Up first this week is a very cool Steelbook of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: Season One. Like most people I gave up on The Walking Dead before it officially ended. I always liked the Daryl Dixon character and the actor who played him, Norman Reedus, so I was curious to see what his spin-off show was going to be like. Daryl finds himself washed ashore in France to start the season and throughout the six episodes it does explain how he got there through flashbacks. It introduces new characters and a religious element I wasn’t expecting. Daryl finds himself involved with some nuns and a boy they believe will change the world. Of course there are bad guys with one woman being the leader because you need a human vs. human element. The early episodes felt very religious-y and I’m not sure how I feel about that. They do explain the boy character’s background and birth, but I’m not a religious person and in a world where the undead eat you, I doubt I’d be religious then either. Reedus does well with the character and the new setting/new characters tries to resurrect the franchise, but it honestly feels the same. The “heroes” of the franchise always seem to bring violence with them and that’s clear here too. The nuns were prepared, but hadn’t had to fight until The American shows up. Other survivors in Paris have to deal with the bad guys now too because of him. The end episode adds in a fan favorite who will definitely be part of the next season so I guess we shall see where that goes.
Sticking with horror, A Creature Was Stirring was an absolute headscratcher. The first 80-85% is fine, at least watchable, but then it goes off the rails and does not stick the landing. At first you think it’s a simple home invasion movie with Chrissy Metz, the mother of a daughter with issues, having to defend her home against two invaders. Then it starts playing out and the invaders are just people who were cold and Metz has a suspect past. Her daughter might turn into a monster or there’s a monster in the house, but then it takes a hard left and loses any momentum. I’m not sure if the ending even makes sense or at least it didn’t to me. Those expecting a Christmas themed horror flick will be royally disappointed. This one simply didn’t work for me.
Have you ever wondered why no one has ever made a movie about people talking while picking figs off a tree? Well I have a movie for you. It’s called Under the Fig Trees and pretentious people will love it and think there’s meaning to it. It’s a Tunisian film with people picked up in trucks to pick figs out of trees. They talk, flirt, the old people don’t like the young people, the young people don’t like the old people and the boss doesn’t like them taking breaks and doesn’t want to pay most of them. It’s literally a movie where people talk picking figs off trees. Film critic people will talk about how these are characters we don’t see in film and what all the talking and what not means and I don’t care. It’s a bunch of people I don’t care about talking while picking figs off trees. No thanks.
Fortunes of War is a lower budget World War II film and it suffers because of that. I have no issue with smaller productions, but one thing I loathe that most use is post-production muzzle flash, those flashes you see when a character is using a gun that was clearly added in post. Every shootout in the movie is full of them. It also has some continuity errors like the leader’s hair going from slicked back to falling to the side back to slicked back in one talking scene. The story is pretty standard, a group of commandos with two female French freedom fighters get caught in a fire fight and hide out in a barn. The Germans are on their tail, but a discovery in the barn could help buy their freedom if they can survive. Like the recently watched War Blade it isn’t afraid to kill off characters which is nice, but it’s also pretty forgettable. A bigger budget with bigger names would have helped especially if you are trying to bring light to the amount of black soldiers that fought in World War II which it snuck in at the end.
Last we have My Life as Inukai-san’s Dog – Complete Collection. If you look at that cover art you can tell it’s probably going to be a bit creepy and it is. It’s about a boy who is transformed into a dog owned by a teenage girl. Let your imagine run wild with that and whatever you are thinking is pretty close to what happens. You either want to watch something like that or you don’t. My biggest issue with it is that the characters are very one-dimensional. No one really seems to go beyond the stereotypes of teenaged life and the characters are flat because of it. I think the episodes could have been longer, but with fewer total episodes. It was a quick and easy binge, but more should have been developed. The animation works, but even in animation it’s still a bit icky to watch some of this.
The Nerds Templar 