With haunting mystery & artful slow tension building, period-authentic set pieces, & chilling cinematography/supernature, AMC’s Terror is an addictive binge. 8/10.
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A Royal Navy crew on a mission to find the Northwest Passage is stalked by a mysterious predator in the Arctic. Based on Dan Simmons’ 2007 novel and true events.
*Possible spoilers ahead*
Pros: Absolutely incredible opening episode with intrigue and mystery that instantly draws you in as a viewer and sets up what should be a good season arc – near flawless Hitchcockian tension-building and macabre, good acting and period-authentic set pieces, great cinematography in chilly arctic shots, incredible title sequence with beautiful animation and creepy score, mature tone and dark mystery, intriguing characters set up especially David and religious as we learn what happened to the past crew, strong slow tension building and mystery set-up – a lost art in modern cinematic storytelling and phenomenally executed here, cool idea that’s even crazier and spookier due to the fact that it’s based on true events and an actual Arctic voyage by the British Royal Navy, great opening episode, Ciaran Hinds an incredible actor and his presence carries the show, paints Eskimo culture in an intriguing light and gives representiation to a group of people rarely if ever shown on this scale of television – culture painted in intriguing light and explored and actress is great too
Cons: Pacing can be reallly slow at times with few glimpses of the monster/creature – only 1 per episode is a little cheap even if when it does it’s great, bizarre and inexplicable plot choices like jumping 8 months in time from the first episode to the 2nd seemingly completely ignoring/omitting everything in between, creature could’ve looked better, Ciaran Hinds’ John gone too soon and he made the show, really struggles in the back half of the season to maintain interest as it bizarrely shows less and less of the monster which is the ONLY thing I cared about – not character drama on a ship
Official CLC Score: 8/10
