On ‘Harper’s Island,’ TV gore travels to a new place

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Sometimes a television show is just a television show, and sometimes it’s a canary. A slashed-open, set-on-fire and hung-upside-down-to-die canary.

The 13-episode “Harper’s Island,” which premieres on CBS Thursday at 10 p.m., has billed itself as a television event. And it is: network television’s first attempt at a by-the-book splatterfest. Agatha Christie, meet “Saw” for its final-moments-of-torture-porn screams, dripping viscera and blade-meets-living-flesh sound effects. Between the beheadings, bisections, eviscerations, live burnings and hangings, the traditional gore boundaries of network TV are lost amid the blood trails and body count. If only they could have figured out how to do it in 3-D. It may be shocking, but it isn’t surprising. The popularity of the “Saw” franchise spawned the “Hostel” franchise and dragged from the grave slasher classics including “Friday the 13th,” “The Last House on the Left” and “Halloween.” Who wouldn’t want a piece of that audience action?

(Photo courtesy CBS)

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