"Terror. Better ”: The second season of anthology about history and mysticism. A new part-about the Japanese living in the USA after an attack on Pearl Harbor

On the AMC channel, the second season of “Terror” began-anthology in which real historical events occur due to monsters and mysticism. The new chapter is about the Japanese living in the United States and placed in concentration camps after an attack on Pearl Harbor. And also - about demons and ghosts that haunt the heroes. The film critic Yegor Moskvitin tells how this story resembles Dan Simmons’s novel about the dead sailors and why it turned out to be more relevant than the first part.

Why "terror"

“Terror” is an anthology, that is, a project whose seasons are connected by intonation and style, but not a plot. Unlike the "American Horror History", here each time is a new acting ensemble. It does not look like a “real detective” - each part of the anthology has new showranders and screenwriters. The first season was a film adaptation of the grandiose novel by Dan Simmons “Terror” , in which the real event (the disappearance of the British ships “Erebus” and “Terror” in the ice in the 19th century) overgrown with mystical details.

The historical part of the plot reminded of the feat of Robert Folconly Scott and his polar explorers, of the film “The owner of the seas” with the Russell Crowe and the adventure literature. The mystical part promised at once the horrors in the spirit of Stephen King, and the epistolary chronicle of strange events, as in the “Dracula” of Bram Stoker, and intriguing riddles, as in the series “To stay alive”. At the same time, the sailors were played by beautiful English actors: Jared Harris (now everyone knows him as a star of Chernobyl), Kiran Hynds and Tobayas Menzis (Mans Lawn and Edmur Tally from the Game of Thrones).

Sir Ridley Scott produced the series, but his power was not enough for this slow and difficult story to be able to hold the viewer to the final credits and then compete for Emmy. Despite the enthusiastic reviews of the first episodes, the AMC channel - the birthplace of “madmen”, “all grave” and “better call the salt” - did not manage to create a new intellectual hit. But he did not fold his hands either - and already in 2019 he released a new season, which some publications called in advance one of the most important events of the summer. The name of the series did not change, the subtitle was only added to it - “Infamy” (“dishonor”), and the word “terror” itself turned into a brand and a guarantee that the viewer would see a costume drama, a big romance, a mystical horror and a social commentary.

What is the second season is good

All the main characters of the new part and actors playing them are Americans of Japanese descent. The plot is dedicated to the shameful page in the history of the United States: after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the authorities were afraid of the landing of the imperial army on the western coast and decided to intern and relocate more than 120 thousand Japanese people, mainly citizens of the country. The series describes the fate of several generations of the Japanese, divided by war. From this plot, a saga in the spirit of “sprinkled by the wind” and “quiet Don” could have turned out, because the camp is waiting for the parents, and the children - war. But the creators of the series like other writers: Stephen King, Howard Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.

Already in the first two minutes of “dishonor” I want to close my eyes and ears because of a disgusting scene: a Japanese in a national outfit walks along the pier, but her legs are jammed-the demon took possession of the body. He makes her get a wooden knitting needle from her hair and stick into his ear. The relatives who gathered at her funeral decide that with them evil spirits arrived from Japan in the United States. But the main character - the young photographer, the son of a fisherman and a college student on the mainland - tells that he asked the deceased to prepare a decoction for his girlfriend who decided to abrupt pregnancy. The heroes of the hero who learned this secret decide that it was this sin that aroused monsters.

"Dishonor" begins very slowly - like all costume dramas on AMC. The horror of the first scene is never repeated, although the series tries to be terrible. During the funeral, the corpse falls out of the coffin; The faces of people are erased in the photographs; A beautiful girl thoughtfully pulls the skin from her face, sitting in front of the mirror, - a demon also settled in her. But as in the first season, the horrors here go into the background. It is assumed that the viewer will captivate the reconstruction of the era - the plot picks up lovers of the genre just where they were thrown by the “underground empire” of HBO.

Heroes casually mention different discriminatory laws of California of the thirties and forties, discuss the economy, the course of the war and Hollywood news. And the viewer only manages to outline unfamiliar facts and enjoy predictable scenes. For example, in the final of the first episode, two Japanese - father and son - are sitting at the marine base in anticipation of the military police. On the sides of them are American flags, and behind the backs are huge hours that show on December 7. Heroes are not yet aware, and the viewer already knows: Japan has just attacked Pearl Harbor. But then the monsters appear again in order to properly scare relaxed spectators and make the historical series more dynamic.

The first season of Terror was headed by Showranner David Kayganich, known, for example, according to the script of the new “Suspiria” . He selflessly stated that the old “suspiria” Dario Argento was visually expressive, but plotly incoherent. Max Borenstein and Alexander Wu are engaged in the second season, and their work on mistakes in the second part of the anthology is very noticeable. There was much more social context and reflection that spectators from television series are expected - in English -language reviews they constantly recall the draft border camps for migrants from Donald Trump. And the focus in the Japanese diaspora allows the viewer to see a completely different America of the 1940s.

The mystical plot in vain avoids scamers and other techniques to maintain the Sassens, but the presence of inexplicable evil and supernatural forces in the new season is much more than in the previous one. Finally, the original “terror” was primarily a male drama about survival in the ice, in the “dishonor” of interesting heroines became much more - even the demon has a female face here.

Another powerful conflict that prevents this story about monsters to stalk is the contradictions of two generations in one family. The parents of the heroes fled from Japan, but did not become Americans. They even live not on the mainland, but on the small islands near the California coast, where they continue to fish and honor their traditions. Young people go to study in Los Angeles and San Francisco and seek to adopt an American way of life. The coming war will make each of the heroes decide what means to be a patriot for him. And it is precisely this unobvious and painful for the modern boundless world that the topic can finally turn the “terror” into a show, which will be successful not only among critics, but also with the global audience. At least he really wants to wish this success. Otherwise, another unnoticed season of the very expensive drama will return AMC to the next spin-off-off “Walking Dead”.

Egor Moskvitin