Now, I already wrote a blog about the first few seasons of this show and I was not planning on writing another. Seeing as the fourth season was just put on Hulu and that I took the liberty of watching all sixteen episodes over the course of two days, I figured why not share some of my thoughts on it while it’s still fresh.

**Spoilers for Season Four of Fear the Walking Dead Below**

 

There were a lot of deaths in this season, as there are in most shows of this nature; however, in this season we witnessed the deaths of not one, but two, influential characters. We were also introduced (if you do not watch the walking dead) to Morgan.

 

Now, this season in particular did not bode well with viewers. One review reads, “Great show, I loved the story with Season 1-3, but then it just killed itself around S4. Writing became lazy and the show got really boring and really terrible. Including it skipped ahead with no context several years to try and keep up with the actual show. It was miserable, and I stopped watching. As a fan, I think I’d rather read the comic it’s based on.” A lot of reviews read similarly.

 

Since I did not have access to the new season prior to now, I had read the reviews prior to watching it and did not have very high expectations. Perhaps that’s why I actually enjoyed this season. For me, it felt much more on par with The Walking Dead and as the season progressed. In fact, it hardly resembled the first three seasons of the show.

 

Of the characters left in the show, only two from the original season remain. Taking such a turn with the characters and the plot was a risky decision but, in my opinion, it paid off. One of the characters introduced this season was also a cop like Rick, I like to call him better Rick. There was also a woman named June (who better Rick falls in love with) and even a young girl named Charlie. Honestly, there wasn’t a character introduced that I disliked. What I liked best about this season is that there was no grand villain. There was a villain, don’t get me wrong. But she didn’t have much to her advantage. She was just a woman who had been changed by the world and I felt that this season really got to the core of how surviving in a world like that changes people.

I felt like this season was more of the Morgan show than anything and to be completely honest, I totally loved it. I hope that the fifth season sticks with his storyline and really lets us see if his decision to focus on helping people and building a community fares well. Here’s a video that breaks down some teasers for the fifth season of Fear the Walking Dead.

 

 

This show captivated the minds of Netflix users everywhere,  it was difficult to navigate through social media without seeing some post related to either the story line or the actors. So, is it worth the hype?

Stranger Things is a Netflix original science fiction horror TV series. It currently has two seasons available through Netflix and a third on the way. Inspired by a time when science fiction fascinated audiences, this show takes place in a small Indiana town in 1983.

 

So, what is it about this show that garnered so much attention?

 

It definitely was not the plot. While creative in concept, the first season has no real direction and to be quite frank, I couldn’t really tell you what the show was supposed to be about when I first watched it. There were so many story lines that the creators attempted to pursue that it all got lost and the character development was severely lacking. It isn’t that the show was hard to follow, it was that the concept of the show was so ambitious, and the directors were not able to fully explore it within a mere season. The second season seemed to have a more defined purpose and it really gave viewers the chance to better understand the characters being portrayed.

 

What (in my own, very humble opinion) captured the attention of so many viewers was the cast. Actors Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo. Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, and Sadie Sink are young and captivating actors. For myself, I found that Finn Wolfhard’s portrayal of Mike Wheeler reminded me of my younger brother. It is refreshing to see actors portraying characters the same age as them as well as displaying interest in things associated with that age group. These actors (as well as the other stellar casting choices) captivated audiences on and off the screen.

Along with this, the 80’s themed show felt very nostalgic and did a good job overall staying true to the era that it was trying to allude to.

 

This was by far not the best show that I have seen this year and to be completely honest, I avoided watching it for a good period of time because of all of the attention that it was getting. While trying as little as possible to spoil what happens in this show, I will share this, it was genuinely funny. The memes and jokes associated with the show that were posted and still continue to be posted on social media are spot on and they are some of the best entertainment-oriented material that I have seen online. This wouldn’t be my top recommendation as a show to watch, but if you’ve got the time, I recommend giving it a chance. The second season had more direction than the first and I cannot wait to see where they go with the third.

We have all heard of psycho. Similar to figures like ghost face and Freddy Krueger, the name Norman Bates is closely affiliated with the horror genre. The original movie based on the book written by Robert Bloch tells the tale of Norman Bates, a middle-aged bachelor who runs a motel with his domineering mother. What is doesn’t tell about this character is how he came to be so deeply troubled.

 

Inspired by Ed Gein, known as the Butcher of Plainfield, Norman Bates is an incredibly complex and well-developed character. The original movie and book take place once his delusions have fully manifested, Bates Motel goes back to his teen years and navigates the development of his mental disorder and his slow spiral into madness.

 

Throughout the course of the show, Norman’s mental state slowly deteriorates. It becomes difficult to establish what is reality and what is in his mind. While his relationship with his mom did originally seem odd, as the series progressed, she began to find a life outside of him while he grasped for control over their relationship and her life. He convinced himself that she would rather die than be without him and attempts to kill them both, which results in her death. He struggles to grapple with the news of her death, not fully understanding why he did not pass with her.

I have always been interested in the horror genre and psycho is one of my favorite movies. I was excited when they announced that Bates Motel was going to air, and I was even more eager to see it when Freddie Highmore was cast as Norman Bates. This show is not only well made, but the acting is superb. Freddie Highmore does an exceptional job of bringing Norman to life, I found myself empathizing with his situation. Vera Farmiga, who stars as Norma Bates, makes a great pairing with Freddie Highmore, together the two of them brought the dysfunctional relationship between the Bates to life even after Norma’s passing.

 

If you have seen Psycho and like it, I definitely recommend watching this show. If you have not, I believe that this show has more to offer than just the horror aspect. It does not have much gore and it delves deeply into how dysfunctional relationships affect us and those around us. This includes conversations about rape and the extent that we will go to help our family members. I think it starts an important conversation about the boundaries we need to set in our own relationships.

Since I spoke about The Walking Dead last week, I’d like to stay within that theme and continue by giving some of my opinions on its (less popular) spin off. Fear the Walking Dead is currently four seasons long, I haven’t seen the most recent season as they haven’t put it on Hulu yet (come on Hulu!). A majority of the people that I’ve spoken to haven’t really liked this show, they felt that it didn’t compare well to The Walking Dead. Honestly, I find this show terrifying. One of my biggest fears is being eaten alive and zombies (though rather unrealistic) are a pretty spot on actualization of that fear of mine. Something that made The Walking Dead less freaky to me is that it didn’t seem all too realistic, we never got to see how the apocalypse played out. This series starts at the beginning and even shows things like neighborhoods and schools overrun (these are the things of my nightmares).

 

As I previously stated, this series follows the beginnings of the apocalypse. In the opening moments of the first episode, Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) wakes from a night full of drugs to an eerie setting around him. The girl who was lying beside him passed in her sleep and turned into a zombie. She began to eat the others in the house and a terrified Nick escapes from the building in a hurry, runs into the road, and is hit by a car. He is admitted into the hospital where his mother Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) meets him and immediately starts inquiring about what drugs he’s on. This story arc intrigued me from the start. How ironic is it that nobody believes him the one time that he’s telling the truth? Nick’s stepfather, Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), decides to see for himself what really happened that night, making a comment about how truly terrified Nick appears to be. Upon arriving at the building Nick describes all of this happening at, Travis and Madison see the bloody aftermath of the previous night. By the end of the episode, the zombie apocalypse is in full effect; Madison and her two children along with Travis and his ex-wife and son band together to try and survive. Throughout the series their group grows, and they lose some important characters, similar to The Walking Dead.

Something that intrigued me the most about this series was Nick’s storyline. A few episodes in The Walking Dead featured people covering themselves in zombie guts to get through herds. While this has been a tactic that works, it was sparingly used by the group in that show. Upon discovering that this is a tactic that will work to keep him safe and spare him from taking any lives, Nick often roams around with the zombies, covered in their blood. The idea of a zombie sympathizer is relatively new, but this show confronts it and even shows two communities that hold the same beliefs as Nick.

I can’t make any comments towards the fourth, or upcoming fifth, seasons but the first three are definitely worth the watch.

Based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman comes a portrayal of life in the months and years following the zombie apocalypse. Former police officer Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is shot in the months prior to the apocalypse and falls into a coma. When he wakes, the world has been overtaken by zombies and he is forced to navigate it alone. He eventually is reunited with his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Carl (Chandler Riggs); however, they were led to believe that he had died in the hospital where he was left by his “best friend” Shane (Jon Bernthal). This is The Walking Dead.

Now, I’ll be candid. I’ve followed this show since it’s starting days. I’ve disliked Rick for as long as I can remember. My boyfriend says my reasoning isn’t sound, but I really just don’t like seeing him on the screen; ever since his wife died in season three, he became a whiny baby. Not that he wasn’t before, because he definitely was. At least when Shane was alive, I was distracted by my strong dislike for him rather than Rick. Why people tune in to watch Rick having an emotional breakdown in the midst of the zombie apocalypse is BEYOND me, he solves every foreseeable issue with tears and violence. Even when his son – on the brink of death – asks him to try to solve an issue nonviolently, he still resorts to violence.

 

Rick aside, this show is good. Some seasons are a bit of a lull, but if you stick with it, it always picks up again. The show is now well into the ninth season and a lot of the original characters have been killed off. Every season features a major change in location and usually some new characters to join the original group. The special effects on this tv show are really good. While other zombie tv shows feature mediocre makeup, these zombies are a chilling depiction to see on screen. The show is also very well-known at this point. Universal in California features a walk-through Walking Dead attraction and the show now has a spin off: Fear the Walking Dead.

If you’re looking for a show that will prompt you to lock your door at night and check your closets, this is the one. It successfully navigates life in the apocalypse. If you decide you can’t put up with Rick, at least give the first season a try. It is most definitely a show worth trying.

You is a Netflix tv show that fits within the crime drama and psychological thriller genres. Though it is not immediately considered to be within the horror genre, it paints a pretty terrifying picture about how accessible our lives on social media are.

You, based on the novel written by Caroline Kepnes, is about a charming bookstore manager who becomes obsessed with an aspiring writer and goes to extreme measures to insert himself into her life, stopping at nothing (not even murder) to get close to her. The TV series, which originally aired on Lifetime and was then picked up by Netflix for a second season, quickly gained the attention of millennials everywhere after it began streaming on Netflix.

 

The TV series follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), an intelligent narcissist with a dissociative identity disorder who stalks women. Throughout the show the watcher is given minimal information about his background, including that his father figure was abusive towards him and that his ex-girlfriend disappeared soon after they broke up – and her brother suspected that Joe had something to do with that. What is particularly chilling about this show though is not Joe’s murderous tendencies so much as his strong belief that his job to ‘protect’ his love interest has no limits.

 

Joe stops at nothing to insert himself into this girl’s life, he stalks her through social media and even kills her current love interest in an attempt to distance her from things that he deems are not good for her. Long before Joe and Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) ever strike up a romance, Joe knew everything about her. Becoming her stalker didn’t take much determination, a simple google search of her name and he was able to find her on all social media, with all of her accounts set to public. Without much effort on his part (honestly, he really didn’t try very hard) Joe found himself with all of the resources to become Beck’s perfect man. Perhaps this is a modern romance, warning us all of what can come from our tendencies to overshare online.

Penn Badgley brings Joe to life, possibly even a little too well. Readers of the book claim that it is much more apparent that Joe is a disturbed individual than is portrayed on screen. His caring nature towards his neighbor Paco and his complete belief that he is acting in Beck’s best interest make him seem more attractive to the watcher and the character Beck herself. If you’re looking for something that will leave you haunted about your next love interest, watch this.