Fencraft Book Review, Entry 4
Oct. 15th, 2023 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goatgodschildBeasts (1976) is a mixed bag, and I don’t like it. There are six episodes, and I only liked one of them. The unfortunate fact is that, even if there’s things you like, a plot or theme you think can’t be botched, there will be versions that you can’t stand (see The Changeling (2023), which I will talk about once I finish slogging through it).
“Buddyboy” is so exclusively, particularly, 1976 that it seems like it was born from a Mad Libs page.
Martin Shaw is an owner of an adult movie theater who is trying to buy a property that’s gone out of business. While investigating the property (no doubt for Legionnaires Disease), he meets a far-out hippie girl with a New Wave outfit, who tells him that something went afoul with the dolphin exhibit. The leader of the dolphins, the titular Buddyboy, has returned from beyond the grave to seek his revenge, and that’s why the sweaty business guy wants to get rid of the property!
One of the best things about “Buddyboy” is that we’ve got about two likable characters who are in the same room as each other. Martin Shaw is pretty much playing the same character as Doyle on The Professionals, equal parts slinky and street, affable and sly. He’s a character who’s smart enough to know he’s smarter than people guess from his lower-class origins, and is going to make good money on his way up. Maybe you wouldn’t want to marry the guy, or even hang out with him for too long in real life, but he’s not actively abhorrent. The fact I’m praising him for being against animal and labor abuse is a very telling low bar for Beasts.
The sympathetic (yet far-out) hippie girl is played by Pamela Moiseiwitsch, who is fairly middle-of-the-road by the standards of Pros girls. She’s not an all-out screamer, and is a decent actress, but she’s still got a fairly difficult role to fill, and I don’t know if she is able to cover all those bases in the time she’s given. But she’s given more time to be a proactive character than most other female characters in Beasts, which is another bad sign.
Every other episode of Beasts is slimy and uncomfortable, stories of sad people being unlikeable, hating others, and then either dying or being hurt beyond repair. At its best moments, Beasts has bit parts that suggest more interesting lives and stories taking place just offscreen.
“Special Offer” has the branch manager of a “we couldn’t afford 7/11”-type bodega turn out to be a wizard/occultist/magical detective. It illustrates something I enjoy about the big tent currently labeled "folk horror" -- that magic can only get you so far, and its practitioners cannot be truly full-time. Frankly, this is one of the most realistic portrayals of a practitioner I've ever seen.
The plot of “During Barty’s Party” involves a local spooky-themed DJ, the titular Barty -- think Vincent Price doing morning zoo radio.
“Baby” has an affable (if tricksy) country vet and his wife, who have a very lived-in relationship and clearly care about each other. It also has a construction guy/folklore expert in a kangol hat, which is another example of “occultist at their day job” that has so much potential.
“What Big Eyes” has an RSPCA inspector meeting the abused daughter of an attempted lycanthrope. I want to know what happens after this, especially since the RSPCA guy is an absolute delight (he should be, he went on to play Foyle in Foyle’s War!). They have an incredibly touching chemistry, which would be great if the story did anything with it, and if the actress didn’t play an abuse survivor so perfectly.
I haven’t watched the final episode, and I don’t really want to.
I don’t know if you would call the stories misogynistic, exactly -- they’re more of what Roger Ebert called “anti-life”.
“Buddyboy” is so exclusively, particularly, 1976 that it seems like it was born from a Mad Libs page.
Martin Shaw is an owner of an adult movie theater who is trying to buy a property that’s gone out of business. While investigating the property (no doubt for Legionnaires Disease), he meets a far-out hippie girl with a New Wave outfit, who tells him that something went afoul with the dolphin exhibit. The leader of the dolphins, the titular Buddyboy, has returned from beyond the grave to seek his revenge, and that’s why the sweaty business guy wants to get rid of the property!
One of the best things about “Buddyboy” is that we’ve got about two likable characters who are in the same room as each other. Martin Shaw is pretty much playing the same character as Doyle on The Professionals, equal parts slinky and street, affable and sly. He’s a character who’s smart enough to know he’s smarter than people guess from his lower-class origins, and is going to make good money on his way up. Maybe you wouldn’t want to marry the guy, or even hang out with him for too long in real life, but he’s not actively abhorrent. The fact I’m praising him for being against animal and labor abuse is a very telling low bar for Beasts.
The sympathetic (yet far-out) hippie girl is played by Pamela Moiseiwitsch, who is fairly middle-of-the-road by the standards of Pros girls. She’s not an all-out screamer, and is a decent actress, but she’s still got a fairly difficult role to fill, and I don’t know if she is able to cover all those bases in the time she’s given. But she’s given more time to be a proactive character than most other female characters in Beasts, which is another bad sign.
Every other episode of Beasts is slimy and uncomfortable, stories of sad people being unlikeable, hating others, and then either dying or being hurt beyond repair. At its best moments, Beasts has bit parts that suggest more interesting lives and stories taking place just offscreen.
“Special Offer” has the branch manager of a “we couldn’t afford 7/11”-type bodega turn out to be a wizard/occultist/magical detective. It illustrates something I enjoy about the big tent currently labeled "folk horror" -- that magic can only get you so far, and its practitioners cannot be truly full-time. Frankly, this is one of the most realistic portrayals of a practitioner I've ever seen.
The plot of “During Barty’s Party” involves a local spooky-themed DJ, the titular Barty -- think Vincent Price doing morning zoo radio.
“Baby” has an affable (if tricksy) country vet and his wife, who have a very lived-in relationship and clearly care about each other. It also has a construction guy/folklore expert in a kangol hat, which is another example of “occultist at their day job” that has so much potential.
“What Big Eyes” has an RSPCA inspector meeting the abused daughter of an attempted lycanthrope. I want to know what happens after this, especially since the RSPCA guy is an absolute delight (he should be, he went on to play Foyle in Foyle’s War!). They have an incredibly touching chemistry, which would be great if the story did anything with it, and if the actress didn’t play an abuse survivor so perfectly.
I haven’t watched the final episode, and I don’t really want to.
I don’t know if you would call the stories misogynistic, exactly -- they’re more of what Roger Ebert called “anti-life”.
