Preacher (2016)

“Twin Peaks - Texas Style!”

Well the start of this one certainly feels like it. Courtesy of Sony Pictures, here comes the first season of PREACHER, an adaptation of writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon’s Vertigo comic book series of the same name.

Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) is the preacher in a small Texas town. He styles his hair similar to Jack Nance in ERASERHEAD (another Lynch connection?), and has a Dark and Mysterious past, which he shared with his ex girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga). She arrives back in his life about the same time an Irish vampire called Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) jumps 30 000 feet from an aeroplane and lands with a splat in a nearby field, pausing only to eat an inquisitive cow in order to reconstitute himself.

But it’s not just in Texas that odd things are happening. An African preacher, a priest of the Church of Satan, and Tom Cruise all explode, and before you can say “I beg your pardon?” Jesse has been possessed by the same extra-terrestrial force that did them in. He doesn’t explode, though. Instead it gives him the ability to control others by simply telling them what to do. This results in a chap cutting out his own heart and giving it to his mother (a bit of a mistake, that one,) and a local girl in a coma opening her eyes for the first time in months. And there are even bigger things planned for Jesse and his friends. 

PREACHER starts off really well. There are plenty of quirky characters with interesting back stories, some good acting (Jackie Earle Haley turns up as the evil boss behind the local ‘Meat and Power’ company) and everyone has obviously tried to hard to give this a graphic novel ‘look’. Unfortunately, it does all start to drag a bit after that, with far too much talking and not enough weird things happening. Still, it is early days and apparently the second season premiere is set for 2017, so it may well pick up (the original comic book runs to over 70 issues).

Sony’s three disc Blu-ray and DVD release contains all ten episodes, with deleted and extended scenes, a piece on the stunts and more information on the pilot episode. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a gag reel, and a couple of featurettes - ‘Chainsaw Fight Breakdown’ and “Behind the Killing Machine’ which were not provided for review. 

Preacher Season One is out from Sony on Blu-ray and DVD from Monday 17th October 2016