TV Series Review - Harper's Island

Over the past 12 or 13 weeks my family and I have been sucked into this show called "Harper's Island" which just wrapped up this past weekend.

It's about what looks to be the picture perfect wedding, being held in a large stately manor on a secluded island.  The bride and groom are the quintessential soon-to-be newlyweds, and you have an assortment of colorful, sometimes a little weird, supporting characters.

However, we soon learn that every week someone will die at the hands of a mysterious murderer.  "One by One" the opening credits tell us, and that's pretty much how it goes for the first 1/2 of the season.

I was pretty impressed with this show - it had all the aspects of a classic "whodunit" and in the end the one I thought did it, didn't.

The season finale had the feel of a modern horror movie, despite the fact that it was on TV.  They even turned up the gore factor a little for the 2 hour show.

As I said, the story revolved around a couple that was soon to be married, however guests start to disappear and at first no one suspects anything.  Soon however, miscellaneous body parts show up and it isn't until the bride's father is killed in a most gruesome (and wicked) way that they begin to realize something is wrong.

There are the usual plot twists, as with any show of this nature, and many questions, most of which get answered at the end.

I think the best part for me though was watching my family's reaction to the finale.  After all, we started out with 25 in the wedding party, and only 4 survived.  So as you can imagine, everyone had their own idea of who the killer was, as well as who would live.

And really, I think the producers did a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat and guessing who the second murderer was (yes there was 2).

You see, we kinda knew early on that this character John Wakefield, who was responsible for a murder spree a few years ago on this very island, was somehow involved.  And we did find out that he was alive even though the town sheriff said he killed him, but we also learned later on that Wakefield was more of an accomplice and in fact someone in the wedding party was the real killer.

The murders were brutal, but many left more to the imagination than actually showing you the gore (and to me that just makes it worse, when you can hear, but not see what happened).

There were many great moments in the show, such as when the bride realized, just before she was killed, who the real murderer was, or when the flirt, Chloe, committed suicide after her fiance Cal had been killed, rather than having Wakefield kill her.  Or when the first suspect, the groom's brother, ends up a victim and you go "OK so who else could it be?"

I did a search and found the whole season on various torrent sites, so I'd suggest downloading it or watching it on the CBS website.  But if you are horror-adverse, I'd suggest watching them earlier in the day, or watching only 1 or 2 at a time.  But I highly recommend you do watch them.  A great series.