Constantine
Aug. 30th, 2025 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday I watched
City of Demons
and House of Mystery.
These are the first things I've watched that are not Doctor Who in... a while.
Checking the tags for films movies television here says the latest not Doctor Who thing was October 2023.
... possibly I need to vary my visual diet some. (though obviously you can vary your DW diet a lot just by watching slightly different DW.)
I read about these two animated movies when I looked up what Matt Ryan has been doing, because the voices. They're very different sorts of thing. Different ratings, and City of Demons is movie length where House of Mystery is a short.
Actually House of Mystery is four shorts but I see why they don't mention the others in the title because they are. Bad.
City of Demons is very anatomical and messy. Heaps of red brown goo everywhere. Lumpy bits.
It's actually a bit boring when that's the focus because that's not where the horror lives, that's just, like, paint.
There does manage to be quite a bit of horror too though, and a new to me take on The Newcastle Incident that is... considerably dark. Dragging a girl down to hell by accident, always plenty dark enough. Summoning a demon onto Earth to do a spot of murder for you? Well that's a Problem problem. The mass murder got a bit out of hand and then the girl got kidnapped. So this version of John is, you know, somewhat upset about the whole thing. But also this version of John was actively trying to hurt people when he summoned a demon, and is still the antihero protagonist.
I did not get the impression he was like this in Legends of Tomorrow, is what I'm saying, and do not recall these details from the comics. Not that I've read those for years.
It's weird because it has demons without temptation or mortal sin. They're just doing messy murder. There's a speech about how LA is all about selling your soul for fame but not a scene of it elsewise that is remotely like that. Basically Angel had a more nuanced and sophisticated setup. This one had, like, gore. In drawings.
I just don't feel that it's too much to ask that a story that has the elements 'John was in a band' and 'John brags about his accomplishments a lot' and 'LA is all about selling your soul for fame'
should put those together for a bit of a temptation thing, even in like 90 minutes.
And it would make the final price they all pay - to lose love and be forgotten - tie in with the action instead of just be its own thing.
It also opens at Ravenscar, continues through an attack of tiny John shaped demons that turn out to be his own subconscious, but then never visits the territory of being afraid of his own mind, or what he might do. He's just kind of blase when he's asked 'is this real' and says something like he gave up on asking that ages ago. And again, the Being Forgotten leaves him as the only one who remembers a bunch of stuff that happened. So he could end up doubting their reality? But. It is not that movie.
Okay, so now I'm rearranging the pieces in my head and... it's really easy?
... it actually feels like there's just one missing scene in the middle to make all the pieces pay?
... now it feels weird.
Like there's a demon that has a movie screen at his mansion and he's pushing people into it so they are In The Movies and obviously dying in horrible ways. But because this is a story where lots of things go splut rather than a story with, you know, hell contract type horror, they just... are voiceless spectacle of violence rather than people stepping over the edge into hell?
It's a movie that seems to think the main threat of demons is they like making people into ketchup.
Could therefore be better.
But it had enough good bits and certainly delivered the ketchup.
House of Mystery got a bit repetitive fast but I did quite like the ending.
I did not like the art. It did a weird thing where it went back and forth between drawing John like he was in City of Demons and drawing him all pointy chinned and the wrong colors? It was distracting.
The actual plot was John is trapped in the House of Mystery and everyone he loves keeps turning into demons and killing him over and over and over. The details of this bit I am sure would make more sense if I knew more relevant source, I didn't recognise everyone and haven't been reading where they're connected, but it made sense anyway. Very red and bitey. But he has in motion a Cunning Plan to break out. Of course. Which is where it all goes wronger for him, because good twists in the ending, a, it wasn't meant to be torture, just a dream, and the rest was his own absolute conviction about what he deserves at work, and b, it was meant to protect him. The ending leaves him screaming and begging not to have the actual consequences happen, and leaves it up to the viewer what could get him to react like that when he didn't seem bothered by all the preceeding. Pretty appropriate Cunning Plan though.
It adds up to an okay story but I do feel I have overpaid for Mystery and got my money's worth for City.
Only now I want to disassemble them for parts and do them properly in a more Legends compatible way, which is the problem with multiple canons, the good bits version is ... very distributed.
ETA: Having gone on wiki and read a bunch of plot summaries for animated stuff
House of Mystery now makes more specific sense
it is bridging two particular Justice League Dark movies
and I have no desire to actually watch that Justice League Dark stuff
because it reads like a super epic crossover
like everyone has a minute for their bit of the story
and you need to know all about them already before you can keep up
but these Dark people are reboots away from anything I've read.
Also it read like Constantine destroys+reboots the multiverse there?
Which is a lot.
The more I read the more I think it is a mistake to make him Iconic in a sliding timeline, he gets stuck at the Fuck Around phase of his life when rather a lot of the point happened in Find Out.
It's like they think the grimdark is power, not tragedy.
So there's more I could be watching but at the moment I do not think I shall.
City of Demons
and House of Mystery.
These are the first things I've watched that are not Doctor Who in... a while.
Checking the tags for films movies television here says the latest not Doctor Who thing was October 2023.
... possibly I need to vary my visual diet some. (though obviously you can vary your DW diet a lot just by watching slightly different DW.)
I read about these two animated movies when I looked up what Matt Ryan has been doing, because the voices. They're very different sorts of thing. Different ratings, and City of Demons is movie length where House of Mystery is a short.
Actually House of Mystery is four shorts but I see why they don't mention the others in the title because they are. Bad.
City of Demons is very anatomical and messy. Heaps of red brown goo everywhere. Lumpy bits.
It's actually a bit boring when that's the focus because that's not where the horror lives, that's just, like, paint.
There does manage to be quite a bit of horror too though, and a new to me take on The Newcastle Incident that is... considerably dark. Dragging a girl down to hell by accident, always plenty dark enough. Summoning a demon onto Earth to do a spot of murder for you? Well that's a Problem problem. The mass murder got a bit out of hand and then the girl got kidnapped. So this version of John is, you know, somewhat upset about the whole thing. But also this version of John was actively trying to hurt people when he summoned a demon, and is still the antihero protagonist.
I did not get the impression he was like this in Legends of Tomorrow, is what I'm saying, and do not recall these details from the comics. Not that I've read those for years.
It's weird because it has demons without temptation or mortal sin. They're just doing messy murder. There's a speech about how LA is all about selling your soul for fame but not a scene of it elsewise that is remotely like that. Basically Angel had a more nuanced and sophisticated setup. This one had, like, gore. In drawings.
I just don't feel that it's too much to ask that a story that has the elements 'John was in a band' and 'John brags about his accomplishments a lot' and 'LA is all about selling your soul for fame'
should put those together for a bit of a temptation thing, even in like 90 minutes.
And it would make the final price they all pay - to lose love and be forgotten - tie in with the action instead of just be its own thing.
It also opens at Ravenscar, continues through an attack of tiny John shaped demons that turn out to be his own subconscious, but then never visits the territory of being afraid of his own mind, or what he might do. He's just kind of blase when he's asked 'is this real' and says something like he gave up on asking that ages ago. And again, the Being Forgotten leaves him as the only one who remembers a bunch of stuff that happened. So he could end up doubting their reality? But. It is not that movie.
Okay, so now I'm rearranging the pieces in my head and... it's really easy?
... it actually feels like there's just one missing scene in the middle to make all the pieces pay?
... now it feels weird.
Like there's a demon that has a movie screen at his mansion and he's pushing people into it so they are In The Movies and obviously dying in horrible ways. But because this is a story where lots of things go splut rather than a story with, you know, hell contract type horror, they just... are voiceless spectacle of violence rather than people stepping over the edge into hell?
It's a movie that seems to think the main threat of demons is they like making people into ketchup.
Could therefore be better.
But it had enough good bits and certainly delivered the ketchup.
House of Mystery got a bit repetitive fast but I did quite like the ending.
I did not like the art. It did a weird thing where it went back and forth between drawing John like he was in City of Demons and drawing him all pointy chinned and the wrong colors? It was distracting.
The actual plot was John is trapped in the House of Mystery and everyone he loves keeps turning into demons and killing him over and over and over. The details of this bit I am sure would make more sense if I knew more relevant source, I didn't recognise everyone and haven't been reading where they're connected, but it made sense anyway. Very red and bitey. But he has in motion a Cunning Plan to break out. Of course. Which is where it all goes wronger for him, because good twists in the ending, a, it wasn't meant to be torture, just a dream, and the rest was his own absolute conviction about what he deserves at work, and b, it was meant to protect him. The ending leaves him screaming and begging not to have the actual consequences happen, and leaves it up to the viewer what could get him to react like that when he didn't seem bothered by all the preceeding. Pretty appropriate Cunning Plan though.
It adds up to an okay story but I do feel I have overpaid for Mystery and got my money's worth for City.
Only now I want to disassemble them for parts and do them properly in a more Legends compatible way, which is the problem with multiple canons, the good bits version is ... very distributed.
ETA: Having gone on wiki and read a bunch of plot summaries for animated stuff
House of Mystery now makes more specific sense
it is bridging two particular Justice League Dark movies
and I have no desire to actually watch that Justice League Dark stuff
because it reads like a super epic crossover
like everyone has a minute for their bit of the story
and you need to know all about them already before you can keep up
but these Dark people are reboots away from anything I've read.
Also it read like Constantine destroys+reboots the multiverse there?
Which is a lot.
The more I read the more I think it is a mistake to make him Iconic in a sliding timeline, he gets stuck at the Fuck Around phase of his life when rather a lot of the point happened in Find Out.
It's like they think the grimdark is power, not tragedy.
So there's more I could be watching but at the moment I do not think I shall.