Streaming: HEMLOCK GROVE is back -- with, yes, more vamping but a new & interesting character

Last year TrustMovies managed to get through all of HEMLOCK GROVE, the less-publicized-because-much-less-good Netflix series featuring vampires and werewolves. But it took him practically a full six months because the show is such a time-waster. After a couple of episodes, he'd give up on it and only go back when he really needed a dumb horror fix.

This year the series is back, with at least one new and interesting character in the person of Madeline Brewer, shown above, who plays a young woman who get into a very suspicious auto accident and therefore must remain in Hemlock Grove for a time. Nicole Boivin (below), who plays the large, disfigured daughter, Shelley, also appears to be coming into her own this season, which is all to the good.

Still the show continues its love of vamping (marking time -- lots of time -- while holding back any real plot thrust) so that it will again take us all season to learn what a well-written, intelligent series (no matter what the subject) would hand us within a hour or two. The cast -- especially Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott and Bill Skarsgård, along with the new Ms Brewer is probably what keeps me watching. But I've already, after just four episodes, lost enough interest not to go back for awhile. Until I need that fix again.  Talk about a real guilty pleasure: This one has got to be among the guiltiest.

Hemlock Grove, which this season offers a cult of particularly nasty masked serial killers of women and children (one of those killers is shown above) is available only via Netflix streaming. Proceed at your own risk.