#television: 5 Overlooked TV Shows.
Cracow Monsters. Red Rose. Blackpool. Crazyhead. A Murder At The End Of The World.
The Netflix horror/ thriller series Cracow Monsters has received a lot of well-deserved credit for the amount of female talent involved in the show. And the show itself lives up to that praise, too. Cracow Monsters was directed by Kasia Adamik - whose crime thriller Amok is also well-worth checking out- and Olga Chajdas. It was written by Anna Sienska, Gaja Grzegorzewska, and Magdalena Lankosz. The marvellously atmospheric soundtrack was composed by Mary Komasa and Antoni Lazarkiewicz.
Cracow Monsters is based on tales from Polish mythology and stars the ever-splendid Andrzej Chyra as Professor Jan Zawadzki who leads a misfit group of gifted medical students to investigate paranormal events in and around the Polish city of Cracow. Things are thrown off kilter when they encounter the moody, anarchic Alex- brilliantly and naturalistically played by Barbara Liberek - who unwittingly unleashes a malignant force into the city.
Cracow Monsters is an involving tale that is very well told, with some stunning cinematography and a strong sense of place. There are some fine performances all round - Anna Paligabut and Chyra excel - and Barbara Liberek is understated but unerringly engaging. Hopefully a second series is on the cards.
What do you get if you combine a tragi-comic coming-of-age drama with Black Mirror and Ringu? Well RED ROSE seems to fit the bill. This really is a cracking series with some knockout acting, razor-sharp dialogue, genuine chills, naturalistic humour, tension, shocks, and more. Highly recommended.
BLACKPOOL is one of my favourite TV series of all time. Gritty crime fiction and dark humour collide with song and dance, and the results are bloody outstanding. Great acting, a cracking yarn, splendid dialogue - Blackpool surfs waves of surrealism while remaining completely realistic. Like Dennis Potter with heart, writer Peter Bowker has created something really special.
‘Blackpool is a British television musical drama serial, produced in-house by the BBC, that first broadcast on BBC One on 11 November 2004. Starring David Morrissey, Sarah Parish and David Tennant, the serial was written by Peter Bowker, who had previously written for BBC One's modern adaptation of The Canterbury Tales and BBC Two's Flesh and Blood, and directed by Coky Giedroyc and Julie Anne Robinson.’ You can watch BLACKPOOL on BritBox and elsewhere..
Amy and Raquel are CRAZYHEAD’s ill matched duo that hold this cracking, off-beat horror comedy. There’s real chemistry between the two stars and the acting and dialogue are pretty much top drawer throughout the short, sharp series. There’s some beaut swearing too! A corker!.
A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a seven-part murder mystery serial created by Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling. Brit Marling also stars in the series and, very good though she is, her performance is a tad overshadowed by that of EMMA CORRIN who is absolutely brilliant as Darby Hart, the hacker/ novelist/ investigator who drives this engrossing and addictive 21st-century spin on the mansion house mystery. I’ll say no more, to avoid spoilers, but I really did think that A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORD was whipcrack show, with some additional top turns from CLIVE OWEN and JOAN CHEN. and a hell of a season finale.
© Paul D. Brazill.