Monster Mash: Death Valley Edition

A lot can be said about pop culture over the past 20 some odd years. We've seen many fads
come and go, some of them are still around, being enjoyed by multiple generations and some
just don't know when to quit. We've seen good movies and bad, mostly bad. We've seen good
tv and we've seen bad, but mostly reruns. We've heard good music and bad, most of it rap.

The early 90's and 2000's will be remembered for a lot of different things, but the most common
thing they'll most likely be remembered for on the pop culture scene is the sheer abundance of
shows revolving around horror and the paranormal. In the 90's we had shows like the X-files,
Unsolved Mysteries, Buffy the vampire slayer and Angel. We saw Charmed and Sabrina the
Teenage Witch. Even popular kid's channels got in on the act with Goosebumps and Are You
Afraid of The Dark. This continued on into the 2000's as well with Supernatural, True Blood,
The Walking Dead, and with the birth of Reality Tv, we got shows like MTV's Fear that would
spawn countless knock offs, and paved the way for shows such as Ghost Hunters, Destination
Truth and Finding Bigfoot. It's a good time to be a fan of horror in general.

What do all of these things have in common? MTV has had their dicks in all of these things at
one point or another since its initial run of Fear. The channel recently did a series called
Teen Wolf, which I can only assume is a remake of the 80's movie but with more modern
teenage angst, sex jokes and different pop culture jokes, but I'm not here to talk about
this show, im here to talk about a show they're premiering tomorrow at 10:30 pm called
Death Valley.



I first ran across this thing while looking at zeldapedia, and at first glance I thought that MTV
was attempting to compete with The Walking Dead, given the heavy emphasis on zombies.
But as you watch the trailer. Sure the zombies look like crap, but hey, more zombies! But
then you hear about vampires... and then a werewolf pops up, and suddenly I don't know
what the fuck I'm looking at. Listening to the premise, it seems the shows a horror comedy,
like, one of the hardest couplings to pull off successfully... and its by MTV.

I don't think I've ever stopped and said to myself "I REALLY want a story with werewolves,
zombies and vampires, with a rag-tag bunch of laughable characters set in a modern day
setting!" Shows like Buffy, Angel and Charmed managed this, they covered the whole of
the paranormal spectrum, while Death Valley oddly focuses on only the 3 most popular
monsters in the past 10 years.

I felt a little apprehensive after watching the trailer, but now that it's all sunk in, I'm a little
curious to see what this show has to offer, so I'll be tuning in tomorrow night. What do you
guys think?

Massive Charmed fan here.

Hmm, I don't know how I feel about lumping werewolves and vampires in with zombies, but that trailer actually made it look a bit appealing.

I probably won't watch the show tomorrow, but it's very possible I'll be keeping up with it every now and then on hulu, whenever I'm feeling a horror mood. And since it seems to be a comedy, that makes me more likely to overlook things like common lore incongruities and poor effects; things I'm much less inclined to forgive in a serious program.

There's a warm place in my heart for Buffy and Shawn of the Dead.

Shawn of the Dead, Angel, and Special Unit 2 are my favorite ones, in addition to some episodes of Tremors: The Series. I just like weird things on TV, what can I say.

Fuck, I missed it. Raven, what about you? Did you see it?

Nah, no TV here with me. I'll hulu it sooner or later.

I didn't like it. The show couldn't decide if it was a cops ripoff with zombies in it or a fucking sitcom. Plus all the characters are bland and have already earned my undying hatred.

Austin Powers wrote:

I didn't like it. The show couldn't decide if it was a cops ripoff with zombies in it or a fucking sitcom. Plus all the characters are bland and have already earned my undying hatred.

That's what I was afraid of. Thank you, Ginger, for taking the bullet for us. You will most likely not be
compensated for your pain and lost time.