Wednesday – drama series

I am not a big fan of horror series especially those involving Gothic elements, Vampires, Werewolves, and all. It is irritating to keep guessing what is happening and who is getting hit or bit in that absolute darkness that encompasses most of the scenes in such movies. For whatever reason, almost every single frame of such movies is pitch black and especially the impactful fights and the climax, which by default are set in darkest of tones possible. And the special effects, in the name of making them as close to real as possible, often overdo the gore and goo, which makes it further nauseating to view on screen. With this mindset, I was skipping this series for quite a while, until my cousin sister told she and her kid were watching it and it was decent enough. As a storyline, I never liked Addams family series for its macabre theme and spooky sense of humour which was dark at its brightest best. With the entire series based on Wednesday Addams, I started watching the series with absolutely zero expectation. The very first episode stretching for over an hour didn’t help either. But the girl who played the titular role, with her weird mannerism and intriguing getup caught the eye. Within no time the entire season one was done and like several million other viewers, eagerly awaiting the second season. Even before beginning the binge watching, it was very clear that the USP of the series is Jenna Ortega, the girl who plays Wednesday Addams. I’ve heard of actors talking about doing scenes without blinking their eyes and some of them mention that it was common practice in English movies. Whenever I remembered, I used to closely watch scenes in English movies to see if they really don’t blink and how do they manage such long close shots or lengthy dialogue scenes without ever blinking!! Till now I don’t understand what value or different dimension it brings to the acting space. In this series, with so many closeup shots, it was hard to miss and the gal hardly ever blinks. It adds to the quirkiness or weird along with her body language of being ramrod straight while walking and hardly moving a muscle in her face, maintaining stone cold expression. All this coming from a kid who may possibly be still in her teens!! The way in which she delivers lines that are morbid and spooky, makes it eerily funny. Like how people laugh out of fear while visiting haunted house setup in carnivals, this series is made of such scarily fun elements that adds to its mystique. Overall, the story line is nothing new, but is an abridged version of Harry Potter of the Halloween. Just like Hogwarts, Nevermore is a place for outcasts with the students being Werewolves, sirens, medusa like characters and the makers are very particular in not using the word magic or witch anywhere in the series. It is based on current era with phones and other technology being mentioned. Instead of Quidditch, there is a boat race where the rival and soon to become friends clash. There are other overlapping similarities like the parents having been famous alumni and their mistakes from the past surviving the decades to haunt their own kids happens to find place in both the Potter series and here as well. And of course, the villain, being resurrected in a similar way only to be vanquished by the titular character being the final icing. The only flip side I felt was, for the al the build up around the powers and capabilities of Wednesday Addams, especially all those dialogues about how she loves being morbid and pleasures in pain, except for her psychic ability, she is as normal or as weird as any other character. In fact, her roommate girl, who is annoyingly chirpy and bubbly, but adds so much color and variety to her character, has more power and abilities than Wednesday herself. My favorite moment in the series, like millions of others being the Raven dance sequence featuring “Goo Goo Muck” song. I was so smitten that when I googled about that song, got to know that it was a TicToc favorite of many a celebrity and has been choreographed by Jenna Ortega herself. There were some controversies around how toxic she has been on sets and how egoistic she was in rejecting any professional help to perform the dance. But when you see the final output, even thought it may look very silly, it was absolutely in character and is bound to haunt your playlists in loops!! Story wise or suspense wise there is nothing new about the season but very curious to see how she tops this performance in the next season. With black eyeliner heavily pasted under her eyes, sporting pig tail hairstyle, adorning black dress, Wednesday Addams/ Jenna Ortega, is sure to cast her spell on you.