The Terror. Series Premier on AMC.

I actually enjoyed the ending to this, even with the creature reveal. I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know how they handled the creature there, but in the show it was definitely a secondary threat to the men, and I thought it was handled appropriately as such. The main threat was simply themselves and their environment. The show (both writers and actors) did a fantastic job of making that threat feel very real and very menacing even though it was never anything physical you could see on screen.

As for the creature, it definitely had a human face on it’s giant polar bear body. I think it was meant to represent the native’s ancestor spirits in physical form, a protective totem come to life. The one thing that didn’t make sense was why it attacked the men in the beginning, BEFORE they encountered and accidentally shot the native shaman. Stuck out on the ice as they were, far from any native settlement, why would the men have posed any threat to the natives? In that sense, the creature seemed only partially controlled by or loyal to the shaman.

I think in the end sequence, Mr. Hickey was attempting to lure the creature to them not to kill it, but to control it. Hence his cutting out of his own tongue, as he’d seen first on the old man shaman, and then with his daughter, both of whom Hickey believed controlled the creature. I also think the creature died of a combination of wounds suffered from the previous battles, progressive lead poisoning from eating the men, possibly some internal damage if it attempted to eat Mr. Blanky (who had tied forks all over his clothing for just that purpose) and the effects of Mr. Goodsir’s poison. All of that weakened it enough that the captain was able to finish the job by strangling it with the chain.

I also liked how we just saw what Lady Silence and the captain encountered on their way back to the native settlement. Just a handful of images that left us to imagine how horrible the end was for the men who had survived to that point. That the captain decided to stay with the natives who accepted him, rather than return to England and all the questions and stigma that would bring, seemed fitting. It was a solid ending to the series.

I’d like to see this become an anthology series of one-off seasons. Not sure they could still call it “The Terror” obviously. They could switch from bitter cold to blistering heat by adapting Dean King’s Skeletons on the Zahara into a season. Yet another true life story of shipwrecked mariners trying to survive incredible hardships. No mysterious supernatural creature in that one though.

I’m curious to hear what the rest of you think about the Captain’s fate, and his demeanor and attitude in dealing with it at the end; from a literary standpoint?

So, on it goes - and yep, new story.

So that was… unexpected.

— Alan

Uh, okay. I guess if it worked for American Horror Story. But they do know the show was called The Terror because that was the name of the ship, right? I guess losing one layer of meaning from the name of the show isn’t that big a deal.

The bigger issue is that I don’t think either of the creative leads mentioned in that Variety article had anything to do with the first season. Seems like AMC is just keeping the name and nothing else. That said, it’s a great time to do a horror story about the US rounding up non-white people and throwing them in internment camps.

-Tom

I just watched the first three episodes and it’s pretty engrossing so far! Good series. I skipped all the past posts here just in case of spoilers. :)

And the… thing is totally a tupilak, right?

I liked this, but I feel it could have been a lot better, somehow.

How true is it to the source book, anyone know? Perhaps the limitations I’m feeling are in the book as well, not sure.

  • I was hoping for more psychological people-slowly-going-crazy cabin fever horror, episode 1 was very promising in this regard, but it ramps up to “very real beast we’re gonna actually show you in great detail at great length” quickly. :(

  • I have mixed feelings about the ending. It gets a bit transcendental, trippy, which to me was at odds with the gritty realism. So all this ultimately rolls up into the personal spiritual journey of, like, this one guy? Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great character, but it’s all about him in the end?

  • some of the random stuff that happens doesn’t seem to fit in. So the food is driving people crazy, that’s why one guy (who seems perfectly sane otherwise) suddenly does what he does in the carnivale episode?

Really loved the acting, the setting, the themes… it’s worth watching, but on the whole this didn’t come across as a fully realized story to me. I can’t shake the feeling it could have been incredible with a bit more focus and drive. Maybe the book was like that too, I dunno.

It’s been about ten years since I read the book, but I recall it leaning much more heavily into the creature and the aspects you commented on about the ending.

As a whole, I think the series pretty handily surpasses the book in most regards, but I do think the book did a better job of detailing the extreme conditions and the toll extracted by the cold.

I think I expected a much more psychological - unseen - creeping kind of horror. This was less “terror” and more “giant freaky creature you will see close up, in great detail, many times”.

In retrospect the “Monster” parts were the parts that disappointed me the most. And the Carnivale thing was completely out of place…really came from nowhere.

I can see that. I think the story would have worked just fine without the creature, but coming into the series having read the book where it (to my recollection) played a more significant role, I was actually pleased to see it was somewhat minimized, and I felt like the focus was shifted noticeably towards the conflict between the expedition members.

I think the book is both more of the creature and shamanic elements (mostly towards the end) and more of the creeping horror and survival and procedural stuff that wumpus is looking for. It’s just really sprawling in a way that the series is not.

(And of course, the book doesn’t have to actually show you the creature.)

I’d say that’s a fair and accurate characterization.

Personally, the show wins out for me if only because of superb portrayal of Hickey. Plus, it ends with a piece of music by Robert Fripp. How many other shows can claim that?

The book “earns” the carnival by taking a lot more time establishing and drawing out the deprivation the men suffered with the cold and reduced rations and supernatural threat. It’s an effort to do something to improve morale, and by the time it rolls around in the book, it’s clearly established that morale has tanked. The TV series doesn’t really have the luxury of delving into the effects of hunger and hypothermia.

There’s a similar situation with a (very good) horror novel by Adam Neville called Ritual. A lot of what’s horrific in the novel is the extreme deprivation suffered by the men lost in the wild. In the (not at all good) movie, they just seem kind of pooped because there’s only so much exhaustion you can suffer in a 90 minute movie.

-Tom

I looked at that book on Amazon and thought “that sounds awfully familiar”… and as it turns out, I recently watched the not-so-good movie on Netflix. I think your characterization hits the movie right on the head: they eminate whinyness and mopeyness more than deprivation.

As is often the case with adaptations to the screen, I think The Terror could have gained more by leaving some things out. It was amazingly cast, superbly acted, and the cinematography was sumptuous, but pointed. There is a scene of Jared Harris having a conversation en route to the other ship that is positively claustrophobic, despite the open world around them, reflecting the claustrophobic isolation of their entire circumstance. And the dialogue is amazing.

If I have to ding it, it’s that it tried to do too much, plot and sub-plot wise. Which detracted from the themes it was conveing.

Also, the monster was a let-down. CGI wasn’t the way to go. Again, less would have been more.

The book is downright brutal. It’s what Blair Witch Project could have been if it didn’t have to work within the confines of being a found footage movie.

I also recommend the book of The Ritual even if you’ve seen the movie. There are enough very important differences in the book that the movie won’t spoil it! :)

https://www.amazon.com/Ritual-Adam-Nevill/dp/0312641842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530052729&sr=8-1&keywords=the+ritual+adam+nevill

I would normally agree with this, Mr. Gun. And it’s certainly the usual approach for nuanced horror, to suggest rather than reveal. But I think the visual decision with the Tuplit, or Tunack, or Tillbutt, or whatever it was called, was to de-mythologize it as the show went on. To reveal its mortality, its frailty, to strip from it the sense of a supernatural force, and to put it on par with all the other elements that threatened these men. In other words, it wanted to show that – surprise – you haven’t been watching a creature feature.

Now if you think the CG looked goofy, I’m not sure I disagree. The practical sets in this movie put the special effects to shame. What a gorgeous production design. I bet being on that set was a real marvel.

-Tom

That’s where I sit on this one. Explicit display of the creature isn’t my issue, per se. Either the CGI was goofy, or we saw too much of it. Whatever it was it ended my suspension of disbelief every time the weird polar bear simian Turnip-butt appeared.

I can sorta recommend the book, it hinges a bit too much on the class warfare british-y stuff in the plot for my tastes. It’s certainly not bad.

It wasn’t the creature feature part that was the issue, but the seen versus the unseen. I guess the animal was some kind of pseudo-human totem ritual thing, I get that, but I feel they maybe could have delivered that without making it such an obvious knock-down CGI brawlfest? I dunno.

Season 2 news: