Todd And The Book Of Pure Evil Season 1

 

They have been running episodes of Todd And The Book Of Pure Evil on Comcast's On Demand. Here in the US episodes are running on FearNet which is an online place and a cable channel. The latter is partially owned by Comcast. The show is produced in Canada, in fact it's being filmed in my old home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Todd is a stoner high school student in the fictional town of Crowley. The only high school is Crowley High School and most of the show is shot there. He's seems to have one good friend, chubby one-armed Curtis, and the two of them are pretty much interested in getting baked and listening to metal. At least until Todd has his first encounter with the Book of Pure Evil. It turns him into a monster guitar player, a metal god with powers to shred your soul and make blood drip out of your eyes. There's a lot of metal in the show and a lot of blood. I found the metal music more entertaining than most I've heard. It's just short bursts so don't worry too much. Todd battles the school's other good guitar player in the cafeteria during lunch and he beats that guy so badly that blood pours out of the kid's ass. Besides blood, there are a lot of liquids on the show, mostly coming out of one body part or another. The effects are pretty good for the most part and they're fairly ambitious. The effects even get better as the season goes along. That's a giant fat monster below. It's made when a really fat girl finds the book. While she showers, sorry no nudity, her fat falls off and disappears down the drain. Ewwwww! She looks nice now. Of course there's a price to pay and her fat returns and plumps up anyone who touches it. Soon the school is filled with fatty fatty boom batties. The ex-fat gril sacrifices herself by diving into a big deep fat frier. All that is left is her boots sticking up out of the sizzling oil. Damn, that's harsh.

  

Todd is played by Alex House. That's him with the book. The redhead in the blue shirt is Curtis, played by Bill Turnbull. The redheaded girl is Melanie Leishman and she plays Hannah. Maggie Castle plays Jenny and Chris Leavins plays the school guidance councilor. Jenny is the girl that Todd has a crush on. She's way out of his league and she's wrapped up in the disappearance of her father. He went missing a year ago. She knows her father had something to do with the book, she has a picture of him holding it. When she sees that the book has become Todd's guitar she gets tries to get it from him but fails. She teams up with Curtis to stop Todd playing and they save the school. Curtis lights the book on fire to destroy it but the sneaky tome of evil just flies away. Don't worry, it will be back. It's in the title after all and sure enough in the 2nd episode Hannah, the geeky science girl, uses it to create a homunculus for a science project. Of course the book turns that little critter in a killing machine driven by Hannah's subconscious. That's a much better science project than the whorish cheerleader's baking soda volcano. The school guidance councilor is a Satanist who's under the thumb of his evil overlords. They want him to get the Book of Pure Evil and bring it to them. He's got a different idea and plans to keep the book so he can get some vengeance on the leader of the cult.  

 

Each week the book falls into the hand of another sad student. They find just the right page in the book that gives 'em what they want. Of course they get the worst possible version of that when it plays out. When a girl summons her favorite band from the dead they come back as zombies and eat her parents. She saves herself, temporarily, by luring male students home and feeding them to the zombies. A bullied gay student wishes everyone was gay but the book makes him straight and he's killed for that. That book is a bitch, huh. I'd fuckin' run away if it came near me. Sadly the kids in Crowley High haven't seen the show they're in and they start chanting those evil spells. The school bully has a tiny penis and Curtis puts a picture of it on the Internet to shame him. The bully gets the book and wishes for a big penis. He gets a really big cock, yards long, with a mouth filled with lots of sharp teeth. Talks and kills. Todd has to cut it off with a blade from a paper cutter. Ouch, huh. It would be best to stay away from that book, yet people fall for it's charms every week for 13 weeks. Season 1 is running on On Demand right now and season two is just starting. It's already played on the Canadian Space network and you can see it on FearNet. The show has a lot of swearing, rude gags and gore. There are also those afore mentioned bodily fluids and other bits of goo. It certainly wouldn't be something that my mom would like. Horror fans are finding it funny. It scores a 8.3 on the IMDb and it's pretty much deserved. The writing is good and there's plenty of references to pop culture. I liked the characters for the most part and the actors playing them do a good job. I nearly missed mentioning Jason Mewes. He plays the janitor who has to clean up the blood, he has a blood mop and a puke mop, and when he's not knocking back his custodial duties, he's knocking boots with some of the teachers. Todd often comes to him for advice and often it's good advice. Mewes is OK and he's just one of many good extras and secondary characters. I thought the show was well worth seeing but not everyone will take to it.