The BBC certainly love their holiday horror as last year we had the incredible Dracula series and this year we bring you our Black Narcissus series review.
Black Narcissus is a haunting love story that follows Sister Clodagh and the other nuns at St Faiths. … However, the abandoned palace holds dark secrets, and soon Sister Clodagh finds herself attracted to a handsome land agent called Mr Dean
When approaching a remake many throw caution to the wind, forget the source material and create their own thing.
Remaking a classic British movie and turning into a mini-series is almost begging to be panned before it has even aired, however, I went in with an open mind.
Having not read the previous novel or seen the feature film on which the novel is based and still, I was a little disappointed.
Whilst this Himalayan horror isn’t a terrible series it can never match its original counterpart and does very little to make it stand out in any one given department.
Our story follows Gemma Arterton who plays Sister Clodagh, the Sister Superior who has taken her missionary nuns to the heights of the Himalayas to teach the local children and educate young women villagers in the art of needlework.
The convent is abandoned high in the mountains with a colourful past.
Once a harem and even empty there lies a dark spirit shrouding the convent in a dark and mysterious past.
With superstition, challenging religious norms and with a little eeriness here and there Black Narcissus does just enough to keep me watching until the finale of the first episode.
Gemma Arterton always seems to play the same character in every film or show she’s in.
This good and proper English rose and her acting range never seems to expand outside of that.
Even in the rather engrossing The Girl With All the Gifts holding an assault rifle walking around a dystopian world I still couldn’t shake off that typecast character that she is notorious for.
With such practise as the same character, her performance was naturally a great one if albeit one dimension despite this convent affecting each nun in different ways.
One is seeing and experiencing things and her mood is changing, Sister Clodagh (Arterton) keeps having flashbacks to an old flame and her old life in a more risqué way keeping in-line with the convents risqué past as she experiences more cheeky thoughts.
The first episode is a slow burn indeed but cinematography landscape of the mountains and a solid Gemma Arterton performance keeps me intrigued at the very least.
With various people moving into the convent before the nuns all leaving to never return the locals are adamant of the dark forces that lie within the building.
It’s only a matter of time before they feel the nuns will go the same way.
The introduction of the episode shows a lady (the former harem general’s sister) falling to her death from the bell tower of the convent, it’s entirely possible that this foreshadowing could affect one of our susceptible nuns.
After only one episode the series feels predictable.
Over reliant on foreshadowing and one dimension in its story-telling I’m not particularly looking forward to the next two episodes but as far as grabbing my attention I’m already debating flicking over to another channel.
Black Narcissus Episode 2 Review
Episode 2 starts off as the first one began.
Lethargic and verging on the borderlines of pointlessness.
The nuns are one by one losing their minds but even this isn’t depicted in any noteworthy manner.
One nun can suddenly see flowers everywhere in her mind, Sister Ruth is getting a little angrier and tetchy than usual and just as in the first episode Sister Clodagh is having naughty nun thoughts.
Just to make sure that we didn’t miss any of the flashback scenes that were thrown in our face numerous times during the opening episode we see Sister Clodagh getting an eyeful of Mr.Dean after a passionate encounter with a local.
Weird awkward stares throughout, a nun resisting temptation and beads of sweat pouring off that bald little nun head as Mr Dean is working up quite the appetite with our holy series lead.
More flashbacks and more narrative lead to a boring conclusion.
The whole show is set on the edge of a cliff and they can’t even get a cliffhanger correct to end the episode as Sister Ruth steals a horse into the forest.
Who cares?!
This is certainly the reaction I had knowing nothing about the previous novel or movie but after doing a little research on the story itself, maybe, just maybe, the third episode has one hell of a finale to offer!
Black Narcissus Episode 3 Review
The very simple story of two nuns swooning over a man and giving into their individual desires in a spooky location comes to a conclusion this evening as the anticipation for this grand finale was extinguished within minutes.
Back to the slow and laborious narrative that goes absolutely nowhere, it tries to peak but then dies almost immediately.
Every single scene was just dragging and I can’t quite believe how this managed to get one episode, let alone three commissioned.
I was absolutely over the moon when Sister Ruth took her dirt nap as I knew we were ever so close to our conclusion.
Dull, drab and boring Black Narcissus has been labelled as by the Great British Public and we wholeheartedly agree.
Black Narcissus Series Review by Sean Evans
Our Rating
Summary
If you’re making a short 3 episode series the opening episode is meant to drag you in, keep you hooked and have you jumping for the ‘next episode’ button or eagerly awaiting the next broadcast date.
Sadly, Black Narcissus brings me in ever so slightly and then kicks me to the curb rather abruptly with nothing of substance urging me to tune in for more of this drab episode with just a hint of creepiness thrown in for good measure.
