I'm almost at the end of season one of "Slasher," an approximate cross between "Seven" and season six of "Dexter," with plenty of "Scream" thrown in. It's not a highbrow show, but it's grown on me quite a bit, despite having the kind of markedly bland protagonist/final girl that far too many horror movies and series seem to find necessary. It's not even so much the secondary characters who won me over, though plucky/unlucky artist Sarah Bennett's gay best friend, Robin, adds a bit of spice to the show's largely vanilla set of performances. And Erin Karpluk, of "Being Erica," brings a goodly amount of fire and fury to the role of grieving mother Heather Peterson.
Nonetheless, it's the twisty, turn-y plot that done hooked me, and that's as it should be. "Slasher" is the TV equivalent of an airport paperback thriller, and as such it delivers generously. Other series might have called it good at the close of the season's penultimate episode, when the serial killer is revealed and a courageous survivor vows revenge. "Slasher," to its credit, instead adds a meaty epilogue that proves much more exciting, and interesting, than the usual victim-takes-down-killer slasher movie denouement tends to be. More than halfway through the episode, it hit me: I do care who lives and dies, and I do want the killer stopped, one way or another. I'm more emotionally invested than I expected to be, and probably more than "Slasher" deserves.
All in all, this scrappy, semi-trashy show (with, it must be said, impressive special effects throughout) ended up showing more humor, and more genre savvy, than I anticipated. Even though season two's "I Know What You Did Last Summer"-esque premise doesn't intrigue me per se, I'll give it a try. After all, season one is considerably more than the sum of its parts -- no pun intended.
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