Three women kidnapped and terrorised by a gang of incestuous, cannibal, pot-farming hillbillies. It’s one of the classic horror plots, going back to HG Lewis’s 2000 Maniacs to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and beyond. Out-of-town folks wander somewhere they don’t belong and become a screaming buffet table. Given the presence of the Polks in the reenactments, it’s only natural that they reappear in the real version of the story, with some delicious Hollywood actresses to turn into fear-tangy jerky....

When time pressures come into play, the team is forced to escalate quickly from animal to human testing, and Ana draws the short straw to go into the machine. When she wakes up the next day, things are slightly different. Slightly wrong. She’s not forming memories, and she’s missing huge swathes of time. Ana begins to wonder – did some essential part of her get lost in the process? Are we beings made up of matter alone, or do our memories, our souls, exist in a different form that has no physical weight?...

1.5 White Lies Whilst a mysterious stranger breaks into the palace and attacks Ariadne, Hercules is betting on beetles. The intruder passes a note to Ariadne, before being injured and caught, setting Ariadne on her own mission, whilst he suffers at the hands of Pasiphae and her dark ways. Thankfully, Ariadne has a plan that involves duping Jason into escorting her handmaiden and it is soon discovered that the poor, mysterious stranger was delivering a note to say that Ariadne’s brother, Therus, the betrayer of his Kingdom, is actually very much alive and well, seeking justice for the lies that have been told about him....

3.5 The Deal Roughly at the point this week where sinister gang member #237 ran Norma off the road and started spouting crap about how Romero ‘Can’t save you; he can’t even save himself’ I was wistfully reminded of the original Psycho films. While the town Norman Bates lived near wasn’t a big part of the original Hitchcock movie, the sequels did actually introduce a supporting cast of Norman’s neighbours, and for the most part they were just standard, friendly, God-fearing small town folk who were willing to forgive Norman as long as he did his part as a member of the community....

Directed by Sam Liu from a script by Jim Krieg, Gotham by Gaslight is adapted from the 1989 one-shot by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola (with inks by P. Craig Russell). It imagines the Caped Crusader in a Victorian setting, facing off against Jack the Ripper (as one does). It’s a rich concept, one that doesn’t completely deliver due to regressive representation and predictable plot beats. But fans of the Elseworlds source material, steampunk, or Batman will find enough to like here....

3.9 Of Mice and Wolfmen First, we have Aidan, who takes us on another trip to the Bad Accents and Wigs Department. I feel like there’s some kind of unspoken rule in American vampire television that all vampire fiction must include bad wigs and accents. Don’t believe me? Look at Eric and Bill on True Blood (mostly Bill) or Spike and Angel on Buffy (mostly Angel). Strangely, female vampires seem to be immune from this phenomenon, but I digress....

1.9 Pimento That, to me, is a mark of great writing – that rather than pick up on what’s now so obvious, I preferred to believe what Jimmy believed, because I’m invested in his character, invested in the story. And, if all else fails, that’s pretty good cover for just not picking up on something. If Five-O was Jonathan Banks’ Emmy episode, this is Odenkirk’s. Just watch the way things build before he finally lets on that he knows the truth, the way he keeps dealing out rope only for Chuck to keep retreating....

2.8 Fifi The heart of this week’s episode is the struggle over the hugely lucrative client Mesa Verde. As Kim sets out on her own, working alongside but not together with Jimmy, she attempts to take her hard-won gains with her. Howard tries to stop her but fails, leading to Chuck stepping in, deploying a herculean effort to stave off his own mental illness until he has snatched Kim’s victory away from her, before Jimmy enters with a ploy of his own....

A few weeks ago, my housemates and I decided to have a big housewarming party to celebrate moving into our new place. Facebook invites were sent out, music was selected, cheese and pineapple on sticks figuratively assembled. On the night of the party, however, my friend suddenly changed the plan. “Well, we want to avoid that weird early period of a party where everyone’s sat around sober in their own little groups making awkward chit chat....

Adapted from Graham Greene’s source novel, and lagging 60-odd years behind the first film version, co-written by the author himself and starring Richard Attenborough, William Hartnell and Hermione Baddeley, this new take is the directorial debut of writer, Rowan Joffé. The result is one of those mind-bending, flabbergasting disasters that come along far too rarely. However, while its predecessor had a starched, yet dignified quality, mixing stiff upper lip Britishness with its own spin on the then-contemporary style of urban film noir, Joffé’s take doesn’t dare toy with restraint, inflating the melodramatic elements to gigantic proportions....

Brooke Williams is no stranger to genre television, but it’s likely that few of her roles have evoked such powerful emotion from viewers as the recent introduction of her new character to 12 Monkeys. Without delivering a single line, Williams was able to make many fans of the show cry simply by revealing her identity as Hannah, the daughter Dr. Katarina Jones thought she lost to the plague. In the moment of their reunion, Hannah appears hesitant at first to embrace her long-lost mother, but when she does, she dissolves into joyful tears....

Having played the antagonist in 2006’s Kidulthood and then switched gears in the hit 2008 sequel Adulthood to show the difficulties of that character’s life after being released from prison, Brotherhood ties up a lot of loose ends but also rediscovers Sam a little further down the line, much like Sylvester Stallone brought back his most iconic character in Rocky Balboa or Creed. Sam the character has nothing like the innate sympathy that the Italian Stallion evokes, but the connecting tissue in all three films is a character study of this once violent and now remorseful young man....

The Sword And The Crown The problem with doing a new Arthurian show is that everyone is already familiar with the legend. We all know the stories, because we all grew up with them. Elements like the sword in the stone, the knights of the round table, Morgana and Mordred and the quest for the holy grail are all well known and well established, so the producers of any new adaptation can either trot out the same old things we’ve seen before (BBC’s Merlin), leave them out completely (Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur) or attempt to do something different....

Castle Rock is Hulu’s homage to Stephen King’s work, and it’s full of callbacks to the horror classics that have made the writer such a beloved part of our pop culture for the last 40 years. From veteran actors to characters we’ve met in King’s other nightmarish stories to haunted locations, I’ve found quite a few easter eggs and references to Uncle Stevie’s work that should be of interest to Constant Readers....

6.1 Valkyrie Castle is a show that, unlike Nathan Fillion’s career-making Firefly, should never have made it past the first season. Let’s face it, it really doesn’t have much to offer. First, the premise itself is both unbelievably hackneyed and far-fetched. Playboy mystery writer who never grew up arranges ride-along with tough-as-nails female detective whose makeup and hair are always straight out of the salon. She hates him; he is immediately attracted to her....

6.16 Room 147 It started out fairly well. A man is found murdered in room 147 of a local hotel, and there’s little indication of who did it or why. In fact, Beckett is fairly stumped by this one, and even Castle initially has no wild theory to go on. This changes when a young woman named Anita Miller walks into the precinct and confesses to the murder. Even Castle is surprised at that turn of events....

8.17 Death Wish Sometimes, it’s hard to tell where Nathan Fillion ends and Rick Castle begins. And that’s been entirely intentional. The role of Castle was designed, let’s face it, to take the larger-than-geek-life charisma of Fillion and deliver it to a more mainstream audience without diminishing what we geeks love about Nathan. Whether you’ve seen him on a stage at a panel, giving an interview, or had an autograph or photograph session with Fillion, you’re likely to report the same things: he’s bigger than life, even IRL....