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“In a few seconds, we will have the worst medical disaster in modern history on our hands.” --The correct quote from the closing minute of Riget II that I foolishly attempted to cite from memory at the end of my last Chapter Two.

For this week’s Halloween-ish column, I kick off the hullabaloo with an opening that’s part trick/part treat. I couldn’t decide between the two beginning sentences below and have opted to stick them both up top. This may make the body of my column a lot less quotable than it normally is, but that is a risk worth taking:

Opening sentence No. 1: The obvious question to ask, in hindsight, would be: why didn’t I simply call a cab on one of these occasions?

Opening sentence No. 2: You, as a devoted cinephiliac and proud Chapter Two reader, may believe you have seen everything, but if you have not yet allowed your ocular companions to feast upon the vision of Udo Kier’s head (full–sized) emerging from a vagina (regular-sized), as it does in the closing shot of the first Riget series, then friend, there are still more cinematic wonders on this earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Riget II, the 1997 continuation of Lars Von Trier’s 1994 limited-run (four episodes) series for Danish television, likely marks the end of the line for what was planned to be a three-part, 13 episode miniseries. Between 1998 and 2000, three actors - including two of the leads - passed away, all due to natural causes. This may strike some as an eerie omen, fitting for a show that cheekily and with deadpan gusto delved into such thorny topics as voodoo possession, demon seed, devil worshipping, and the relative intellectual merits of the Swedes vs. their Scandinavian neighbors, the Danes. And did so almost entirely within the confines of a hospital and the generic marker of a hospital show-cum-soap opera.

I came a little late to the party for The Kingdom (the English translation of Riget, which also inspired and informed Stephen King’s 2004 adaptation for American audiences). I had the chance to view the first four episodes when they played theaters here in the U.S as a “feature film” in 1995, but passed on spending 271 minutes in the theater when I was only familiar with Von Trier from his feature film Zentropa. (Breaking the Waves had not yet come out at this time.)

So it wasn’t until the summer of 1996, when I balanced viewings of the Summer Olympics with first-time screenings of Alien and Nashville, among others, that I plunged into Von Trier’s vision of hell, smack dab in the midst of what is supposed to be the pinnacle of technological, bureaucratic and medical efficiency. Spooked and incredulous in equal measures, I was also hooked by the insane cliffhanger of the fourth episode and attempted to calm myself with the knowledge that - supposedly - a second installment was on its way.

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