30 Coins transitions between intrigue to draggy to campy in just eight episodes
 |
| An original script that loses its way by the end of the first season. (Image courtesy of Power of Pop) If there ever was a horror series that could be equated to a Pokémon, this would be it. 30 Coins is a Spanish horror series from HBO Europe that was created, written and directed by Alex de la Iglesia. It features a stellar cast of talents including Eduard Fernandez, Miguel Angel Silvestre, Megan Montaner, Macarena Gomez, Pepon Nieto and Manolo Solo. 30 Coins, or 30 Monedas tells the story of Father Miguel Vergara, an exorcist, ex-con priest that was stationed in Pedraza, a sleepy little town somewhere in Spain. The first episode lays the foundation for the series moving forward, although it was probably written as a standalone episode seeing as there were only small mentions of the antagonists from the pilot peppered throughout the series. Two other notable characters that carry the story towards the end is local veterinarian Elena and town Mayor Paco.  The main storyline of the series revolves around a coin belonging to Father Miguel which is part of the 30 coins (thus the main title) given to Judas Iscariot by the Romans for betraying Jesus Christ. These coins are part of a larger conspiracy theory involving the Holy See which is believed to be the most powerful religious artefact on earth. With the powers of the 30 Coins, a secret sect in the Holy See could overthrow the Catholic church and take over the Papal seat of power at the Vatican. To be honest, the storyline itself and how it's explained is very confusing, but you kind of get the gist of it. In a nutshell, Father Miguel has a coin. The bad guys imbedded in the Vatican want it so they can take over the Papal seat. There's a long explanation spanning several episodes on why the 30 pieces of silver is powerful. Apparently, before Jesus was crucified, he told Judas to betray him to the Romans. If Judas hadn't done that, he wouldn't be crucified as a martyr, thus he wouldn't have been resurrected etcetera etcetera. There's also a bit about the secret sect desiring any artefacts that have hurt Jesus (the Spear of Longinus, the Crown of Thorns, the nails) because whatever item hurt Jesus during the crucifixion is powerful, and thus the coins are powerful because it started the whole mess something something, I can't remember.  The show gets draggy very early on. Don't get me wrong, there are some choice scenes and episodes, but overall the series transitions between intriguing to draggy to campy very quickly. It's like a Pokémon with three forms of evolution. First you get the starter and it's all cute and intriguing and you wonder what it'll evolve to, then as you painstakingly keep going, it transforms into a slow-burn version of itself which then eventually transforms into something that totally doesn't make sense and you're stuck wondering why you chose it in the first place.  The storyline gets convoluted at some points and by the third episode you're just forcing yourself to stay awake for the sake of watching it and doing a review about it. The shots, budget and acting were pretty well done as were the special effects for the magic and the monsters, but other than that, there's very little to keep you entertained. What we liked, which were few, is the fact that they wrote Father Miguel to be a an unorthodox priest. He's an ex-con, a champion boxer, has experience with firearms and is somewhat bleak and pessimistic. The other characters were fleshed out well and we had no issues with any of them. The only issues we had were that there were a lot of uninteresting parts in the series, but do watch this yourself. You might enjoy it. All in all, Asian Does Horror gives 30 Coins 👻👻 out of five ghost emojis. |
Comments
Post a Comment