Review

The Winchester Bros head to Richardson, Texas, where a particularly nasty spook is making all the wrong moves on chicks unlucky enough to enter its delapidated woodland house. It seems the boys are dealing with the evil spirit of Mordechai Murdoch who murder a number of his daughters, but is everything as it seems?

Surprisingly Dean recognises an occult symbol in the house of evil, but he can’t remember where he has seen it before. The normal websites the Bros check are no help in tracking down what the symbol means. Hampering the Winchesters are the ghost-busting duo of Ed and Harry, who run the website hellhoundslair.com. The only lead to what’s going down is a local youth, Craig, who has a few secrets of his own. A mirth-filled episode ensues. Ready for a night in the woods?

Normally in an episode of Supernatural the comic relief is the domain of the Dean Winchester character. Hell House breaks that tradition with a pretty fun-filled 50-odd minutes of humour. Considering the nature of the episode, writer Chris Long is playing down the horror, and upping the ante on the humour. We not only get Dean wisecracking as usual, we also get practical jokes galore, a number of scenes played simply for laugh value, and of course what I hope is the introduction of Ed and Harry, ghost investigators of the highest calibre. I was thinking in terms of “The Lone Gunmen” when the hellhound dudes were introduced, but whereas the X-Files portrayed their motley crew as actually having some knowledge, Ed and Harry are simply bozos of the first order. Nice counterpart to the Winchester Bros however, and I certainly hope the characters reprise later this season or maybe next.

Most long running horror series do tend to throw up the odd off-the-beaten-track episode, with both X-Files and Buffy pioneering the approach in terms of the dark genre. Hell House is Supernatural’s statement that the show’s Producers will on occasion go right off the reservation and into unknown territory. I kind of like that approach, as it keeps things fresh, and you are never going to be entirely sure of what the next episode might have in store.

Okay, I know a few people will be looking at the 9/10 rating and will be wondering if I didn’t partake of the herb mon prior to dialing in. No apologies, I thought this was a superb episode, and a damn fine example of how well you can put together a TV show. It doesn’t have to be all “things that go bump in the night”, we can actually have some fun from time to time... as long as the producers, writers, and filmmakers don’t overdo it of course.

The Producers switch things up as the season gears towards it's final quarter, some light hearted relief before the storm

Director Calloway is having the time of his life with Hell House. The prologue scene is well constructed, with the chill pay-off going down. Once again we have great use of the fog machine and back-lighting to add that eerie touch to proceedings. I simply can’t praise the Supernatural team enough for their considered set-ups of outdoor locations. Calloway nails that opening and gets this fandango underway in pretty good fashion.

We get a clear indication early in the main part of the episode that this one is going to be slightly different to the norm. Besides the Winchesters going into dueling prank mode – and yes, I was waiting on the next one going down – there’s the outstanding drive-through scene. Calloway quickly cuts between three groups of teens, with the main spokesperson for each group giving an entirely different account of what has been going down in the local haunted hood. I for one was grooving with that scene, and rank it as one of the best-constructed of the season thus far.

This isn’t to say that we don’t get our normal quota of Winchester input. There’s the by-now traditional confrontations with the other side, the mystery to solve, and of course the final smack-down to contend with. Full up respect to the Writer for having Dean recognise the “occult” symbol rather than Sam. I had exactly the same reaction as the older Winchester, in that I had seen the symbol before but couldn’t remember where. Major d’uh moment there for yours truly.

Gals have a major treat in this episode with Sam taking the towel approach – dig on in there ladies.

To round out this episode review, cause I’m noting the length, Hell House takes an entirely different path to explaining what’s going down than previously used in Supernatural. I’m actually sweet with that, and developments happening due to a certain online plot device were a welcome addition to the episode.

Almost forgot to mention the music. Blue Oyster Cult weigh in with two tracks, “Fire of Unknown Origin”, and “Burnin’ For You”, and if I’m not mistaken we also got the opening bars to Joe Walsh’s “Life In The Fast Lane”.

I had some good times with Hell House, but may be in the minority in rating it so high. What the heck, we call them as we see them. Particularly liked the fact that this episode went in an entirely unexpected direction and took time out of the season’s heavy plot arcs, and the whole mystery surprisingly kept me glued to the screen. Once again, the producers of Supernatural are showing that they are prepared to take some risks and mix up the various episode elements as they see fit. Very much still with the season, and figure this might be a false dawn in terms of what might be coming up over the course of the final five episodes for the year.

The basis for this episode is the concept of the “Tulpas”, basically a Tibetan notion that if enough people think something exists then by sheer willpower it will actually exist. Naturally the horror genre has cottoned onto this concept in a big way. Clive Barker’s Candyman, an episode of the X-Files (back when they were going for chills rather than jumping the shark), and any number of movies have used the device to various degrees of effect. Wes Craven of course did the ultimate with the idea in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Guess it’s one of those ideas that are going to be recycled till the end of the world.

If there’s one episode of Supernatural you have to watch, it’s this one. Different from the rest of the season, but in a good way, and highlighting the attention to detail that is happening in the series. The episode shows us that the Producers are not going to rest on their laurels. Have some fun with it would be my call.