Criminal-Of-The-Week With a Dash of Time Travel

Going into this, I had pretty high hopes for a new sci-fi show that I could really get in to.  It looked so promising.

But it all seems very procedural.  300 inmates disappear from Alcatraz without a trace, and now they’re popping back up in 2012 where they’ll apparently continue to steal, murder, maim, and otherwise wreck havoc on society, just as they had been in the 1960s.

Enter the crime-fighting duo of San Francisco Detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and historian/author/comic book shop owner Diego Soto (Hurley–erm, Jorge Garcia), who have to catch these living Alcatraz ghosts.  At first, the pair do this vigillante style, with no help or approval from creepy mysterious FBI Agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) and his scientist sidekick Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra).  After the first case, however, Hauser offers the pair a job working for him, catching the resurfacing inmates.

It’s sort of a Criminal-Of-The-Week with a Time Travel Twist.

I’m hoping that as the series progresses, it will delve a little more into the mystery of how the inmates disappeared and who was involved in the disappearances/cover-up.

And now, gentle readers, unless you want to read spoilers for the Pilot, stop reading.

Things I Have Issue With:

1. Culture Shock.  There is none! CotW Jack has no culture shock at all.  If you were suddenly thrown from living a pretty much solitary life in a maximum security prison on an island in 1963 into present day San Francisco 2012, wouldn’t you be just a little bit thrown off kilter? Jack seemed to just jump right in.
2. Dialogue.  It was all very–expected, if that makes sense.  It was predictable.  It was all, for the most part, a steady Q&A, which I don’t have fun with at all.  There was hardly any confrontation in the dialogue and it made it kind of boring for me.  That and a good number of Soto’s lines seem like they’re directed more for/at the audience (“Is anyone else’s head exploding right now?”).
3. Procedural Feel.  This speaks for itself. While the premise is entirely unique, the execution wasn’t really.  They basically tell you what’s happening instead of showing it, which takes a bit of the fun out of it.  Like I said, I’m hoping that there’s more to what they’re going to show us and what the true mystery of Alcatraz is.

Things I Liked:

1. Mini-Alcatraz.  It’s high-tech, it’s in the middle of the woods, it’s underground, it’s an exact replica.  I thought that was a great idea, especially since it’s being run by Hauser, who doesn’t strike me as the best of guys on this show.  Maybe it’s the eyebrows.
2. The overall premise.  It’s a very nice, very original twist to the Criminal-Of-The-Week procedural.  (the execution was just a little off).
3. Soto.  He’s a historian who owns a comic book store (and writes comics? If I understand that correctly?) and seems to know all the facts about these living Alcatraz ghosts that Madsen needs to solve the cases (which may be a copout, but hey, it works).

Anyway, I’m hoping they up the ante a little.  I usually give a show three or four episodes before I decide whether or not I like it enough to keep watching it.

We’ll see what happens.

What the Hell? “Devil Inside” at the Box Office

Edit: For the record, it’s Miranda Doerfler, even though I said Miranda Saico. Also, the formatting gets really weird towards the end.  I’m sorry if it’s hard to read for anyone.  It shows up normal on my screen, so I have no idea what’s going on with that.  Hopefully I’ll get that fixed soon.  Sorry!

I’m a chicken-shit.

It’s true.  When it comes to horror, I’m a big chicken-shit.  I’m squeamish, I get freaked out very easily, and I will scream like a 13-year-old girl (which shouldn’t be much of a surprise since I am a girl..) and I will grab the hand of whoever’s next to me, or the arm of my chair if I’m alone.  I’ll sleep with the lights on for a week after and check under my bed for whatever monster was in the movie.

It is for these reasons I refused to even consider seeing The Devil Inside after I saw part of the trailer (I couldn’t watch the full thing when that girl on the bed started contorting and breaking her bones, it was just too much.  See? Chicken-shit).

From what I’ve been hearing about it, however, it seems like the film was one big million-dollar joke.

Horror writer Miranda Saico, author of Modern Day Horrors, refuses to see it because, “1. Exorcism/possession stuff does not scare/interest me at all, 2. It doesn’t sound like all that strong or original a premise to begin with, and 3. I heard it was a disgustingly bad movie and that people who got to see it for free booed it.”

If the reviews are anything to go by, film critics agree that it was “a disgustingly bad movie.”

The question is then, how did it become such a big Box Office hit?

According to this article on “The Wrap,” The Devil Inside was such a big hit because of,  ”a combination of targeted marketing, lucky timing and the hands-on involvement of one of the biggest producers in Hollywood turned The Devil Inside from a super-low-budget orphan into the No. 1 movie in America.”

Joshua L. Weinstein explains how the popular trailer, which was first shown before Paranormal 3, went viral on Facebook and Twitter, sparking much conversation that was fueled by Paramount Pictures, Insurge Picture’s parent company.  The ad was also used in a targeted marketing campaign and aired during the finales of AMC’s zombie-thriller The Walking Dead and TNT’s American Horror Story. Ads were also shown on SyFy and Chiller.

One of the more unique aspects of the advertising campaign, in my opinion, was that the studio not only marketed the movie to the 18-35 audience but they marketed to the Latino 18-35 audience with Spanish language trailers and radio advertisements in the top 12 Hispanic markets.  In this way, they marketed the movie to two separate demographics.

Weinstein also observes that the movie’s release date played a large part in its success.  During the opening weekend of January 6th, when a movie generally has its largest audience, The Devil Inside was the only big film to open, which seriously reduced the competition.

Overall, it appears as though most of The Devil Inside’s success is mostly because of a very big, very well-planned targeted marketing campaign and a very lucky release date.  It’s clearly not because it’s the next Great American Film.

Either way, I’m still too much of a chicken-shit to watch it.