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Bates Motel is a serial prequel to Psycho that looks at the teenage years of the psychopathic Norman Bates, more specifically, the life of his family from the moment he purchases the infamous motel and the happenings in the small town where it is located. Surprisingly, the character of Bates doesn't get much space in the first season and gets somewhat lost among the other characters. For some reason, the town where Bates lives is full of rapists, women traffickers, gangsters and drug dealers. Few people are normal here, so Bates usually doesn't seem so abnormal next to such a bunch. That wouldn’t be an issue, but the main problem is that the show doesn't really know where to jump first, and it's hammered by the excessive amount of drama that's been piling up around the central family from the very beginning. There are so many of these events, and they move so fast, that they get stale very quickly, and cease to shock and thrill. But they are not boring, and you take it with a grain of salt, it's actually a kind of a perverted variation on the Beverly Hills 90210 type of soap operas. In the later seasons, the series focuses more on Norman's psychological transformation, which brings with it a lot of amusingly absurd situations, teetering on the edge of black comedy.

Visually lavish and narratively intricate, Carnivale was HBO's first attempt at TV-fantasy, paving the way for the much better known True Blood. The series is a novel combination of Lynch's Twin Peaks, Browning's Freaks and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Setting its fantastical plot full of mysticism and the occult in a gritty, period-accurate depiction of the 1930s United States, it strangely combines the surreal with naturalism. A series with such an elaborate mythology and evocative visuals was something unprecedented in its time – I know of no other film or series that evokes the dusty atmosphere of the arid plains of the Dust Bowl so well. But Carnivale was too bold an experiment even by the standards of HBO, which delivers more sophisticated series for a more discerning audience. A strange, provocative, complicated, slow-moving and very expensive series for television, which, like Twin Peaks, lived to see only two seasons, which is a great pity.

Whedon's cult series Firefly was a brief but enjoyable diversion from the (mostly) serious sci-fi genre on TV screens, bringing sarcasm, sass and sexual chemistry, but also a believable future world full of flesh-and-blood characters. And, ultimately, a blending of different genres. Firefly is a subtle combination of sci-fi and western. The crew of the smuggler spaceship Serenity flies between old planets equipped with advanced technology and newly terraformed planets where people are glad for a wooden roof over their heads. So some people ride horses (because it's more affordable), some people use hoverboards. Some shoot revolvers, some use laser guns. And there's country music playing. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled after the first season. One of the reasons may have been that the people at Fox TV didn't like the pilot because it was too western, lacked aliens, and the main character wasn't very likeable, and decided to start the series with a second episode. The aliens were still not in it, but there was more action and the main character became a bit more tolerable. But a lot of viewers were a bit confused by the plot, which probably contributed to the low ratings. The series was a great success on DVD, which led to a sequel in the form of the feature film Serenity, which again succeeded only on DVD.

Pilot Review: After the excellent The Killing, another American adaptation of a popular Scandinavian crime series. The Bridge pleasantly surprises by not being a traditional procedural crime drama, in fact, the serial killer who is after the main characters is not the usual sadistic psychopath, but kills for political reasons. The series is thus primarily about the tensions in US-Mexican relations (its emphasis on social context is reminiscent of HBO's The Wire). The protagonists are not only culturally different, but also different in character, so the tried-and-true “buddy cop” formula is not missing. Oscar-nominated Demian Bichir, who plays a casual Mexican detective here, was a safe bet. Diane Kruger makes an effort as an autistic American cop (heroes with mental disorders are all the rage in today's TV shows), but her robotic acting comes across as a bit awkward and falls far short of the quality of Claire Danes' performance as the manic-depressive agent in Homeland.

Escape from New York is a great example of what an inventive director can achieve with little money. No wonder the film has become a model for many low-budget filmmakers (including Robert Rodriguez). One of the most striking aspects of Carpenter's iconic low-budget film is the surprisingly elaborate production design. The impressive drawings of a ruined New York City were done by a then-unknown James Cameron, who got his start in filmmaking as a production designer. Carpenter wrote the original version of the script back in the 1970s in response to the Watergate affair, and the cynicism of the time is evident in every inch of the film. Snake Plissken is the quintessential individualistic anti-hero. He once fought for his country, but circumstances forced him to turn against authority. He has become a renegade and an outlaw who cares only for himself, while still being more human than many of the characters around him. Casting Kurt Russell (at the time known for family films) was a big risk, but it worked out perfectly. Russell's minimalist acting, stone-faced, quiet voice and slow gait are reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's nameless gunslinger roles. And the film is essentially a kind of futuristic western. New York, which here functions as a prison without guards where the inmates create their own world, is reminiscent of the Wild West in a way, and legendary western actor Lee Van Cleef plays one of the supporting roles.

One of the purest, testosterone-fuelled macho actioners of the 80s, mixed with sci-fi horror. It's part horror, but the main characters are not some whiny tourists, but seasoned soldiers who are unmatched by anything on the planet. Until, of course, the planet is visited by something from outer space they're not prepared for. The soldiers then have to completely change their minds and figure out how to fight the unknown entity. The whole film stands purely on the aforementioned premise, it doesn't need to linger on any long exposition or side-lines, it gets straight to the point right from the start and doesn't lose the pace for a moment. The characters, typified by the well-chosen actors, are portrayed in an austere, but concise manner. Each of them has a distinct demeanor, a style, and clear distinguishing features that define them (e.g. different weapons), which are expressed through the action (without the need for extended dialogue). Like typical 80s macho action heroes, they constantly show off their masculinity with pumped-up biceps and oversized guns, which they use at every opportunity to demonstrate their firepower, enough to cut down an entire forest. No weapon is big enough for them, so why not, for example, remove a heavy rotary machine gun from a helicopter. But that’s not enough for the nimble and virtually invisible Predator. The unforgettable Stan Winston-designed titular monster is a great counter to Arnold Schwarzenegger. An unmissable character is the devious jungle itself, where director John McTiernan brilliantly evokes a sense of constant danger (the Predator's presence can be felt in almost every shot, even when we don't see him at all) and works very imaginatively with image depth, camera movements and refocusing (techniques you don't see much in today's fast-cut and overstuffed action films).

John Carpenter's wacky homage to Hong Kong martial-arts fantasy films (especially Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain) is on the one hand full of Asian stereotypes, but on the other hand humorously subverts the stereotypes associated with Hollywood action movies. The roles of the action hero and his sidekick are reversed here. The film is told from the point of view of Jack Burton, who outwardly appears to be an action hero but is really just a blowhard who is merely playing at being an action hero. The real action hero is actually Wang Chi, who in turn outwardly acts as Burton's sidekick. Wang Chi is the one who makes all the decisions and does all the work, while Burton, who most of the time has absolutely no idea what's going on around him, takes credit for everything and only manages to win because of his own stupidity (he survives the final fight because he accidentally knocks himself out). Carpenter crammed what he could from the subgenre: wire-fu fights, lightning fighters, ghosts, monsters, demons, Chinese magic... Audiences at the time were probably not ready for such things and the film flopped, but later it gained recognition on video (as is usual with Carpenter's films).

John Carpenter's most important and successful film, which strongly influenced the 80s wave of slasher movies with masked killers. But while subsequent slashers focused primarily on gory effects, Halloween dispenses with almost all the gore and instead revels in the moments that precede the killing. Carpenter deliberately delays the attacks of psychopath Michael Myers as much as possible. He has the characters take long walks through various locations and keeps the audience guessing as to when and where the expected attack will occur. In doing so, he makes brilliant use of his typical wide-angle compositions, which force the audience to keep a close eye on the spaces around the characters, noting every place where Myers might be hiding (whether behind a bush or a fence in broad daylight, or in dark corners at night). As the film progresses, the scenes take place in smaller and smaller spaces, where the possibilities of escape from Myers diminish. Halloween also makes memorable use of long, voyeuristic steadicam shots. Most notably in the famous opening scene, shot from Myers' point of view, which has gone down in horror film history and has been imitated many times. Myers is completely devoid of personality and character, unlike the subsequent installments which robbed him of mystery by needlessly revealing his motivations. Here he is purely the embodiment of inexplicable evil. There are no close-ups of his reactions, and most often we see him only in outline, blending in with his surroundings (either from behind in a blurred foreground at the edge of the picture, or in the distance in the background). As a result, we cannot empathise with him for a moment. This is also what makes Halloween different from most slasher films that followed, whose central killers gradually became the main stars that audiences cheered for more than their victims.

A flop in its day, it was savaged by critics for its overabundance of disgusting effects. Now one of the most acclaimed modern horror films. The Thing is far more sophisticated than it might at first appear. The plot, involving a parasitic alien shapeshifter that can spread like a virus, could have been taken as a metaphor for AIDS, for example, a disease that was emerging at the time of the film’s release, as only a blood test can identify those infected with the alien virus. The film explicitly shows the horrific molecular transformations, depicting the fragility of the human body when attacked by another organism. The amazing visual effects for the time made sure that what you saw could be more terrifying than what was in your wildest imagination. The film also reflects the dehumanization and growing paranoia in modern society. Carpenter brilliantly builds tension through subtle, unsettling hints. In his typical widescreen compositions, he cleverly works with empty space to evoke a constant sense that something is lurking outside the frame. In doing so, he sometimes deliberately obscures whose perspective we are looking at something from. The escalating paranoia between the characters, who don't know which of them is infected, is further heightened by the sense of claustrophobia and isolation in the cramped spaces of the research station, which contrasts with the open Antarctic wasteland in a literally chilling way. The film is full of small but crucial hints, many of which you will notice and put into context only after a few viewings. As a result, The Thing (and especially its paranoidly ambivalent ending) can be interpreted in a variety of ways, as is the case with a series of video essays on YouTube that will keep you entertained for hours after the film is over.

The Canadian slasher flick Black Christmas is notable because it featured virtually all of the traditional slasher mechanics several years before Halloween, which is considered by many to be the first pure slasher film. The truth is that it wasn't until Halloween that the subgenre became popular. But there was a Black Christmas movie before that, and it already featured, for example, subjective glimpses of a killer with raspy breathing, as well as threatening phone calls from a stalker (see the later films When a Stranger Calls and Scream). The plot isn't entirely convincing, and is somewhat illogical in places (especially with the surprise ending), but the central psychopath whining into the phone is quite creepy, and the atmosphere of a grave-silent Christmas night, full of decorative lights, is strangely depressing.