1 out of 5

Created by: Graham Reznick

Dumb and disappointing.

The “this music can kill you if you listen to it” premise has been floated through horror before; to link it to vinyl culture – essentially the premise of Deadwax, with rare record hunter Etta (Hannah Gross) seeking out the holy grail of rarities, reputed to have captured its masterer’s dying breaths as he completed it – is admittedly a quirky idea, and Graham Reznick’s slick presentation of that in the first mini-sode of the eight forming this show is enough to suggest that the idea might be made fresh once again.

Etta’s quest immediately crosses over with two detectives’ investigation of a mummified corpse, discovered… with headphones on, and listening to some mysterious vinyl.  One of those detectives, played by Evan Gamble, is grossed out by the corpse, but still puts on the headphones that were just on the mummy’s head.  This is a blip early on that suggests how loosely Reznick plans on playing with sense hereon out.

…Things proceed along general horror lines that you’ll expect, and I did appreciate that Deadwax was not used as a name-dropping showcase for bands.  On the other hand, a second blip in that first episode is Etta’s speech about needing to hear this mystical record just because it exists; I do think a lot of music and film fans will get the gist, but the dialogue in and of itself is incredibly unconvincing.  It doesn’t help that Gross took her script cue of ‘disconnected’ and translated it into the most mute and uninteresting personalization for Etta; thus: her passion isn’t one bit evident, and since that’s supposed to be driving the plot…

Starting episode two, her unconvincingness extends to how she reacts to Gamble, who has been obviously affected by his listento the record: that is, she doesn’t react at all.  And I get that Deadwax is a low-budget affair, but the effect Reznick chooses to employ to show this evil vinyl affectation is as blase as Gross’ lack of reaction.

The bad scripting decisions and moot dialogue stack up thereafter.  Ted Raimi drops in for one of the show’s few bright spots, and a single episode does a flashback that finally displays some of the vinyl passion that show should’ve been supporting, but it’s such a non-starter in its necessity to the rest of the show that it’s hard to care.  It also includes some goofier “creepy” elements that suggest a different tone for things – something shlockier – that’s not present at all elsewhere.

Uh huh.