It's over a week a week since I finished watching AMC's THE TERROR and I'm still constantly reminded of some of the horrible images and contents within. Last Saturday, in the middle of the England v Sweden World Cup semi final, I found myself describing The Terror as the scariest, most harrowing thing I've ever seen with Ridley Scott's name on it, including the original Alien.
Had I seen Alien in 1979 I probably would not have said that, and I have to say Alien : Covenant and Prometheus I both loved. But nothing so far this year, even to my astonishment Westworld S2, has hit me like AMCs follow up to Walking Dead.
Imagine the 'highlights' of six seasons of Walking Dead boiled down to ten taught episodes in a gripping setting, with engaging, believable characters, magnificent script and world class performances. I'm a massive fan of Jared Harris since he defined the movie version of Professor Moriarty (in Game of Shadows) he is absolutely magnificent in The Terror, presenting a character that could almost be a variation on his character from MAD MEN, another love struck disaster heading for his doom.
I would like to pick out other actors but honestly the entire cast is stellar and will make you marvel at British and Irish acting talent. If I had to pick favourites, Ian Hart as Blanky and Paul Ready as Goodsir are merely the most inspirational characters but I couldn't even call them standouts from a stunning group performance. It's tough. Over ten episodes, you will see most of the 100 men depicted die individually, in horrible circumstances. I'm still too affected by the fate of individual characters to praise one actor above another.
I could pick out two non Brits, two actresses, Greta Scacchi and Nive Nielsen, who have to react against the obvious early doom of the crews and both provide a welcome relief but also a quiet reinforcing role in the narrative.
Fans of both The Thing (all of them) will love the setting. The Thing (1982) is my favourite movie.
Apparently there is a tradition at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station of watching all The Thing movies at the start of each winter. I would urge them to think twice before The Terror. Perhaps first dig Cold Nights Death out instead if looking for widening your viewing diet. The Terror is bad for diet's generally.
While having plenty of the gore and body horror of a modern horror show The Terror carries with it plenty of old classic scares. It wreaks of Lovecraftian horror and is an obvious portal to a later adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness. It could almost be a prequel.
Episode 6, 'A Mercy', screams classic Edgar Allan Poe.
Those objecting to some of the fantastic elements in the Terror (I think it's an Inuit variation on The Wendigo) should be aware that this is an adaptation of Dan Simmon's novel, rather than any attempt to tell the real story of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. I'm now seriously thinking of picking Simmon's book up, and having now seen many Youtube history documentaries on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror I'm not sure the fantasy version of events is any worse than what probably happened in real life.
In what might be my favourite bit of real detail from this disastrous expedition (which highlights the danger and remoteness of the original mission) the RN Discovery Service eventually sent two ships to look for the Erebus and The Terror in the uncharted Arctic. The two ships were HMS Investigator and the 10th HMS Enterprise. Of the four ships, only HMS Enterprise (1848) returned from the area.
I doubt its an obvious reference but there is also an element of 'Alien' horror, which sits well with Ridley Scott's credit as Exec Producer (this is a Scott Free production*). I've said before part of the nightmare of the first few Alien films is the loss of authority (Captain Dallas dies early on in Alien, Lieutenant Gorman is shockingly ineffectual in Aliens, Charles Dance goes early in III). The real horror in The Terror is seeing such an ordered environment as a Royal Navy crew slowly devolve into animals.
This is of course part of the power and tragedy in movies about the Titanic. The disaster is bad enough as it is but seen against the doomed stiff upper lips in A Night to Remember and James Cameron's movie the events are all the more shocking.
I'n a regular reader of Patrick O'Brian novels and nothing shipboard in terms of dialog or detail looked out place in The Terror. I would go so far as to say this is the most realistic portrayal of "wooden ships and iron men" since Peter Wier's masterful Patrick O'Brian adaptation Master and Commander. It's all the more shocking and upsetting that The Terror goes in such a different but yet convincingly different direction.
(Quite what they are doing with Congreve Rocket's on this expedition I'm not sure, but much like the flamethrower in The Thing, I'll put it down to .. movie spectacle).
Reservations? Some of it seems a little studio bound. Personally I would have liked the ice flow scenes to be on location rather than set bound but I know what John Carpenter's cast and crew went through filming in Alaska on a much smaller scale, so I will give them a pass on that. The two ships, Erebus and Terror, and the arctic hell around them are magnificently presented and you would be forgiven for thinking this was a far bigger production than it actually is.
If you are stuck in a heatwave and need chills it is a handy place to go.. but be warned it may be a difficult to escape.
* Plenty of other great creative people have passed in the last five years or so, but I'd just like to acknowledge Tony Scott.. whose dazzling, eclectic movies I'm really starting to miss.
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