TV REVIEW: CASTLEVANIA SEASON 2

Let's put the breaks on for just one moment and take a short break from Thirteen for Halloween to take a peek at what's happening on Netflix right now:
 
Quite frankly, for fans of horror, it has been the most sumptuous and over-indulgent Halloween season imaginable, with Netflix in particular providing a spectrum of gruesome treats, from the occult-comic of its Sabrina The Teenage Witch adaptation to the frankly astonishing Haunting of Hill House (both of which will be receiving reviews shortly).
 
In between both of those sits Castlevania season 2, an extremely odd and off the wall experiment whose first season, you might recall, I enjoyed immensely, being one of the very, very few adaptations of a popular video game franchise to not only do the original material justice but that also manages to become its own entity.
 
The show began peculiarly from the outset, opting to adapt not one of the more recent, narratively coherent titles in the series but one of the old NES classics in the form of Castlevania 3. What made the original series so successful was its balance between the video game elements that fans would immediately recognise (from the style and structure of the eponymous castle to certain abilities demonstrated by protagonists Simon Belmont and Dracula) with a distinct, coherent and sincere narrative, a back mythology that made its Dracula one of the most sympathetic and nuanced in any adaptation (ironic, given its 8-bit video game inspiration), enough callbacks to 1980s action and horror anime to layer in more nostalgia and a sense of humour that provides a fitting contrast to its violence, gore and horror.
 
The second season, which is arguably the first complete season, given that the original is more of an introduction to set the scene, therefore had a fair bit to live up to.
 
Before we even begin to discuss its relative merits (or lack thereof), let me start with two words:
 
Bloody Tears.
 
Bloody Tears, an iconic soundtrack from the original game which many have come to positively identify with the Castlevania franchise and which has been reprised and remixed in most entries since. 

​There's a moment in the second season in which a remix of the track begins to play, accompanying the first moment in which our protagonists genuinely take to the field against Dracula's hordes of the night, and it's glorious. I defy anyone who has some association with this franchise not to experience at least a small, adolescent squee of delight as the action kicks off, beautifully animated and choreographed so as to synchronise with the track itself, the sequence going for the gusto with overly-elaborate, unlikely anime acrobatics and OTT violence, vampires dying left and right to impalement, magical shards and sheets of ice, the combustible touch of Trevor Belmont's morning star...it's a glorious homage to similar sequences in the likes of Vampire Hunter D or Wicked City, with the protagonists abandoning any restraint, any weaknesses they might have exhibited heretofore and simply kicking arse in the most entertaining, ridiculously elaborate manner possible. That the sequence contains numerous references and homages to the video games makes it all the more joyous, from Alucard's wolf form and the way his blade operates like the sword familiar from Symphony of the Night to the manner in which the vampires combust like enemies from the original games whenever Belmont's morning star touches them.
 
If nothing else, that sequence would have sold me. It's therefore something of a bonus that the rest of the show is far from half hearted or under-baked, as is always the danger with this kind of material:
 
Just as we left them at he conclusion of the original series, our protagonists Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades find themselves accompanied by the newly awaked Alucard, half-human son of Vlad and Lisa Tepes, the child of Dracula himself.
 
It would have been extremely easy to make the relationship between Trevor and Alucard far too antagonistic, to have them bait and bite and undermine one another until things erupted into the inevitable action sequence. Fortunately, the show side-steps that quite beautifully, the pair definitely antagonistic towards one another, but in an extremely jocular and affectionate manner, to the point that they come across as squabbling children that are nevertheless somewhat fond of one another, which places Sypha into the role of disapproving elder sister or matriarch. The well-played and fairly naturalistic comedy of this dynamic is a pleasant counter-balance to the graphic violence, horror and despair that pervades the rest of the series, not to mention a thematic contrast to Dracula himself.
 
Ah, Dracula! Vlad Dracul Tepes, who has been rendered and re-imagined perhaps any more than any living human and fictional character in history. It's a hard sell for this guy in any medium or format, as everyone and their dog knows more about him than they do their own Mothers. Even people who have never seen any of the films, read the books, comics, short stories, played the video games or otherwise engaged with the character know a great deal about him and his ever-accruing mythology simply by virtue of how embedded he is in popular culture and collective consciousness.
 
It was part of the original series strength that it didn't particular attempt to ape any previous incarnation, nor did it stick entirely with the video-game mega-monster who is the principle antagonist of the franchise.
 
Rather, this version of Dracula is a fairly distant and archetypal incarnation, not a “Lord of Darkness,” world-conquering, genocidal tyrant (at least, not entirely so), but a weary and sorrowing immortal who has had enough of existence, who has seen too much suffering, who has simply given up on all existence and now seeks to purge the world of humanity, whose cruelties he has seen recur time and time again, whose pettiness, monstrosity and delusion is far more horrific and monstrous than any demon or monster that exists in his service.
 
In the original series, he was painted in a manner not a million miles away from certain renderings of Magneto from the X-Men comic book, cartoon and movie franchise: as a jaded and disappointed idealist, who has tried to see the best in humanity, who has given the species every chance to show him its better face, but has been perpetually disappointed in that, such that now, his human wife has been taken from him in the most obscene and cruel manner, leaving him no choice but to play the part of the Devil (or avenging angel, as he certainly sees it).
 
Here, at the outset of the second season, Dracula's genocidal campaign is well underway, with the titular castle magically transporting itself across the countryside, spilling its hordes of vampires and mythological beasts and undead constructs to wipe out humanity down to the last babe, to leave nothing but smouldering ruin and gnawed clean bones in their wake.
 
Dracula takes no active part in these charnel houses, but remains housed within the castle, not even coordinating affairs, but leaving that in the hands of a rag-tag bunch of human and vampire generals, all of whom are highly characterised, have their own voices, backgrounds and agendas in serving the dark lord. Much is made of the politics between them, particularly the human and vampire generals, the in-fighting, bickering and power-plays, which Dracula himself has no time or patience for, but also the distaste that even some of the vampires have for Dracula's state of mind and ultimate intentions. As the man himself reveals at one point, he has every intention of the vampires dying, too: starving to death, if needs be. All he wants is an end; an extinction without parameter, and the silence that will follow.
 
All of this not only lends the series a degree of intrigue it might otherwise lack, but also degrees of irony, given that Dracula's closest confidantes are two human generals, both of whom have densely layered backgrounds of abuse and affliction at the hands of humanity, and so who serve him far more loyally than their vampire counterparts, all of whom have their own designs and agendas. 

One of the consistent complaints regarding the original series was that, whilst it struck the right tone and included a great deal of brilliant imagery, there weren't enough of the monsters or creatures from the video games. Dracula's castle in that medium is less a piece of architecture and more a dimensional anomaly, a contradictory and shifting realm unto itself, saturated with elemental evil, that has been made into a kind of menagerie for all forms of mythological monstrosity. Thus, the castle in the video games contains everything from zombies and werewolves to demons and old gods, mythological titans such as Scylla and Medusa, the biblical Legion and Beelzebub, even Cthulhu and Dagon, in certain incarnations. The cartoon series takes a more streamlined approach, most of the creatures that operate under Dracula's rule taking the forms of undead constructs, generic demons and humanoid vampires of various stripe.
 
However, this second season does throw in some pleasing Easter-eggs and homages for fans of the game series, most notably in the forms of demons Slogra and Gaibon, both of whom have become iconic for their reappearances in the video games since Super Castlevania 4. To the show's credit, it doesn't become too mawkish by making a muchness of their inclusion: they are simply monsters that occur in a particular action set piece, but are sure to draw a smile from fans of the series.
 
Tonally, the show is fairly light-hearted, even in its most dour and gruesome moments, the violence and atrocity it contains perfect for Halloween viewing, in that it is often so over the top as to be comedic. The series doesn't pretend to be doing or saying anything profound or even particularly new, but is simply a giant, sentimental love letter to the video games and fans of not only them but also 1980s action anime, which it apes in so many ways.
 
For my money, the show provides a perfect mid-way point between The Chilling Tales of Sabrina and The Haunting of Hill House, both of which featured alongside it on Netflix this Halloween season, providing a spectrum of horror indulgence for any taste or palate.
 
Complaints? It would have been pleasant for the show to perhaps throw in some of the “final form” shenanigans that the video games are infamous for (Dracula almost always has multiple, escalatingly monstrous forms at the conclusion of each instalment) and, perhaps, to see more of the iconic creatures from the castle itself. Perhaps later series will introduce these elements as the world has a chance to swell and elaborate. Also, thematically, the comparatively quieter resolution between Dracula and Alucard fits the tone and story the show is trying to tell up to this point, so perhaps later series will introduce the notion of Dracula not just being a vampire, but an iconic lord of darkness and chaos who is infested with demonic power and influence. 

​ 
It's difficult to complain about a show that is this effortlessly charming, that doesn't pretend to be particularly ground-breaking, clever or revolutionary but just has a desire to indulge and entertain its audience.
 
On that level, it succeeds fantastically, though, like all adaptations of popular franchises, it does lose a little for viewers who aren't already familiar with its source material.
 
A somewhat unexpected and pleasant Halloween treat from Netflix, and one that I certainly hope to see repeated when next the season rolls around.