Revival, on Syfy

Who misses quarantines and sheltering-at-home? Not the good citizens of Wausau, Wisconsin. They must endure another lockdown-shutdown when the dead rise from their graves. It is a very localized uncanny happening, limited only to Wausau and the newly deceased who passed away with a two-week period. They are not zombies. They seem to be the same as they ever were, with a few notable exceptions to be discovered later. Nevertheless, it all supplies plenty of grounds for fear and panic in creators Aaron B. Koontz & Luke Boyce’s Revival, based Tim Seeley & Mike Norton’s comics, which premieres tomorrow on Syfy.

Wausau Deputy Dana Cypress was about to leave town for a security job in the big city when the not-quite-zombie non-apocalypse occurred. She lost her new job, but at least her boss (and her father), Sheriff Wayne Cypress, saved her old one. He takes a hardline on Revivers, advocating for tight controls. She tends to agree with the more moderate views of Ibrahim Ramin, the CDC guy, who was almost her awkward hook-up.

Even when quarantine lifts, the Cypresses stay super-busy, especially when one Reviver starts exhibiting more traditional zombie-like behavior. So far, the crazy old lady is the only aggressive, animalistic Reviver, but she is quite a handful, especially since Revivers quickly heal back to their original state at their time of death. In addition to holding off complete anarchy, Deputy Cypress worries about her young level-headed son Cooper and her younger, not-so-level-headed sister Martha (a.k.a. “Em”).

Sheriff Cypress and Ramin clearly represent very different approaches to pandemic management, but as of the first six episodes provided for review, that clash of methods is not yet nauseatingly didactic. Wayne Cyress is definitely on the hard side of hardnoses, but he has his merits, particularly as a grandpa.

Regardless, Koontz, Boyce, and their writers’ room capitalize on many of the opportunities for intrigue offered by the Revival, like a murder victim who is suddenly back. In fact, there are four or five further complications that are embargoed for your weekly viewing pleasure, most of which successfully keep the audience hooked.

The Ark, on SyFy

This spaceship carries no livestock, just grains and agricultural supplies. However, the crew can be fairly animalistic. It is not exactly Lord of the Flies on-board. Only the senior officers die in a freak interstellar accident, leaving behind three lieutenants and all the worker bees. Somehow, they must all find a way to work and flock together, in order to survive in showrunners Dean Devlin & Jonathan Glassner’s The Ark, which premieres Wednesday on SyFy.

Events takes place one hundred years from now. Things are apparently bad on Earth, yet the crew of Ark-1 expects the people they left behind will still be there when they reach the planet they set out to colonize. Unfortunately, something unexpectedly struck the Ark mid-course, while everyone was in their cryo-genic chambers. As luck would have it, the officer’s bay was completely destroyed, but the general populations’ wing largely survived, except for another senior officer, slumming with the proles.

That leaves Lieutenants Sharon Garnett, James Brice, and Spencer Lane as the remaining officer corps. Somewhat controversially, Garnet “takes charge,” due to her more broadly-based operations experience. Brice is an action-oriented Kirk or Riker type, so he basically goes along with her, but Lane seethes with resentment—and keeps seething.

The “good news” is there will be some opportunities for advancement. The bad news is plentiful and it just keeps coming. Obviously, food and water will be the most pressing. Their food will run out unless young “4-H Boy” Angus Medford can retro-fit his super crops. However, that will take water, which is also running low. The Ark-1 is huge, but it was only intended for a few weeks on-board living before and after the crew went into suspended animation.

Obviously, Devlin took inspiration from the original Star Trek (on which his mother Pilar Seurat guest-starred in the “Wolf in the Fold” episode), Space: 1999, and the original Battlestar. The best thing about The Ark, at least based on the first four episodes provided for review, is the crew dynamics—especially the triumvirate of Garnett, Brice, and Lane. They must also deal with Felix Strickland, the head of ship security, who is outside the chain of military command, allowing him to act independently. He is given a woke-ish identity, but that helps explain his resistance to the charms of station “influencer,” Cat Brandice. Regardless, his no-nonsense persona is a positive for the show’s chemistry.

Unfortunately, the youthful Heinlein-esque characters are a mixed bag. As played by Ryan Adams and Stacey Read, 4-H Boy and the motor-mouthed Alicia Nevins are aggressively and unremittingly annoying. However, Miles Barrow adds a lot to the show as Nevins’ likable but mysterious prospective boyfriend, Baylor Trent, who had a rather complicated Summer of ’42-ish relationship with one of the late senior officers.

Reginald the Vampire, on Syfy

Apparently, vampires aren’t so woke after all, since they happen to be such nasty fat-shamers. If you don’t have six-pack abs, you’re not getting turned. Reginald Andres is the exception. His sire did not plan on turning him, but it was the only way to save the nebbish Andres in executive producer-showrunner Harley Peyton’s Reginald the Vampire, which premieres Wednesday on Syfy.

Andres is a nice guy, but he never had a chance to fulfill his potential. Stuck working at the Slushy Shack, he carries a torch for his co-worker Sarah Kinney, but he lacks the confidence to recognize she kind of likes him too. However, Maurice Miller can see it.

Having just arrived in Akron, the vampire has already become a regular at the Slushy Shack (these vamps can still consume regular human food). Since he is a cool vampire, Miller “glamours” Andres to ask out Kinney. When she says yes, he agrees to tutor the now fully cognizant and somewhat panicked Andres for his big date. Unfortunately, that is why Andres happened to be with Miller when vampire enforcers from Angela Hibbert (the local vampire queen bee) came to deliver a violent message. They couldn’t resist feasting on Andres, so Miller offers him a choice (after the resulting carnage). Die and stay dead or die a few seconds earlier and come back reborn.

Of course, it is not quite that simple. The vampire Reggie is locked into his old schlubby human body, which definitely makes him an outlier among vampires. In fact, they consider him a freak that should be eliminated, especially Hibbert, who was originally Miller’s sire, but is now his deadly rival.

There is a lot of vampire intrigue in Reginald, but it is the characters that really wear so well over the course of the first five episodes. Arguably, Peyton’s adaptation of Johnny B. Truant’s novels perfects the balance between fannish humor and vampire peril better than just about any film or series since Buffy and Angel.

Jacob Batalan (Ned Leeds in the Spider-Man movies) portrays Andres as a genuinely likeable loser, while Mandela Van Peebles is super-cool and smooth as Miller. Frankly, the latter looks so much like his father in his younger days, the show almost makes us wonder if Mario Van Peebles might be a vampire masquerading as his own son. Em Haine is sweet and quirkily off-center enough to be a good match for Andres, but never to an annoying extent.

Bring It On: Cheer or Die, on Syfy

Even if it is not wildly popular when it airs on Syfy, it would be great if this sequel inspired more mature straight-to-DVD franchises to reinvent themselves in the horror genre. The Sniper and The Marine could fight zombies, The Cutting Edge could feature stalkers on ice, and the steamy Wild Things thrillers could easily accommodate a Carmilla-like vampire. However, the long-running Bring It On did it first, when a mysterious slasher starts killing the Diablos cheer squad in Karen Lam’s Bring It On: Cheer or Die, which premieres this Saturday on Syfy.

Twenty years ago, one of the Diablos cheerleaders died during an aerial stunt, partially due to jealous sabotage from within the squad. Abby Synger’s estranged mother was one of the guilty cheerleaders. Now, she is on the Diablos cheer squad, but strict Principal Simmons has flatly banned any aerial moves. That means they always finish dead last (so to speak) in competitions. However, this year Synger wants to be different. She and her co-captain convince the squad to give up their Halloweens, so they can secretly train their prohibited routines, to surprise everyone at the state meet.

Conveniently, the newest team member can get the key to the old shuttered high school, because she is Simmons’ adopted daughter, but she assures everyone she is no snitch, including her sister, who is also on the team. Inevitably, once they are in the spooky old building, someone dressed as the Diablos mascot starts knocking them off, one by one.

There is no doubt Cheer or Die will be too restrained for most slasher fans. This film is not so scary, but neither is A24’s critically anointed Bodies Bodies Bodies either. Halina Reijn’s screenplay got more laughs out of its chaotic premise, but screenwriters Rebekah McKendry and Dana Schwartz scribbled out some reasonably clever, appropriately attitude-heavy dialogue. Alten Wilmot gets most of the laughs as vain Mateo Adamos, one of the guys who throws the girls into the air and catches them, at least if he were allowed to.

Tales from the Hood 3, on Syfy

Can a horror anthology series maintain its identity without its iconic host? Is it still Tales from the Crypt without the Cryptkeeper? Is it still Creepshow without the Creep? Frankly, most fans probably do not have the same level of nostalgia for Mr. Simms, the creepy undertaker who spun the yarns in the prior two installments in the Tales from the Hood franchise. The 1995 original, starring Clarence Williams III has a strong cult following, but the 2018 sequel, with Keith David assuming the mantle of Mr. Simms, mostly underwhelmed fans and critics. Instead of Mr. Simms, this time we get the great Tony Todd providing the framing, but it is the little girl with him who will tell the tales of terror (we hope) in alternating writer-directors Rusty Cundieff & Darin Scott’s Tales from the Hood 3 (with Spike Lee still on-board as an executive producer), which premieres this Saturday on Syfy.

If you are not deeply invested in Mr. Simms, Cundieff’s “The Mouths of Babes and Demons,” the connective sequences featuring Todd, are indeed quite eerie. He plays a grandfatherly figure, who is desperately fleeing a pack of hooded ghouls with six-year-old-ish Brooklyn. However, as he listens to her sinister stories, we get a sense that there could be any even darker dynamic at play. Frankly, these are the only bits most viewers will want to re-watch, because they build up to a real “huh-what” climax and they are driven by vintage Tony Todd.

The first Tale from the Hood is also sturdily serviceable, following squarely in the EC Comics tradition. Scott’s “Ruby Gates” takes its name from the apartment building David Burr hopes to renovate and gentrify. He stands to make a small fortune is he can convince the last tenants holding out to vacate. Logically, he hires his go-to arsonist to start a small grease fire in their kitchen, because what could go wrong? It all proceeds in an orderly, by-the-numbers horror movie fashion but Scott’s execution is tight and effective.

Without question, Cundieff’s “The Bunker” is the low point of the film and maybe the last ten years of anthology films. It isn’t really even horror, but rather an attempt at an ironic Outer Limits-style tale with a twist, focusing on a ranting and raving racist survivalist. Unfortunately, it is really more of an exercise in projection that sacrifices narrative and character development to ideological point-scoring. It is also marred by some really gross sexual references.

The sequel rebounds somewhat with Scott’s “Operatic,” starring Lynn Whitfield (the second most recognizable name attached to Tales 3) as Marie Benoit, a Norma Desmond-ish opera diva, who hires Chela Simpson, an aspiring R&B vocalist to be her companion. Inevitably, Simpson and her lover start conspiring to murder the rich and demanding Benoit. Right, good luck with that. Again, we’ve seen these elements many times before (for instance, there are a number of similarities with Twilight Zone’s “Queen of the Nile” episode), but Scott cranks up the sexuality and the creepy imagery, so it is still fun to watch.

Day of Reckoning: Demons from Below

It is always a little scary when folklore gets the advantage over science. That is especially true when mankind learns Hell or something very much like it really is buried deep within the Earth and it is fully stocked with demonic monsters. Fifteen years ago, the demons rose up to wreak havoc around the world before returning to their nether-lairs. Signs point to another imminent rising, but this time mankind will be better prepared, except in Southern California. Things get decidedly apocalyptic in Joel Novoa’s Day of Reckoning (trailer here), an Epic Pictures production that premiered this weekend on Syfy.

David Sheppard is a pretty handy guy to have around, but somehow he wasn’t with his family during the last Day of Reckoning. His ex-wife Laura could never forgive him for that, but she still lets him have his regular weekend with their son Tyler, even though it coincides with the original date of the first Day of Reckoning. At least she will still be nearby. The parents of Tyler’s girlfriend Maddy decide this would be a good time for a getaway to Palm Springs. We never get a chance to meet them, so their timing was probably not so hot.

After plan A falls through, Sheppard whisks his son, ex-wife, and Maddy off to Barstow, where his slightly nutty Uncle Ted has a heavily fortified, well-supplied bunker. Actually, Uncle Ted doesn’t look so nutty anymore. Unfortunately, crusty old Ted and his much sweeter girlfriend Stella already have one unwelcome guest—Garrett, a highly unstable military deserter. Of course it won’t be long before Uncle Ted has even more party crashers.

In terms of tone, Reckoning probably falls somewhere in between the creepy JeruZalem and the goofy Big Ass Spider! (two previous Epic Pictures releases). For the small screen and its limited budget, the creatures are pretty impressive. Screenwriter Gregory Gieras also earns credit for agilely acknowledging the potentially heavy cosmic-religious implications, without getting bogged down in them. More importantly, he gives us a lot shooting at demons (logically employing explosive salt cartridges).

TV regulars Jackson Hurst and Heather McComb have decent bickering chemistry together as the former Sheppards. Hana Hayes (who looks so much like Saoirse Ronan, she played her younger self in Stockholm, Pennsylvania) shows better range and restraint than we typically associate with Syfy original films. However, for genre fans, the real treat comes in seeing cult favorites Raymond J. Barry (Sen. Richard Matheson in The X-Files) and Barbara Crampton do their things as Uncle Ted and Stella.

Reckoning is your basic “flock of evil” kind of film, but Novoa maintains a healthy energy level and the creature design work is original and macabre enough to satisfy monster buffs. Recommended as some horror meat-and-potatoes, Day of Reckoning airs again on Syfy next Monday morning (10/17).