So who's next for the chop?

Nelson Mail TV reviewer Victoria Guild is intrigued as wedding guests get picked off one by one.

It's touted as a murder-mystery, but Harper's Island smacks more of horror than an old-fashioned whodunnit.

Abby's heading back to the island where she grew up for the wedding of her best friend, Henry. It's the first time she's been back since her mother was murdered, along with five others, seven years earlier.

It appears the killing is not over, as people in the wedding group keep getting slaughtered and we've got to try to work out who the killer is.

The scene was set with a sweeping aerial view of a lighthouse on the peninsula of a remote island, which is a bit cliched, but then horror movies are full of cliches, and this show, despite being in 13 parts, has a movie feel.

The music is spooky and there are lots of unexplained rustles in the bushes and camera angles that look like you're peeking through the killer's eyes.

One less subtle camera angle was of the guy tied to the propeller of the boat they were all travelling on to the island. Some cousin or other was running a bit late so they decided to leave without him, but he was actually already there, just in no position to join the party.

Thinking up new and inventive ways of knocking people off in horrors must be a great deal of fun, and this guy had scuba gear to help him breathe while he waited for the engine to fire up and, well, sharp blades and heads don't often mix well.

Of course, no horror is complete without the goofy guy who has all the funny lines.

In this show it's Uncle Marty, who showed up with a Mariachi band and is an obvious source of dislike for the bride's father.

Uncle Marty, fabulously played by Harry Hamlin, has a few issues - evidenced by his quick snort of some white powder and a glimpse of a large pile of money in his luggage.

He's 50, unmarried, has no kids and dances with girls half his age. He also discovered that the bride's father had paid an ex-flame of hers to turn up and try to spoil the wedding and gave him a friendly little warning about how protective he felt over his nephew.

His prospects as the killer were quickly extinguished though when he became the first one on the island to get the chop literally.

And there are already so many suspects. There are former boyfriends, badly behaved brothers, angry locals and a taxi driver with an eye patch. There's also the guy who momentarily tried to drown his girlfriend after she played a trick on him, when only minutes before he was about to propose to her.

But the freakiest of all is the niece of the bride. This little darling, Maddison, likes to direct sunlight through magnifying lenses on to insects to burn them. Or to stand in her parents' room staring at them while they're asleep. Spooky.

So where does it go from here? Well, Uncle Marty and whatever relative was under the boat are dead, but the rest of the party is yet to discover that.

The bride's father wants to break up the wedding because Henry's not good enough for his daughter. Henry and Abby obviously have feelings which extend beyond best friendship although they haven't acknowledged that yet.

Abby still has feelings for her fisherman ex-boyfriend, who she left behind when she left the island. She also has daddy issues which are as yet unexplained. And why did Uncle Marty have all that money in his luggage?

The fun part of this kind of genre is guessing whose neck is next on the block and who is going to be the last left standing. I'm picking it'll be Abby and the fisherman who make it off the island alive but I wasn't expecting Uncle Marty to cop it in the first episode so I'm no judge.

But I'm sure there'll be plenty of frights along the way.

ONE TO WATCH: If you've ever considered a career in drug smuggling then I suggest you watch Banged Up Abroad (Friday nights, National Geographic channel) even if you have to go to a mate's place who has Sky. Some of the stories are kidnappings, but most are people caught smuggling drugs and imprisoned in third-world hell holes. Either way, they are amazing stories of survival amid horrific conditions. Tonight's story has a 19-year-old guy nabbed in Kuwait, tortured and stuck in prison as Saddam Hussein invades the country.

- © Fairfax NZ News