who you can trust. Until the action starts. Then it's a fast paced ride to hell.

Now it's at this point where the lower review scores are the people who simply walked away. A frozen wasteland, hateful paranoid characters, no one wants to be there, and there hasn't been a gunshot every five minutes like other Terantino films. I can understand why the movie isn't for them. But if you like dialogue and suspense, you'll love this movie. It has commentary on the racism of the times, and the nature of lawful justice vs righteous justice.

Tl;dr - it's no action western, but rather a slow paranoid descent into the depths of a lost time viewed from a different angle.

Highly recommend watching it a second time to see the little hints and things dropped along the way, and the way characters react when you know the truth.