Director	Thomas Robins
Writers	Thomas Robins, Gabe McDonnell	Tweet
Starring	Frith Horan, Grace McDonald, Beth Chote
Genre	Demonology
Tagline	None Listed
Country

Review

Fresh from defeating the forces of evil Killian threw at her, Lucy is up for a bit of shop lifting with the not so certain Karen. Naturally things go wrong as the curse leaks into the local IGA, with customers and staff morphing into zombies. We're talking the slow moving ones here, with I think a Return of the Living Dead hankering for brains. Can Karen survive the zombie onslaught or will she become the next of Killian's victims?

While Karen battles the undead hordes Charlotte is out to retrieve her necklace that a sixth former has thrown into the grounds of the local spooky house. Hampering Charlotte's efforts are a black cat, a couple of crows, oh and the local Witch who is in league with our resident Necromancer. Quite an atmospheric tale ensues.

Rounding out the triple threat for the evening Katie has to endure her Father and obnoxious brother over a weekend in a remote cabin in the woods. A horrordar would have worked there, as the demons of the night seek young souls and Katie is forced into battle against not only the demonic minions of Killian but also the disbelieving male family members. There's got to be a morning after if Katie can make it through the night.

Notably with episode three The Killian Curse is starting to find its own voice and tempo. Seems the Writers and Director are finally coming to terms with just what sort of beast they have roped and tied. For mine, the episode shows a mark improvement over the previous two issues as the people involve become more confident in their product. Besides the almost redundant use of blue filters and the 21 motif, sorry even pre-teen viewers get the point by now, things are romping along in solid fashion as Director Thomas Robins delivers almost a Twilight Zone/Midnight Gallery hybrid for younger viewers. The strength of having younger folk in danger without adult help at hand is really going to pay dividends with the intended demographics I think. Of course you could put that down to script writers having diluted what makes slasher flicks work. That's the theme for this review, how the episode Writers have seemingly got their ideas from previous horror shows. I'm not saying that's a bad thing by the way, I was grooving to the references, even Supernatural borrows heavily from the gene pool most dark genre offerings sink or swim in.

Suddenly this show has found it's feet, fingers crossed for continued improvement.

Naturally the first tale heavily leans on the framework George A. Romero's built up through his various classic zombie outings. We're talking lumbering zombies, the living heavily outnumbered, with the supermarket Karen, and later Lucy, find themselves trapped in lifted price checks and all from Romero's dead zone. I was actually grooving to the reference to O'Bannon's parody of Romero's work as brains become the special of the day. Naturally, given the intended demographics, Director Robins keeps well away from the gore end of town, and you know what, I'm going to say the tale didn't need any claret. The first time in the season where I've got down and dirty with what's on offer.

The second offering, Witch, takes the standard urban myth of the "bad place", i.e the house in your neighbourhood the kids shun that always looks overgrown and somehow perpetually gloomy, and wraps it up in the latest "found footage" craze delivering the first real jump moment of the season. Director Robins skilfully uses phone video to excellent effect to drive his atmosphere, though I have to say that clearly Robins has access to Nokia units with vastly better memory and display than the rest of us mere mortals have acces to, and with a bit more work might have pulled off tension as well. The POV of Charlotte's two friends, who peer fearfully through the crumbling property boundary fence, was a good addition to round out a solid Kiwi orientated ghost story.

Now I simply know most horror fans are going to dig the final story of the evening, we're talking Sam Raimi at his dark genre peek homage here kids! Katie, her father and brother, take a weekend at a cabin in the middle of nowhere and confront Katie's demon. We're talking solid atmosphere, enough tension to wrap a cow in, and possession action. What's not to like, especially when we're presented with a solid twist to keep things interesting. For mine best tale thus far of season one, they can keep throwing these at me.

I probably haven't mentioned it yet but there's some fine acting going down from the teen cast who shine on through both the good and the bad. For sure there's going to be a few names you'll see in feature length movies in the future. Not entirely sure the adult cast members are holding up their end, but considering the focus here is dominated by the kids that's probably not a deal breaker for most viewers.

Overall I think the season is starting to find its feet, and more importantly to work in the horror genre. Kids love scary movies, throwing a half arsed effort at them isn't going to bring home the bacon. Fingers crossed the season rocks on from here.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...