So, we’ve watched all the Hemlock Groves episodes; in fact we were done by Saturday.* It wasn’t memorable enough to want to write about immediately, so we’ve been making a list of ten “pros and cons” about the Netflix series (and it’ll show up) to help you decide if it’s worth watching if you’re on the fence.
These aren’t necessarily dirty due to sexual content (like the 10F-UTTH on Spartacus or the Sons of Anarchy list), but it is sort of… well… fucked-up. I left a few very nasty things out for spoiler-ish reasons and hey, if you do decide to watch it, you’ve got some twists and shockers to look forward to.
So here they are in no particular order and remember: hey, don’t look at us, we’re just documenting this!
1. A character has their neck broken, and most of the upper body, including their entire chest area is skinless (we don’t see any farther down than that). They were flayed alive. We’re not sure if the neck-breaking (indicating they can’t feel anything from the neck down, meaning feeling no pain) happened before, after, or during the flaying. We do hear some SERIOUS agonized screaming coming from off camera when the attack starts, however.
2. Someone is buried alive (accidentally… at least that’s how it’s presented in the reveal).**
(Note: The following combo is in the transformation clip a ton of viewers have watched, and was shown at WonderCon, AND used heavily for PR by the show, so I’m not considering it a huge spoiler).
How the hell does he transform back afterwards?
Two parter here: 3. During a grisly, painful-looking transformation into a wolf, a young man’s human eyes are pushed out from inside his skull and land on the (dirty) ground; his human teeth soon join the eyeballs.
4.-after the transformation is complete, the rags and scraps of discarded flesh left over of the young man (since he was torn apart from the inside out by the wolf literally tearing/pushing out of various areas of the body) lay steaming on the ground; the wolf happily eats them up.
5. Early on in the series, a teenage girl (named “Brooke Bluebell”) who was viciously attacked by a wolf is discovered ripped in half. Only her nude top half is found, and she’s a shredded-up mess from midpoint-down, then everything else is missing.
6. The girl who finds her body kisses her corpse on the mouth (she says she figured the whole thing was a prank and the bullies who are trying to scare her were hiding and watching. You’ll have to watch to find out more on that).
7. A body (just the upper half) is exhumed to further investigate cause of death (other than being separated from the lower half). This gets really really, ugly and messy –trust me, at least one person ends up vomiting all over. KNB EFX is involved (doing the gore, not in the actual scene).
Oh sure, it starts OUT innocently enough…
8. A gypsy girl (during a ritual) eats a rotting piece of flesh, then minutes later pukes her guts out (the flesh she ate, not her own actual guts, though that wouldn’t have surprised me by then). The camera shows that the vomit on the floor contains a live maggot.
9. During another tasteful gypsy ritual scene, a dead body is hung upside down from a tree by one leg, then decapitated (I’d have to watch the episode a second time to ascertain what exactly motivated this ritual, and if it actually achieved its purpose).
10. A young girl is revealed to have a sort of thick vestigial tail. Things get nasty when she decides on impulse to do some self-surgery to remove it.
*Partially binge-watch, partially ‘try to get my mind off the fact that Spartacus had its series finale and there’s no new episode this Friday, and there won’t be any again’
**if you have watched Hemlock Grove (the entire series) and missed this moment, go to the Horror Boom Spoiler-A-Rama page and I’ll point out A. when it is and B. who–it’s not in-your-face ASAP or anything, almost missed it myself.
Related articles
- Special Effects Delivers Gore Galore in New Netflix Show ‘Hemlock Grove’ (horrorboom.com)
- Eli Roth On Hemlock Grove’s Werewolf Transformation, Italian Horror Connection, and Mainstream Gore (Shock Till You Drop) (horrorboom.com)
- Watch: ‘Hemlock Grove’ Releases A Very NSFW Red Band Trailer (pinkisthenewblog.com)
- Peep This Review Of Hemlock Grove, Now Available From Netflix – NYTimes.com (horrorboom.com)
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