Gore in the hood: 'Banshee' keen on sex and violence

30 January 2015 - 02:20 By Yolisa Mkele
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HIT COUPLE: Antony Starr and Ivana Milicevic in 'Banshee'
HIT COUPLE: Antony Starr and Ivana Milicevic in 'Banshee'

Banshee is every red-blooded male's fantasy - gratuitous violence, bare breasts and a wild west approach to justice.

You would think only teenage boys would find it entertaining but its increasing popularity, despite the lack of a coherent plot, proves otherwise.

Set in the fictional US town of Banshee, it revolves around the endless trials of a former diamond thief (Anthony Starr) who assumes the identity of the town's dead sheriff, Lucas Hood.

Strangely, this small town seems to have an unusually large ratio of combat-trained psychopaths, and no one seems overly interested in querying Hood's qualifications.

But Hood's proficiency with violence will make you gloss over these issues. No villain is too strong or skilled to best this moderately built man in one-on-one combat.

In the first season Hood finds himself in jail being tortured by an albino who looks like a slab of malevolent granite. In the inevitable confrontation he resorts to castrating his assailant, gouging out his eyes and ramming a 20-plus kilogram weight into his neck to kill him.

It's not only Hood who is comfortable with a spot of blood lust. His on-off love interest, Anastasia (Ivana Milicevic), the estranged daughter of a Ukrainian mob boss, has a titanic struggle with one of her father's henchmen. She eventually drives a splintered wooden plank through his neck but not before wrecking a cabin and sustaining near-fatal injuries.

Prior to Banshee, the series adaptation of Spartacus achieved cult status for similarly ferocious blood orgies, and the violence in Game of Thrones continues to titillate. But Banshee cannot use historical setting or a plot as a justification for violence. Instead it draws comfort from the notion that violence is the only answer.

  • Season 2 of 'Banshee' will air on DStv 102 on February 14
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