COMMUNITY
Directed by: Mary Harron / Written by:
Kelly Kennemer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Shiri Appleby, John Billingsley
SYNOPSIS:
When a young, married couple find the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood, their lives seem to be following the “American Dream”. The dream slowly turns into a nightmare when they discover their new neighbors would go to any extreme to make sure the happy couple complies with their twisted sense of conformity.
MIKE CATALANO (Rating 1 out of
4):
MRS. CATALANO (Rating 4 out of 4 pansies)
Oh my goodness! I just finished watching the seventh episode of FEAR
ITSELF called COMMUNITY. The viewing has brought forth something even more
horrifying than fear itself: the dreaded Mrs. Scale! I thought my
sweet-and-innocent wife’s rating tabulator had been laid to rest long ago, but
like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, it has returned! Let’s begin.
After visiting this COMMUNITY, I only have one
question: Where the hell are the scares?! Nothing frightening, nothing
disturbing, nothing even mildly uneasy, which equates to quite irritating
to me. Shit, and I thought the John Ladis’s episode IN SICKNESS AND IN
HEALTH (which is credited with creating the Mrs. Scale) was soft and lame.
Ladies and gents, we have a new winner and surprisingly, it was directed by
Mary Harron who made AMERICAN PSYCHO starring The Dark Knight (which you
should have seen by now at least twice). The Mrs. could have watched this
creampuff in the dark with a thunderstorm outside and a creaking sound in
the basement and she STILL wouldn’t be even remotely scared.
Worst of all, NOTHING was explained! Yes, I know that
these episodes have to come in at under an hour and sometimes the experience
gets even heightened when images are left to our imagination, but COMMUNITY
seems to push these rules to the extreme. The decisions characters made,
how things were attempted to be resolved, the sudden shift in people’s
personalities, EVERYTHING just felt so illogical even for a horror tv show.
The plot felt like it stemmed from the mind of a
sixth-grader. I don’t mean that as a “stupidity jab” at the episode’s
writer, Kelly Kennemer. I just mean that the show’s actions and reactions
seemed to occur merely because it was convenient for the plot. Now, I don’t
mind if such scenarios happen as long as they’re backed up with some
well-thought-out creativity. I did not get that from COMMUNITY. It felt
like a wasted episode. Just pointless.
————————–
JARED
PACHECO (Rating 4 out of 4):
I found myself really digging COMMUNITY. If EATER scored big when it came to actual ‘horror’ and scares, then COMMUNITY nailed the psychological/drama feel. That’s no surprise seeing how AMERICAN PSYCHO’s Mary Harron was the one directing this. AMERICAN PSYCHO is one of, if not my favorite film, and being a fan of Harron’s, she didn’t disappoint with COMMUNITY.
The actual plot wasn’t really that original at all, THE TRUMAN SHOW meets THE STEPFORD WIVES, but I was digging it all the way through. Brandon Routh did a fantastic job! He had a lot to go on and needed to step up for almost the whole episode and he nailed it.The gorgeous Shiri Appleby was awesome as well. COMMUNITY had one of those angles where you just don’t see a way out for our main characters, so it keeps you into it wanting to know what’s going to happen next.
It did a phenomenal job of building the story up within 40 minutes, establishing this eery community, and tied it off with a real twisted ending you may or may not see coming. Harron did a great job of making you feel for these characters and had the Community coming off as a really terrifying enemy. The little hints that this place is really f*cked up were great, like the punishment for the cheating wife and wondering what happened to Phil.
COMMUNITY isn’t really ‘horror’ at all, but it definitely feeds off fear, the paranoid, realistic fear we all wonder about. It deals with humanity and the idea of someone who could be your neighbor in a fantasy world where everything is supposed to be perfect. I really dug COMMUNITY for what it tried to be and I think it nailed it perfectly!
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ERIC WALKUSKI (Rating 1 out of
4):
Unfortunately, FEAR ITSELF
isn’t done trotting out the familiar storylines as it brings us COMMUNITY,
which belongs in the well-known “seemingly perfect neighborhood with a
sinister underbelly” genre
that we’ve seen many times before.
The hour plays like a Frankenstein’s monster of other, better works,
notably Shirley Jackson’s immortal short story THE LOTTERY, and the memorable
X-Files episode
ARCADIA
( in which Mulder and Scully go undercover in a “lovely” gated community
where non-conformity is met with certain death). Pretty much the same thing
here, and you know that from the get-go.
Director Mary Harron doesn’t even try to wring tension from the
concept, instead falling into the same old “why are the neighbors SO
pleasant?” tropes that offer no surprises. Indeed, even the most innovative
idea offered – that everyone is under surveillance and can be seen by their
neighbors – isn’t even explored as anything other than a dull plot device…
Honestly, the episode would be better off with a twist in which nothing creepy
was going on. At least we would have been surprised…
VISIT THE FEAR ITSELF WEBSITE HERE
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