The Plodding Pace of “Hellhole” Turns Upside Down in the Final Act

The title of Netflix’s new Polish horror import, Ostatnia Wieczerza literally translates to “Last Supper” in English. For reasons unknown, the movie is instead called Hellhole in English-speaking countries. Perhaps someone thought that English speakers would find Last Supper to sound too — religious. While the movie is set in a Catholic monastery, the monks that inhabit it devote themselves to saving the possessed, which is where the horror element comes in. At least that’s what the lead character thinks when he goes there, pretending to be someone he’s not. 

Confusing is one word to describe this film from the director of Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight, Bartosz M. Kowalski. Another descriptor would be “slow burn.” That’s the phrase people like to use for a movie that bores them, until some change takes place halfway through, or near the end, that makes them feel better about the entire movie. When a slow-moving film doesn’t pick up the pace and deliver the goods in the climax, it’s just plain boring. But Hellhole is a slow burn for sure, because no matter how leisurely the journey to get there is, the ending is a three-alarm snap to attention.

The opening scene is familiar but shocking. It’s 1957, and a desperate Priest pulls up to a church in the rain with a baby — and the Father intends to do the unthinkable on the altar. But he’s foiled in his attempt to rid the world of a certain evil by armed police officers. The priest ends up dead, the cops save the baby, and then the scene shifts to 1987. Here we have a man, probably about 30, arriving at a monastery in the middle of nowhere. He is a priest named Marek (Piotr Zurawski), though a quick read of the movie synopsis tells the viewer in advance that he’s really an undercover cop investigating missing women who were believed to have wound up at the monastery. This monastery, you see, is where the demonically possessed can go for an exorcism.

Marek is shown to his room and gets a tour, and then he’s treated to a front-row seat for a typical exorcism. The young possessed woman growls at the priest while his crucifix catches fire, the bed shakes; it’s everything you and Marek would expect from an exorcism and more. It ends without the movie audience knowing the final outcome. 

At this point, the movie gets quiet, and strange, and boring. Marek wanders around looking for evidence that the exorcism was faked. At meal times, he is fed something that he does not find palatable. It makes him vomit sometimes, and he finds odd things in the walls, and sometimes in his mouth. Later on he finds even more odd things; really bad things, but he does become chummy with one monk, Piotr (Sebastian Stankiewicz), who warns him that those who come to this monastery are not allowed to leave. Pitor says he tried once and was severely punished.

Eventually Marek and the monks come to understand each other more honestly, and then the movie takes a strange comic turn for a little while. A drunken prior (Olaf Lubaszenko) dancing badly to 80s pop leads to murder, and then finally, that ending.

Having at least a little knowledge of Christian concepts helps one to understand what the… is happening in the film’s final minutes. But even the theologically challenged will get the general idea, and appreciate the special effects. The musical score, virtually non-existent up to this point, suddenly becomes intense, and even the closing credits join in the fun. 

Hellhole is only 90 minutes long, a short enough time to be potentially bored (and not everyone will be) while waiting for it all to come together and make sudden and shocking sense. 

Del Toro's Take on Lovecraft Disappoints H.P.'s Fans

Oscar-winning director Guillermo Del Toro has been saying for what seems like aeons, that he wants to bring H.P. Lovecraft’s novella In the Mountains of Madness to the big screen. While a film adaptation of this arctic-set horror continues to be a glimmer in del Toro’s eye, the Hellboy director wasted no time adapting Lovecraft to the small screen when he struck a deal with Netflix to produce an anthology series. Not just one, but two Lovecraft adaptations are included in the first season of the show.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is an anthology series reminiscent of TV classics like Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Like Serling before him, del Toro tackled Lovecraft’s Pickman’s Model, and he stayed more faithful to the source material than the Night Gallery version. A bigger surprise for many Lovecraft fans was del Toro’s inclusion of Dreams in the Witch House, a neat little tale of witches, elder gods, and the horrors of mathematics that has rarely been put to film. 

So how did del Toro do, according to Lovecraft fans? Not very well it seems. Complaints range from too much changing of Lovecraft’s ideas to bad New England accents from several of the performers.

The first Lovecraft entry, chronologically, is episode 5, Pickman’s Model. The story is about a painter who creates grotesque and highly disturbing art, and his friend, who is increasingly unnerved by the paintings and then horrified by the discovery of their inspiration. Del Toro’s version, directed by Keith Thomas and written by del Toro and screenwriter Lee Patterson, keeps Lovecraft’s basic story intact while adding a lot to it. The ending of the original short story is approximated in a scene that comes about 48 minutes into the hour-long episode. The final 12 minutes give the viewer the kind of bleakness and despair Lovecraft was famous for, but it’s an outcome that Lovecraft never wrote. 

The most interesting thing about del Toro’s Pickman’s Model is Crispin Glover’s performance as Richard Pickman, the weird artist who paints such monstrous scenes. First seen as a middle-aged college student who paints a classroom nude model as having rotting flesh, Pickman attracts the attention and curiosity of fellow art student Will Thurber (Ben Barnes.) Thurber follows Pickman to a local cemetery, where the latter likes to sit on gravestones and sketch. This is the first time Glover reveals his extreme Bostonian accent, and while some critics have complained that it is “the woist accent in the woild,” it does give the character a kind of not-of-this-world quality that fits.

Del Toro’s second Lovecraft adaptation is Dreams in the Witch House. The story has been adapted on film and television, and more often loosely adapted, a few times, and in 2013 it was adapted as a fantastic rock musical. But del Toro’s name attached to a short video adaptation excited many Lovecraft fans. Unfortunately, the episode is a massive departure from Lovecraft’s original story, and it ends on an oddly comical note. 

The complex story of the witch house involves a college student who rents a room in the house, which is said to have been the home of a notorious local witch. The student, Walter Gilman, has strange dreams in his room about a witch, her ratlike familiar, and child sacrifice. Intrigued by the room’s angular walls, Gilman eventually discovers that the walls are an entrance to another dimension. His dreams are entering reality, and the witch and her familiar are eager to take Walter to the great god Azathoth at the center of Chaos. 

The Cabinet of Curiosities episode, directed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, doesn’t even have a college. Instead, it has Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame and LOTR: Rings of Power’s Ismael Cruz Cordova as paid employees of a supernatural research organization. Walter (Grint, with a heck of a New England accent himself), had a twin sister who died when they were children. He believed he saw her ghost moments after her death and has spent decades trying to get in touch with her. His friend and co-worker Frank (Cordova) is skeptical and basically wants Walter to get over it. But Walter has seen the witch and her familiar, Jenkins Brown (a name change from the original that seems to be an attempt to make the rat/human crossbreed more human), and he thinks they can help him contact his sister.

None of that has anything to do with Lovecraft’s story. The witch, the rat, and the names of the characters are the only thing the episode has in common with it. And the ending, instead of being bleak, is an attempt at black humor. Add to all this the fact that the story is narrated by the cockney-accented Jenkins Brown, and this one is a complete failure.

Horror Radio: A Forgotten Source of Serious Scares

In the time before television, home entertainment for most people around the world meant radio. From the national news to soap operas, the radio was in the early half of the 20th century what television would later become. Among the offerings for the listeners’ listening pleasure were horror shows. Most people are familiar with Orson Welles’ Halloween night broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1939, which (supposedly) sent a large segment of America into a panic. But that was just one episode of Welle’s radio show Mercury Theatre, which, along with shows like Lux Radio Theatre produced radio plays in various genres. Welles did have a penchant for thrillers, but some radio series were one hundred percent dedicated to scaring their listeners out of their wits. Writers and producers like Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, and the prolific writer Lucille Fletcher filled the airwaves with tales of murder and the supernatural on shows with names like Lights Out, Beyond Midnight, The Witch’s Tale, and The Weird Circle.

The majority of scripted radio shows were made between the early 1930s and late 1950s, though some shows continued to be produced for years later. But even in the old days when movies were heavily censored by Hollywood code, horror radio could go surprisingly far when it came to violence and gore, either by suggestion, dialogue, or sound effects. And best of all, most of these shows are in the public domain, so they are easy to find and free to listen to.

Here are a just few of the most outstanding examples of horror radio.

13 Weird Horror Movies Spanning 78 Years

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

H.P. Lovecraft’s weird short stories have been turned into movies dozens of times, but fans will tell you that the results are often a disappointment. One of the better efforts was created by a group of ambitious filmmakers at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. They made a movie about Lovecraft's most famous creation, Cthulhu, "as it might have been seen in 1927." The film is a silent black and white that pays homage to Lovecraft's time and stays quite faithful to his original work.  

The Creeping Flesh (1973)

This Tigon production looks and feels like a Hammer film. A Victorian-era science gone wrong tale, it was directed by Freddie Francis and stars Hammer favorites Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Cushing plays a scientist who witnesses his grown daughter (Lorna Heilbron) exhibiting the same behavior her late mother did before going insane. He tries to find a way to halt her descent into madness, but he accidentally creates a monster instead. Christopher Lee as the head of a local insane asylum gets involved, and chaos ensues. Most interesting visual: The daughter's hair color turns gradually darker as her insanity grows. 

The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)

This Japanese film from Japan's answer to Quentin Tarantino, Miike Takashi, is not Miike's usual fare. It's a musical remake of the 1998 Korean film The Quiet Family. The Korean version was a comedy, and while Miike keeps that in his film, he adds music to make it even stranger. The story involves a middle class man who informs his family that they are investing their life savings in a new hotel at the foot of Mount Fuji. In addition to a potential location problem, the hotel is in danger of a publicity disaster when the first few paying guests die in their rooms. While not really a horror movie, the black comedy musical does have some zombies, as well as segments of weird animation, a volcanic climax, and a cute little dog (who doesn't die.) 

Homicidal (1961)

Despite having produced Rosemary's Baby, William Castle is mostly remembered for directing silly horror movies that were accompanied by in-theater gimmicks, such as shutting off the lights in the middle of the movie and demanding that the audience scream to start it again. Castle knew he was no Hitchcock and he never tried to be, though the Master of Suspense was clearly an inspiration. Homicidal was made about a year after Hitchcock’s Psycho, and it does try to imitate the latter in more ways than one. 

Set in the quaint little town of Solvang in the Santa Ynez Valley, the movie is California Gothic, and in some moments, it's almost cozy. In town there's a florist shop, a drug store, and a general small-town feel, but also, of course, there's something ghastly going on in the big house up there on the hill. Joan Marshall stars as the film's complicated antagonist. Saying much more would be a spoiler.

Incubus (1966)

One of the few movies ever filmed in Esperanto, Incubus stands as proof that William Shatner could learn lines phonetically and still act. The film is a bleak religious-themed story about good, evil, and sex.

Sometime in the distant past, Shatner's Marc is seduced by Kia, who is a succubus: a female sex demon. To her surprise, and her sister demons' horror, Kia actually falls in love with Marc. Disgusted by this pure love that has "corrupted" Kia's evil soul, the sisters seek revenge on Marc via his beloved sister Arndis. They call up an Incubus, the male version of a succubus, to rape the virgin Arndis and destroy Marc's world. Aside from possibly being the only Esperanto language movie you'll ever see, the film has some strange demonic imagery and a general feeling of bleak horror throughout.

La Residencia (The House that Screamed) (1969)

Set in France, filmed in Spanish, and dubbed in English, La Residencia is set in a 19th-century reform school for girls. New girl Teresa discovers how things work rather quickly upon her arrival: The stern headmistress Miss Fourneau (Lili Palmer) has certain favorites who are allowed to mete out punishments to rule breakers. But behind Fourneau's back, these alpha girls also control a social system among the students. Meanwhile, one student is carrying on a secret romance with Fourneau's teenage son (John Moulder-Brown); another chooses to endure severe physical punishments rather than obey simple rules, and head girl Irene decides whose turn it is weekly to skip needlework class for a tryst in the barn with the boy who brings the firewood.  And then, there are the murders. While later movies would suggest that serial killers prey on sexually promiscuous teens. La Residencia seems to blame sexual repression, perhaps, as the cause of all the trouble.

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Yes, you know this one, the cute musical from the 80s starring Rick Moranis and a plant that eats people, yes? But years before that, The Little Shop of Horrors began life as a non-musical, very intentional comedy horror from legendary horror director Roger Corman. The story is the same as the one you know: A guy discovers a man-eating plant and winds up committing murders to keep it fed, all while trying to charm a girl and keep his horrible secret. Roger Corman made this movie on a dare, and he never meant for it to be taken seriously. It's an hour-long freak show, featuring Corman regulars Jackie Joseph and that guy, Dick Miller. Jack Nicholson, pre-fame, has a bit part as a man who is not at all afraid of the dentist. 

Mad Monster Party (1967)

Rankin-Bass, who made all those claymation Christmas shows like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Year without a Santa Claus, offered this for Halloween in 1967. The story sees Dr. Frankenstein planning for his retirement by hosting a party at his castle, during which he will choose a replacement. The candidates include every classic monster you can think of and one ordinary guy. Like all Rankin-Bass shows, it has a lot of song (and dance) numbers, a few famous people doing voices, and a lot of voice actors doing imitations of famous people. Protagonist Felix sounds a lot like Jimmy Stewart, though he is voiced by Allen Swift, who also provided the voices of the majority of the characters in the movie. Dr. Frankenstein really is voiced by Boris Karloff, while Phyllis Diller voices the Frankenstein monster's wife. Rounding out the cast is Gale Garnett as Francesca, Felix's sultry love interest and lover of bats. The whole show is fun, if not a little goofy, but then, that's what Rankin-Bass is here for, always.

The Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

This Brian De Palma film never caught on in the United States, but it was wildly popular in France after its release. To get an idea of what this movie is about, picture this: Horror rock musical that combines The Phantom of the Opera with the Faust story, and features a gay rock star; a band that looks alternately like KISS and The Beach Boys; and stars Paul Williams as the devil.

What was De Palma thinking? The story is about a hapless composer named Winslow (William Finley) who sells his soul to the devil, who in the late 70s was going by the name Swan and working as a record producer. Winslow is signed to Swan's label, Swan Song Death Records (Led Zeppelin sued over the original name), but Swan double-crosses him and steals his music. The leading lady of the film is played by Jessica Harper, who would later star in de Palma's Suspiria.  

Spider Baby (1967)

Explaining the title of this movie is hard. The year it was made, or released, is in question as well. What matters is that it is generally called Spider Baby, it was written and directed by Jack Hill, and it was finally released sometime around 1967 after sitting on a shelf for four years. It stars Lon Chaney, Jr., and Sid Haig, and it's a crazy great film. 

When TCM started airing Spider Baby, usually in October, it started getting attention after being virtually unknown for years. Someone eventually turned it into a musical, and it routinely winds up on horror movie lists like this one. 

A comic horror in the California Gothic tradition, it involves a family that consists of three "children" who suffer from - let's just say it - the mental degradation that comes from inbreeding. But this is not the usual inbred clan we would come to see in later horror movies. Although cannibalism is hinted at, they keep that in the family too. The weirdness that strangers, as well as distant relatives looking for their inheritance, see, is generally morbid, spooky, weirdly (but tamely) sexual, and just plain bizarre. Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the family's caretaker, Bruno, who explains to a lawyer that family members with the "curse" or disease they all have are relatively normal as children, but then become progressively demented as they get older. The eldest kid, played by Sid Haig, is really far gone. The youngest and most "normal" daughter Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) is often left in charge when Bruno has to go out. Some of the film's best scenes involve the middle child, Virginia, played by Jill Banner, a young actress who could ooze innocence and sexiness at the same time, and in this movie, a good dose of psycho goth vibes as well. Wednesday Addams had nothing on Virginia Merrye. 

Virginia is apparently the Spider Baby the title refers to. The movie was almost called Cannibal Orgy, and as Spider Baby it usually carries the subtitle The Maddest Story Ever Told. 

Targets (1968)

Peter Bogdanovich's Targets is almost two movies in one. Part of the story is about an aging horror movie icon, played by real-life aging horror icon Boris Karloff (who was 80 at the time), who is struggling to accept the fact of his age and the inevitable end of his career. Meanwhile, a clean-cut young Vietnam vet in the Los Angeles suburbs buys a gun, kills his family, and then goes on a shooting spree. In the climax, the shooter and the old movie star cross paths at a drive-in theater. Half Hollywood story, half suburban story and all horror, executive producer Roger Corman made a wise choice in hiring the then-unknown Bogdanovich to direct. Corman insisted on Karloff being cast, and advised Bogdanovich to "direct like Hitchcock." The result is a nostalgic but terrifying movie that has a lot to say about Vietnam, suburbia, 60s culture, and generational attitudes. 

The Unknown (1927)

This silent film directed by Tod Browning (who would later direct Bela Lugosi in Dracula and direct Freaks) stars Lon Chaney and a very young Joan Crawford. Chaney plays a circus knife thrower named Alonzo, with Crawford as Nanon, the girl he throws knives at. Nanon is also the daughter of the man who owns the circus. She doesn't know it, but Alonzo is in love with her. But Nanon has a problem: She is afraid of men, and particularly afraid of being touched by male hands. This works in Alonzo's favor in one way, because he is a knife thrower who throws knives with his feet. He's billed as "The Armless Wonder." 

But what neither Nanon, nor her father, realizes, is that the whole "armless" thing is a con. Alonzo and his sidekick are the only ones who know that Alonzo does indeed have arms, which he keeps hidden and bound with bandages while he's performing. When Nanon admits her attraction to the circus strong man, Alonzo knows it's time for him to express his feelings for her or risk losing her forever. He knows that being armless would give him an advantage with this girl over the muscle-bound competition, if only he really didn't have arms... 

This creepy, 63-minute film is punctuated with a fantastic soundtrack that was added many years after it was made. The climax is not as good as everything leading up to it, but overall this movie is a weird and wonderful way to spend an hour. 

When Michael Calls (1972)

Terror in the afternoon is being a kid and stumbling upon this as the 4 O'clock Movie on a Tuesday, then being afraid of the phone ringing for the next two weeks. Also known as Shattered Silence, ( though that title isn't nearly as effective), When Michael Calls stars Elizabeth Ashley, Ben Gazzara, and a young Michael Douglas in one of his earliest movie roles. This movie was made-for-TV, but in the 70s, that was saying a lot, particularly when it came to horror.

Helen and her ex-husband have an amicable relationship and a young daughter. It's nearing Halloween, and the October vibe is so strong in this film you can almost smell the burning leaves. But the real terror for Helen happens whenever the phone rings. She's getting what are chalked up to crank calls at first from her dead nephew, Michael. She knows the caller is imitating Michael because he calls her "Auntie My Helen," the odd nickname nobody but Michael called her. In fact, she can't figure out how anyone else would even know that he called her that. The caller sounds eerily like Michael and knows the details of Michael's death. Then they start predicting the deaths of other people. Is there a murderer in town, or is Helen going crazy? The final answer is perhaps predictable, but the idea of being contacted by a dead child is scary enough to make you feel for Helen and want that phone to just stop ringing. 

Hulu Horror Grimcutty Explores a Familiar Theme, but Sends a Surprising Message

Horror movies about the dangers of the internet have been around for some time now, but John Ross’s Grimcutty seems to take a different stance than most. As stated in the synopsis for the film on Hulu (which makes this a non-spoiler), the titular monster is created by parental hysteria. So rather than saying that yes, the internet is dangerous and too much screen time is bad for kids, the movie seems to be saying that worrying too much about perceived dangers of the online world is the real problem.

The movie starts with a middle class family consisting of parents Amir and Leah Chaudhry (Usman Ally and Sinister 2’s Shannyn Sossamyn), teen daughter Asha (Sara Wolfkind) and pre-teen son Kamran (Callan Farris.) The focus is mostly on Asha, who recently quit the school track team; a decision that her parents consider to be rather devastating . They may, or may not realize that Asha is now spending her time trying to build an audience as an ASMR vlogger. She’s filming a whispery video in her room as she’s called away by her parents to attend their weekly outing with no phones allowed.

No phone nights are the kind of thing Amir and Leah require of their family because they think the internet is addictive and can be dangerous. Every family member is required to put their cell phone in a basket on a table at home, before they head to a school band event of Kamran’s. As you would expect from the film’s teen protagonist, Asha sneaks out at some point to borrow a friend’s phone to check responses to her latest video.

While Asha is clearly not having the no phone requirements, Amir and Leah frequently spend their online time reading a particular blog written by another concerned parent. The blogger warns of a new social media challenge called Grimcutty, which is associated with a picture of a scary looking creature and asks that kids cut on themselves. Adult concern about the Grimcutty challenge becomes so great that the Chaudhrys decide to cut the internet from their house altogether, and even the school disconnects all its computers.  Meanwhile, the kids in town, try as they might, can’t actually find the Grimcutty challenge online anywhere.

The physical manifestation of Grimcutty, an evil-but-cool-looking creature with a big, toothy grimace, starts appearing and attacking kids before vanishing. Parents find the kids with cuts on them, as if they were participating in the Grimcutty challenge the parents think exists.

The Grimcutty creature and the whole story is probably based on the real life “Momo Challenge” that sent parents into fits of worry. But unlike the mostly exaggerated dangers of Momo and other similar online phenomenon, Grimcutty in the film turns out to be quite real, eventually.

Asha suggests to a friend that the parents’ panic over Grimcutty is what makes the supernatural creature appear and harm kids. Calm down the folks, she reasons, and Grimcutty goes away.

Throughout the movie, the viewer can’t help but think she’s right, and not just because the synopsis on Hulu spoiled it. The film is full of sensible teens and hysterical parents.  Is the movie suggesting that parents should let their children have unlimited, unsupervised internet access? It seems not, but rather, it’s suggesting that even adults can react with blind belief in what they see online, and a little research before reaction is good for all of us.

 

 

Why Bates Motel is Better than Previous Psycho Reboots

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is arguably his best film and one of the best films ever made. The 1960 film was based on a book that nobody read (largely because Hitchcock bought up every copy of it he could find to make sure no one could read it before his movie came out.) The book by Lovecraft-influenced Robert Bloch was based on real serial killer/cannibal Ed Gein, who also influenced such titles as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs. Through Hitchcock’s machinations, the character of Norman Bates emerged from the disgusting real-life story of a misogynist cannibal and blossomed into a good-looking and almost lovable victim of mental illness. He is a movie legend and pop culture icon, and he’s been remade and revamped several times. First there were two sequels to Psycho, both of which were made in the 80s without any input from Mr. Hitchcock. Anthony Perkins returned to play Norman, and he directed the second sequel, Psycho 3. These movies were gorier, sexier, and generally more disgusting than the original in both on-screen violence and Norman’s personal quirks (like using the same butter knife to stuff birds with sawdust and eat peanut butter from a jar.)  Psycho IV: The Beginning was a 1990 made-for-TV movie that was a prequel to Hitchcock’s film. Henry Thomas starred as a teenage Norman, with Olivia Hussey as the overbearing mother who would drive him to madness and murder.

None of these movies are particularly loved by fans of the original Hitchcock film. But the worst of all may be Gus Van Sant’s 1998 Psycho remake. Set in 1998 but using the same script from 1960, the movie stars the late Anne Heche as Marion Crane and Vince Vaughn as a very skittish Norman Bates. The 60s morals (secret lunchtime trysts for the not-married Marion and Sam while marriage is put off until he is able to financially support her) don’t make sense in the late 1990s, making the film awkward and generally pointless. Van Sant’s boasting about his “scene-by-scene remake” doesn’t even make sense when you watch the movie and see one scene from 1960 blatantly missing.

In 2013, A&E launched the most ambitious Psycho remake ever: an entire series. Bates Motel stars Freddie Highmore as Norman. It’s a prequel that explores Norman’s life as a teenager and continues the story over five seasons through the events of Hitchcock’s film and beyond. But there are many differences. The story has a contemporary setting and dialogue along with sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Norman’s backstory is also quite different than it was described in Hitchcock’s film or any of its sequels. The motel is by the seaside instead of on a deserted highway, Norman has a half-brother who is the product of incest, and Mother (Vera Farmiga) is younger and more attractive than the classic gray-haired little old lady of Psycho’s past. Marion Crane is a person of color, played effectively by Rhianna, and surprises await in the motel shower.

Bates Motel has its problems (Norman has a half brother, whose father is his uncle?), but it’s compelling to watch episode after episode (50 in total.) Fans of the original as well as the uninitiated can find plenty in it to like.