Customer Reviews

American Gothic - Complete Series [DVD]

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

American Gothic is a cult T.V show set in small town America and centers around Sheriff Buck and a boy called Caleb. At the start Sheriff Buck is purely a manifestation of evil with a malign influence over Caleb with Caleb's sister, his cousin and the local doctor trying to influence him the other way. The sheriff exerts complete power over the town by ensuring that everyone owes him something and he knows something shameful about everybody. However, as the series progresses it becomes much more morally ambiguous, and it is this ambiguity which makes it an exceptional show.

The cast is good - Gary Cole is amazing and terrifying as Sheriff Buck and the Caleb is played with a wonderful maturity for such a young actor.

However, emphasizing the comments of the last reviewer, THE EPISODES ARE NOT IN THE RIGHT ORDER! I did not realise this and watched the first few episodes which completely confused me. The network messed around with the airing of the show and Universal have released the episodes in broadcast order. A reviewer on amazon.com has listed the correct order and I have checked this against others and watched the DVD this way and it seems to make more sense. Unfortunately, this means changing the DVD you are playing for virtually every episode. On the plus side, universal seems to have sorted out the technical problems found on the American disks, mine have been good quality and haven't skipped. I am glad that this has (finally) been released for the U.K market but I wish that universal had bothered to do it properly.

In conclusion, this is undoubtedly worth buying. It is complex, absorbing and thought provoking. In short, an outstanding bit of T.V.

One of the greatest TV series ever made but be aware of correct viewing order!!

As you may know this great series git itself a bad name re the order in which the episodes were first shown on television. Indeed the chronological order of the series was not respected which made no sense to the story line and left viewers confused. As a result the show was cancelled leaving four episodes unaired but included in this DVD set.

These four episodes are included here on the DVD set but only at the end the series after the very final episode (`Requiem') whereas they should be shown earlier in the series. Not only are these four episodes not in chronological order but some of the other episodes too!

Universal, the distributor of the DVD set didn't bother to put the episodes back into proper viewing order and it's a shame! So here is a list of the order you should watch the episodes if you want to make sense of this series. It's a bit of a pain to juggle around with the discs but definitely worth it. Enjoy!

More info here: [...]

1-Pilot
2-A Tree Grows in Trinity
3-Eye of the Beholder
4-Damned If You Don't
5- Dead to the World
6- Potato Boy
7-Meet the Beetles
8-Strong Arm of the Law
9-To Hell and Back
10-The Beast Within
11-Rebirth
12-Ring of Fire
13-Resurrector
14-Inhumanitas
15-The Plague Sower
16-Doctor Death Takes a Holiday
17-Learning to Crawl
18-Echo of Your Last Goodbye
19-Strangler
20-Triangle
21-The Buck Stops Here
22-Requiem

I adore American Gothic. I watched it when it originally aired in the UK when I was 14, I was totally gripped. The look has dated of course but is entirely mid-90s. It's atmospheric, creepy, surreal and yet creates an entirely real world in it's own context.

Lucas Black is a great child actor, all the supporting roles are well cast. Of course the BEST thing is Gary Cole's portrayal of Sherrif Lucas Buck. Anyone else could have made the swaggering, evil character look a fool but he is the perfect balance of menacing and dramatic in Gary Cole's hands.

This series is dark, twisted and yet also entirely watchable. Don't hesitate check it out!!!

Ok, so once you've got passed the fact that the episodes are mostly in the wrong order....to anybody who has been waiting as long as I have to get my hands on this DVD, it became a minor gripe.
Everything about this series is absolutely spot on.After the pilot episode my girlfriend was completely gripped - no wonder it has developed a cult status. It is not really scary, in the same way that the X files isn't, but it's just freaky, dark and cool.

As the series progresses the storyline cleverly unfolds and you start to understand a little more about Trinity and it's strange occult goings on.

The fact that there is no 2nd series of American Gothic is criminal. Seriously underrated and under promoted....22 episodes of American Gothic for has got to be considered a steal! Even if you haven't ever heard of American Gothic before, take a chance and get a copy...you really won't regret it!

Watched this series originally shown here in the uk back in 1995/1996.
Could not make head nor tail of it and as I soon discovered why.
For some strange reason it was shown not in the order it was intented to be (DOH!)and four episodes were not shown at all !
Searched the web to see if it was released as a DVD series and found it right here on Amazon.
Bought it and done a little research to discover the correct viewing order and then watched the
whole series over three nights.
Wow! Absolutely brilliant, way ahead of its time and the lead role "Sheriff Lucas Buck" is amazingly played by Gary Cole. If you havent seen it before ... Get it now! You will not be dissapointed, however make sure you view in the correct sequence which is wrong on the box set but I will list the correct sequence below.

EPISODE ORDER
1-2-3-4-5-19-6-7-14-13-8-20-9-10-11-12-15-21-16-22-17-18

ENJOY..............

I agree with the other previews, the fact that the episodes are out of order is a slight annoyance. I suggest you find the correct episode order listing (easily found with a google) and although it then does involve quite a lot of disc swapping, it is well worth the effort. I loved it first time round, and it is still just as good.

Whereas the series itself is splendid, the DVD set is seriously let down by the completely random order of the episodes. I'm told that this is how it originally aired in the US, and was part of what contributed to the show's relative lack of initial success (outside of its 'cult' following). One would have thought then that someone would have had the common sense to place the episodes in the correct order before releasing the entire series on DVD. As it is an otherwise engrossing show which is by its very nature confusing at times, is rendered utterly incomprehensible in places by the complete lack of any logical or narrative order.

The 'ending' occurs in the middle of Disc 5. Characters we've seen leave the show reappear in episodes shown at the end instead of near the beginning where they belong, and plot as regards the relationships and interactions between all the primary characters leaps about like a kangaroo on amphetamines, leaving gaping holes in its wake, which you have to fill in yourself way down the line, when episodes which should already have shown, offering the explanation and development, randomly appear.

This would have had an absolute five stars were it not for the lazy and careless presentation which leaves the episodes so out of order.

„American Gothic – The Complete Series“(US Edition) produced by Sam Raimi.
Very intelligent and highly enjoyable 22 episode series set in Trinity, a small town in South Carolina, where Lucas Buck, literally the devil incarnate, keeps law & order and is eventually elected ‘Sheriff of the Year’.
(Quote: "I mean, I had a hand in certain... things. But everybody's got free will. I just give 'em enough rope to hang themselves." [Potato Boy]).
Before starting to watch this series make sure you read the customer reviews at Amazon.com where the correct order of episodes is published. For some unknown reason Universal Studios totally screwed up on that one.
If you like the hero and the villain of a story being the same person you may also want to watch “Profit – The Complete Series”.

This is brilliant. Cant believe 22 episodes are going this cheap!!
Really a must for horror movie fans who love the combo of religion and the supernatural. Caleb is a very good child actor and the sheriff epitomises evil but has the required level of charm to form an interesting character.

The sheriffs deputy is again a very likeable character, eventually.

They really should make a series 2, showing us how the characters have progressed.

My only complaint is that at times it can be a little seedy. But nontheless the story of the antichrist in Trinity, south carolina may leave you hooked!!

I remember watching this on C4 back in the 1990's, and it was great to revisit it. The main character Lucas Buck in particular is always fascinating to watch, and the young actor playing Caleb does a great job too. I also have a soft spot for the character of Selena and her warped relationship with Lucas was fun. It does a really good job of wrapping everything up in the final episode too so that when I was watching I just assumed that it was only ever meant to be a self-contained series. The final two episodes in particular are fabulous as you sit through the death of Lucas (I may have shed a tear on first viewing!) and then see Caleb become everything that his father is. In some ways he is even worse as he's like a child throwing a tantrum and hasn't learned to control himself in the way that his father has. The final confrontation between Lucas, Merlyn, and Caleb is just epic stuff and won't be forgotten in a hurry what with Lucas dangling his kid over the staircase banister and Caleb screaming

My one major gripe with these DVD's is the episodes are completely in the wrong order. I know that in America those four episodes were never aired, so they wanted to put them on a seperate disk and make a big deal about the DVD including four unaired episodes. But it makes it very annoying for the UK DVD's when C4 DID show the entire series in order. {But then I never understand why the US network wouldn't air an episode like Ring Of Fire as it's focused on building up the connetion between Lucas and the female lead, so you'd think they would have wanted to promote that episode at least??? Strange}

The DVD package sounded exciting when I first heard there would be extras, which I had never expected, but they're mostly nothing to get excited over frankly. The commentary is quite interesting in places, but it would have been nice to get interviews with the actors and more of a series overview. And *some* of the deleted scenes are entertaining, but to be honest with the "extended" scenes I couldn't really see anything different between them. That might just be me though!

So overall it's not what you'd call an outstanding package, but at the same time for a series made in the 1990's (where far too many shows have zero extras) it is nice to get some bonus material included. And of course the episodes are worth 5 stars by themselves. It's just a shame that you have to keep removing disks so much to watch them in order. It would also help if the episode number could at least be included on the episode listing with the DVD's, so you didn't have to keep revisiting internet references to remind yourself of the order in which to watch