Tales of the Walking Dead is a six episode spinoff of The Walking Dead. It takes place within the same universe, but in different parts of the country. Like all anthology stories, some are better than others and the first episode is actually the best. Terry Crews stars with Olivia Munn as a prepper who is surviving the zombie apocalypse pretty easily until his dog dies. He decides to find another prepper he was communicating with and along the way meets Munn’s character. It’s a solid episode and Crews is great. The second episode involves a time loop with Parker Posey and Jillian Bell and is very un-Walking Dead like. It’s early on when most people are still living their daily lives. I’ve always liked Posey in these stuck-up type characters. Episode 3 involves a steamboat and is more similar to what we expect in the universe with humans butting heads and looking out for themselves. Episode 4 stars Anthony Edwards as a scientist tracking and watching the walkers and is living among them until a woman gets involved. Episode 5 involves a sort of cultish small town with everyone living lives from decades past. It’s another episode that sort of feels out of place. Episode 6 involves a couple who kill a woman for her house, but her spirit haunts them. If you are familiar with the books the show is based on you’ll like it, but I’m not sure how diehard fans of the shows feel about it since some of the stories are drastically out of tone with the Walking Dead TV universe.
Second we have The Tank. Because of its name when I first got this I thought it was a military movie, but it’s actually a creature feature. A man learns his mother has passed and left him a sort of cabin in the woods he knew nothing about. Along with his wife and daughter they go check it out. It’s been abandoned for decades so they start opening it up and he discovers a giant tank in the ground. It supplies water and he gets it operational. Of course this releases the creatures and it turns into a decent creature feature. The practical effects for the creatures were solid and the story is quick and jumps right in. It won’t wow too many people, but as someone who grew up on practical effects I respect the creature design. There are some errors in it that bother me, it takes place in the late 1970s and one pet store customer says her pets names are Rocky and Mr. T. Yes Rocky had technically come out by the time the film takes place, but Mr. T wasn’t famous yet and their movie came out like five years later. But other than than, for a small film I knew nothing about it’s at least a watchable horror/creature feature.
Last we have Battle Kaiju Series 01: Ultraman vs. Red King from Mill Creek Entertainment. Mill Creek has been putting out fun Ultraman releases for years now and this is a collection of Red King episodes of Ultraman throughout the franchise’s run going back to the beginning all the way until 2019. You get multiple versions of the Red King, animated, controlled by a teenaged girl and more. It’s a cool collection of one monster versus different Ultramen over the decades. The packaging is fantastic with a sweet slipcover of comic art plus it includes a booklet inside. I can see this collection continuing in the future with other specific monsters getting their own releases. If you have been collecting the Ultraman releases you probably have all the episodes, but the slipcover is worth the price alone.
The Nerds Templar 