AMC’s NOS4A2 A New Twist On An Old Legend That Needs A Bit More Bite But Has Serious Potential

It’s always such a pain to get your kids to brush their teeth. Photo courtesy of dreadcentral.com.

Adapted from author Joe Hill’s book of the same name, NOS4A2 is an intriguing take on the classic vampire myth, minus a lot of the religious narrative while adding uniquly supernatural aspects not usually associated with vampires or their slayers. The show is based in a small, working class town where a young woman by the name of Vic McQueen stumbles upon a secrete place that shows her the way to find lost things, including people, but only she knows it’s location. Using it causes physical pain and exhaustion so she’s reluctant to travel through it unless it is urgent. While Vic is working through learning about her new found supernatural gift, an ancient vampire by the name of Charles Manx has reemerged and is working his way across the country, kidnapping children out of what Charley considers bad families with promises of taking them to his home, Christmasland, a twisted wicked place that Charley created himself where every day it’s Christmas and unhappiness is illegal. He appears as a harmless old, decrepit driver of an equally old shiny black car but when the children his henchman kidnap find themselves in the backseat of his Rolls Royce Wraith, they find out he’s far from harmless.

I don’t know. It says Christmasland but I’m not seeing a lot of baby Jesus going on here.

Photo courtesy of Goodreads.

Charley needs youthful energy to stay young himself, so as he drives away with the young children safely in his backseat, his life force that is connected directly to the car in a symbiotic relationship, begins to drain the children of their innocent energy and replace it with a dark, evil force that turns them into little vampires while Charley, who has convinced himself he is their adopted father, returns to looking youthful, almost as though he stopped aging after 30. When Vic has a little girl she’s very close to kidnapped by Charley, she beings searching for him and his car, The Wraith, in an effort to save her friend. In searching for the little girl, Vic winds up in a small town in Iowa thanks to her supernatural gift and meets a psychic by the name of Maggie who becomes invaluable in finding Charles and learning how to end the nightmare once and for all.

Apparently this is A Children Of The Corn: Retirement audition. Looks intense.

Photo courtesy of Goodreads.

Charley, however, begins to have dreams of a woman he’s never met and a bridge he’s never seen and through the dream can somehow feel her spiritual energy and it both enraptures him, and scares him. After some intense searching with a new henchman named Bing, and a lot of bad luck for our heroine, Charley is able to locate Vic, the woman from his dreams, and immediately falls in love with her and wants nothing more than to take her back to Christmasland to be his wife and a surrogate mother for his brood of vampire children. After several epic run-ins with Charley and Bing, Vic and Maggie are able to finally stop the monster in his tracks for good. When the dust settles on Charley’s reign of terror, Vic decides leave her small town to start a new life on the other side of the country, far away from her old one and prepare to destroy Christmasland with the help of a new friend, Lou Carmody, who helped capture Charley and save Vic from a fate far worse than death.

Ashley Cummings as Vic McQueen

Photo courtesy of AMC

But we all know monsters never really die, with the series finale setting everyone up for a return of something old and the creation of something new but every bit as evil and cruel as Manx himself. It’s a serious nail bitter right to the very end.

A unique story line, great visuals, lots of sweeping shots, and interesting but very human characters make NOS4A2 a great series to dive into on a weekend binge. The dialog can get a bit slow, and what few plot holes there are really hinder the pace of several of the episodes but overall, I definitely recommend the series for anyone with a taste for vampires and supernatural occurrences that are less super hero and more, well, Supernatural.

For information please visit the IMDB here

Offical Trailer can be seen here

Nos4A2 stars:

Ashleigh Cummings

Zachary Quinto

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Jahkara Smith