Director	Thomas Robins
Writers	Gabe McDonnell, Thomas Robins	Tweet
Starring	Brayden Muir Mills, Greer Samuel, Sharn Te Pou
Genre	Demonology
Tagline	None Listed
Country

Review

Will is a dreamer who thinks he could someday be a major movie star, which is unfortunate as he has a lack of talent and is the target of one of Room 21's bullies. Naturally Killian isn't going to give this opportunity a miss and transports Will and two of his classmates into a world where a monster rooms an industrial looking building. But are things as they seem?

If Will thinks his personal demon is a bit on the ugly side, school jock TP is finding out there are inner demons of a different sort as Killian removes her sporting prowess right before the final of the basketball competition against Greenside Boys. TP has to go one on one with the forces of evil to save her soul, but there is also the final in the balance. Does Killian's evil stop at nothing!

Meanwhile Carl thinks there is no purpose to school considering the curse currently culling his classmates. He flicks off early with Jack tagging along offering some sage advice and a book entitled Demons for Dummies. Naturally Carl discards Jacks advice till he runs into a Northern Demon in the form of a Wendigo, (regularly readers will have full knowledge of that nightmare out of North American Indian folklore).

Episode 4 of The Killian Curse makes a fatal mistake; it tries to go outside its budget constraints to predictable results. A secondary concern for dark genre fans and Anthropologists alike is the Scriptwriters toying with a mythology and twisting it to meet the ends of their plotting, and worse to play it for laughs. This not only speaks of arrogance but also a racial prejudice, one wonders what the outcry would have been in Kiwiland if the Writers had of taken a Maori myth and twisted it to fit their world view.

A shameful example of Cultural ineptitue that doesn't reflect well on anyone involved.

The first tale of woe kicks off with Will, a daydreamer, lost in a world where he is a major action figure getting the girl and being the centre of attention. All well and good, except the set looks like it might have been previously used by a second rate porn flick, a misfire given the discerning Tween Audience the show is targeted at. Word of advice Mr Robins, the kids are a lot more sophisticated in the modern world than you give them credit for. A quick survey amongst the nearly teens conducted by this site, i.e. we sat some of the horrors down to watch the Episode, elicited cries of boredom and haven't we got anything good to put on. Things get worse with Killian's involvement, I've seen some Asylum movies with better monsters and sets than we got given during the second act of the first story.

Things get worse as the show progresses, with tale number 2 presenting TP playing a game of one on one for her soul with what appears to be Cousin It! Either this was meant to be intentionally funny or Director Robins simply has no idea about what he has by the tail. Needless to say there's no scare factor and the episode ends in preordained fashion to much groaning by the representative audience.

Finally, and somewhat mercifully, we came to the final tale in this particularly soggy tarot deck, Wendigo. A number of liberties were taken with the North American mythology, but come on dog poo! This is simply insulting to a Culture a lot older than ours and shows a degree of racial superiority thinking by the Writers that would have done credit to the German Nazis. If I had of written a piece that saw a taniwha defeated by flung dung then I would deserve every brick thrown at me. Sicking came to mind!

Just when I started to think that maybe the show was getting better they throw on this Episode, that not only talks down to its Audience but also goes out of its way to insult another culture. I look forward to the apology coming from the ABC when they play this episode, as sure as shite they would be falling over themselves if a Koori myth was portrayed in the same fashion. Naturally, since the North America Indian lobby isn't exactly the strongest group in this part of the world, it will be alright, as we really haven't progressed much beyond the 1950s in this part of the World in our Cultural outlook.

Think I've bitched enough about this episode, no recommendation at all. If you hold to your PC beliefs, and yes it's pretty ironic that this site would mention that, then you will boycott The Killian Curse. Naturally this won't happen, which I think speaks volumes about the PC brigade and their ability to pick and mix the issues they address.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...