I am not, in general, a television enthusiast. I watch movies and the occasional series on DVD, but I never watch cable or TiVo live events or sit down during dinner in front of a network TV show. It’s just not on my radar.
I am, however, a HELLBLAZER enthusiast, as well as a Neil Marshall enthusiast and horror enthusiast in general. I was initially wary about NBC’s CONSTANTINE, especially after I heard they weren’t letting him smoke onscreen. Weak, I thought. Smoking is central to Constantine’s character.
But in Ballroom 20 on Wednesday night, the sneak preview pilot slaughtered my expectations. It did a lot of slaughtering, in fact; I had to keep reminding myself that this was going to be network TV because of all the possessions and blood-painting and heart-piercing going on. And although John doesn’t exactly light up, he makes frequent and conspicuous use of a Zippo and even stubs a cigarette butt into an ashtray at a bar while drowning himself in booze and waxing poetic about the Sex Pistols.
That’s my boy.
Matt Ryan plays right by Constantine. He’s not a pretty boy (hey, this isn’t the CW), but he certainly has enough charisma to carry the show, particularly when other characters react to him in various and startling ways, and he gives a shrug and a “bollocks” and doesn’t make excuses for himself.
There are some genuinely scary segments in the episode. Demon posessions incite chills, particularly when mobilizing a corpse in unsettling ways. Seemingly benign ghosts become threatening in seconds. And although CONSTANTINE shows restraint when it comes to flat-out monster effects, the effects they do pull off work well. A pair of CGI angel wings look a little strange, and the demons tend to rely more on white eyeballs and mimicry than scales or teeth to bring terror, but director Neil Marshall (THE DESCENT, DOG SOLDIERS) is well versed in low-budget scares, and his clever use of narrative technique in the form of cockroaches, laptop screens, and broken electrical wires make up for budget constraints.
My only reservations? The female lead (Lucy Griffiths) is very wooden—although that might be a temporary issue given the implication that she’s run off to hide in a different city by the end of the episode. Hopefully John’s future clients will have a bit more bite. Another drawback is that some scary moments rely a bit too much on the “play a loud chord and make people jump in their seats” tactic. Luckily, it’s never at the expense of allowing Constantine to do what he does best: sneer, cast spells, and be a general asshole. He begins the episode in a mental institution that he checked himself into in an attempt to forget a previous mission that haunted him, and has a whale of a time aggravating the doctors and ignoring his fellow patients.
Of course, the demons are never far away, and neither are the winks at DCU continuity (an appearance by the Helmet of Fate is particularly welcome). Purists will undoubtedly find things to nitpick, and given that this is network TV, Constantine’s colorful “f—ing” vocabulary has been toned down. But it’s clear from this pilot that the show is going to be intense, frightening, snarky, and true to the core of Constantine’s character, which is so much more than I can say about the Keanu Reeves film adaptation from 2005 (still haven’t quite forgiven that one).
Verdict: Prepare to be surprised and pleased, especially if you have a few runs of HELLBLAZER under your belt. 8.5/10
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