'Slasher' Season 4 Is Remarkably Good
We haven't engaged much with the previous seasons of the seasonal anthology series based on...well, slashers. The concept tends to stretch pretty thin if extended out to a series worth of screen time. They sometimes try to play it that no-one notices the murder spree until an unrealistic amount of time in. I can see why this series has done well, but I've found it strays a little far from believability. Somehow, the fourth season titled Flesh and Blood is both the most ludicrous and engaging.
If you've seen Ready or Not, you've got the basic outline of the characters. They're a very wealthy family with dark secrets fighting among themselves. We have the rich character archetypes with a rebellious alternative teen, a mysterious returning kidnap victim missing since childhood, the reveal of an employee as a part of the family tree, a highly autistic adopted daughter who only responds to her father...it's a bit of a daytime soap in order to pad out the potential victim and winner pool. We say winner because one member of this family is going to walk away with the entire inheritance. This gives us a reality TV structure that adds to the absurdity of the situation.
The inciting incident that opens the film is the imminent death of family patriarch, Spencer Galloway. He's played by David Cronenberg.
He expects to die, so he's called together the entire family and announced his intention to test them against each other. This is where the reality TV comparison kicks in. The whacky cast of characters are challenged to hang from ropes, with the first person to let go being eliminated from the will, and they continue in this type of challenge to try and become the sole inheritor. Oh, and they're hanging above a bed of nails. Things turn mean pretty quick. Very gory, we should note. There's also a slasher killer in a Carnival costume speeding up the process.
The first major turn comes from the surprising coldness of the characters. There's one episode where a mother and daughter get put into a situation that only one could survive...and it's not a nice outcome. The response to this outcome was equally unpleasant. Then we get a look through the photo roll on the autistic girl's phone and...well...I wasn't expecting THAT. Holy fuck!
Slasher: Flesh and Blood is a show that takes some big swings, and they carry such force that it gets you hyped up for the next episode. It's downright insane at times, and we love the intense performances of the cast. Check this one out.
