The Cellar (Directed by Jeremy Bates, author of notorious "NoEndHouse")

"Chief, our movie isn't very scary..." "No prob, noob. Just jam in some black goats, sit back and watch 'em numbers grow!"

The movie starts with a not-very-original proposal of a haunted house with a creepy basement, then it presents us the typical American dream family with a "rebel" teenage daughter, Billy Ellish style, that disappears in that basement.

 The movie then switches perspective to the mother who will try to unveil this great mystery that turns out to be an esoteric mish-mash, handling suspense very poorly and delivering a very dissatisfying ending in a very unimaginative supermarket queue hell. 1/10

Kickboxing 1989 (Maybe things weren't that much better in the past?)

 An objectively bad movie, with shallow characters and stiff actors, with special effects so cheap that make one wonder if it was meant to be a joke, kickboxing gathers all cliches of an action movie, from the pensive scenes of the main character walking around to the training sequence, the raped maiden and the final fight against a seemingly undefeatable bad guy. Barely salvaged by Van Damme's fight scenes, based on his real-life skill. 

Predator: The Prey (If indians were so tough, howcome they got trashed by europeans?)

The movie is quite predictable. The minute I read the synopsis which could be summarized as "High-tech alien that looks primitive for some reason versus Comanches" and I saw the Comanche female empowerment lead, it became crystal clear that there wasn't any danger for the protagonist.

 It was as if the predator suddenly forgot everything about his tools and training, allegedly because he underestimated the danger posed by a human whose gender he probably can't discern any more than we can tell the gender of an octopus.

 The whole thing was preposterous, with plot holes big enough to sink the Titanic, patched up with some wise-sounding Indian phrases, barely salvaged by the action scenes that make the movie more or less watchable. 

Akimbo guns (Remember Harry Potter? This is him now. Feel old yet?)

 Crazy from the start to the end, unexpected, and very funny.

 With the premise of a regular nerd getting mixed up in a live-streaming arena fighting characterized combatants because of some troll commentaries and having guns bolted to his hands, the movie will surprise us all the time. There's high-quality action and comedy all the time and let's be honest here, who doesn't want to see Harry Potter go Akimbo guns?

 

Violent Nights (Super viking santa vs common thieves)

 Exactly what the trailer promised: a movie about a Nordic, battle-hardened Santa fighting to save a family from the hands of anti-Christmas criminals. The tools and action scenes are very original until half of the movie, presenting a difficult mixture of an almost human magical being, with high intensity and a lot of improvisation.

 Later, this decays into super-hammer unbeatable Santa and becomes more ordinary, but fun nonetheless.

 Good movie to spend Christmas night.

Warrior Nun (Ma'am, I feel like I have to tell you... A suit of medieval armor will not deflect bullets)

What on earth are you wearing? Is winter coming or something?

 Well, the genre pretty much says it all. As a superhero series, the plot isn't the strong part and the character development feels quite lacking: many of the character's actions feel unprovoked and random, there's a serious plot hole in the second season as to what is the real relationship between human religion, especially the Christian one, and this "other realm" from which supervillains come from.

Yes, it's based on a comic book, are you surprised? Though, no revealing outfits, I'm afraid.

 The main character, in particular, Ava, is definitively the worst one: utterly whimsical and personality-lacking. Sometimes she has a problem with authority, some times she doesn't. Sometimes the church is her family, sometimes she dumps them for some random dude. Sometimes being the "warrior nun" (still getting over that) is the calling of her life, sometimes she just wants to "live her life", whatever that means. Sometimes she's selfish, sometimes she wants to play martyr to save humankind.

 The action scenes, the "forte" of the series, is weird since the scenes had been modified by computer and the tactical nun's moves are sped up, and the enemy faction lacks a technique altogether. Not to mention that the nuns are occasionally immune to bullets and the main characters are immune to damage altogether.

The fifteen year old soldier employed by the church when she has to save the protagonist from a hundred mobs, alone and armed with a stick. 

 This heavily lowers the quality of action scenes that barely compensate for their spendthrift budget.

 Despite all this, the series are more or less watchable, with a lot of Marvel-ish action to keep the viewer from examing the, let's be honest, overexploited demons vs nuns plot too close. Personal bias: I hate Spain, I hated that the series was set in Spain and I hate every Spanish line and there's a whole bunch of them. Overall score 4/10

Barry ((3 seasons)) (Action, comedy-crime TV series)

mfw half the series premise turns out to be trash (actors)

 Barry has a good grip on the vertiginous mixture between comedy and tragedy, and unlike other hitman series, the main character is not invincible. He's quite human and has demons to deal with, he hates being cold-blooded and joins an acting class that he happens to cross by in one of his hits and prepares to fight the long battle against his violent nature, compelling the viewer's empathy. He has, let's say, moderate success.

Shining Vale (horror-comedy TV series)

 

 Shining Vale doesn't offer anything new to the genre, contrary to the belief of other reviewers who forgot about the "It's not madness, it's demonic possession!" fever, and has quite an amount of coarse references to Shining on top of several awkward sex jokes.

 Still, given that there were interesting moments and the total duration of the series amounts to four hours (little in comparison with other series I've been watching), I consider it a fun trip, although I don't recommend it and I don't think I'll ever remember it.

(2025: I don't remember it TnT) 

Wednesday (Fail as a remake. Good as standalone?)

 Back in the '70s comedy series were strange, and to be honest, most of them were crap. But among all that crap there were some jewels, like agent smart, or like one of my favorites, the Addams family.

 I thought that the series was dead so when I heard that there was a comeback I was exhilarated. At the hands of Tim Burton, a director of great renown, the series is really well done and nicely filmed: the plot is well-handled and moves swiftly, and the actress that plays Wednesday is really good. Therefore, nothing can be said except ¡Well done!

 Now, as a comeback of the Addams family, I just can't accept this "monster high school" aberration. The "Nevermore" Academy is practically a parody of the original series, where Gomez was explicitly against sending the kids to school, and now they made some kind of Marvel superhero out of Wednesday, and is strange to see her having the BOSS fight against some kind of wizard with a cheat-stick while having the image of the little girl telling Lurch to "find a nice girl to be miserable with".

 Not to mention that the whole point was to show the Addams and their queerness in comparison with us normal folk whereas in the Wednesday series there's a whole school of "weird" people, that by the way, as a weird person, I find somewhat insulting to be compared to THAT, meaning that this completely unmissable point is missed.

Yes, the fake nails are supposed to be warewolf claws. That's how claws look like.

 In summary, as a comeback from the Addams series sucks, the parody of a parody is a tragedy. As a new series, completely unrelated to the Addams family, the show is great. Because it wasn't what I was expecting, but I was still got surprised I score it an 6.5

On Heroes and Tombs (Drama/Mystery novel with philosophical tints)

I think the highlights of the book are Quique's mordant critique, Lavalle's story (the poor man got a short, narrow street near the obelisk and General Paz has a huge avenue that encompasses the whole city), and pretty much the whole of chapter three, Informe Sobre Ciegos, except the very final part where it gets uncannily sexual.

The boring parts were most of Martin's thoughts, D'arcangelo's dialogs (Ugh, more stuff about some soccer team I don't care about), and almost the whole chapter four (Dios Desconocido) except for the Lavalle fragments

Also that Alejandra turned out to be a prostitute made me queasy. The book never tells you why Alejandra killed Fernando and suicide immediately after. My dad has quite the theory. He says that Fernando, amidst his delusion, never left the mirador and that the shadowy figure whom he has forceful sex with is not 'the blind lady' or anything of the kind. Is actually Alejandra. So after being raped by her dad Alejandra decides to kill him and burn the whole house, ending the family line once and for all, which of course kills her too. The book left me with a dark, sad feeling. Not quite like a drama, and more like an explicit depiction of child abuse. It pretends at times to be poetic but what it shows is cynicism, crime, misery, and a lot of Argentinean politics and history. Some said that the book changed their lives, but for me, it was a half-boring half-distressing experience that I'm not eager to revive.  

Void scrappers/Vampire survivors (Survivors: the original sin)

 With 48 weapons, 41 characters, 198 enemies, and over ten maps, vampire survivors appear like a void scrapper's big brother, which only counts with less than ten of the former and only one map. 

Like how it looks? There are 700 games just like it

The mechanics are so similar that one feels like yelling "Plagiarism!". Yet, somehow, void scrappers manage to be a better game than vampire survivors because, first because Void Scrappers embrace its simplicity, and understand that there's no point in having two hundred "unique" monsters if the only thing they'll do is swarm the player indistinctively, a bit faster, a bit slower, throwing bullets or not.

 There are four weapons but unlike Vampire Survivors they're distinguishable from each other and different characters do change the gameplay, that in vampire survivors feels like it's always the same. 

In that respect, Void Scrappers feels more honest. 

Secondly, Void scrappers is far more fast-paced, and (thirdly) more interactive. 

In vampire survivors, whether the character moves or doesn't move is the same and there's no active skill, leading the player to remain still for half an hour the wave last until "the reaper" shows up.

 In void scrappers the minute you don't move is the minute you die, making it more interesting. Still, Void Scrappers' theme is far, far more boring than vampire survivors and feels utterly plotless, making it a very exhaustible game with mere hours of entertainment to provide, similar to its cousin that happen to choose a slightly better theme but didn't know how to exploit it and end up with Mario Bros references, Vampire survivors.

I give Scrappers and Vampire and 4/10 and a 2/10 respectively 

Vampires' Melody (Vampires just aren't what they used to be)

 The only thing that drew me to this thing was the "vampire" word. Quite shallow, I know.

Plot Reminder: you are in some sort of civil war, and things don't look good; you've been shot in the leg and there's no backup.

Or at least so it seems, for some she-monster dispatch the enemy's rank with ease, and still make it on time to return to slumber for the MC to find her inside a hollow tree.

MC tries to check the vampire's pulse, only to get bitten in the neck. Next thing he knows three hundred years have passed, and both miss vampire and Mr. main character are cluelessly wandering through an unknown country, very much like ours.

So, as expected, there are huge displays of naiveness to the absurd point of confusing an excavator with a yellow dragon. A few hours later, he understands what a car is, and what's its function without confusing it with any mythical creatures. Miss Vampire is a prepotent showoff of physical prowess and the MC lacking these skills gets mistreated and reduced to a "thrall" condition.

Not much happens unless you are interested in a not-very-coherent romantic comedy.

On the positive side, if you have the patience to endure all the "I don't know modern devices, I don't know what's an ID, and basically, I'm a parody of a pre-industrial revolution character" the game can be pretty entertaining. (edit 2024: does it, thought?)

For me though, it just wasn't what I expected.

The characters seemed simply too flat for me to believe their story.  

Let the Right One In (It's refering to the vampire, not the other. I think.)

Behind!-- err, nevermind. Actually, I don't even remember this character. Who the hell are you?

 Practically disregarded as "the remake of a remake", Let the Right One In fights not only with the usual problems of a TV series but also against the problem of dealing with an over-exploited plot driver.

 The director is straightforward and presents a Vampire burning in the sun right off the bucket, and then slowly proceeds to merge the zombie virus with vampires, as it has been done before.

 The series' main hooker is the relationship between the two main characters, a certain dad and his vampire daughter. Both have to fight the problems that her blood-bathed immortality: Is she a monster for drinking human blood or is he for providing it? Will they find the cure they've been seeking for the last ten years or one of them has lost faith? Etcetera.

 Minus points for lack of originality, plus points for great management in the aforementioned relationship. 

My Vampire System (Trust your inner child? Like hell!)

 One is often against the question "What would the child me would think of my actions?" but rarely one ask "What does the actual me think of my past actions?" mainly because memories are deceitful and one thinks better of things done in the past- except for that love letter written to your crush, a poem included. 

And I found myself in this rare situation with "my vampire system", a web novel I used to like. After 246 ten-page chapters, I can say with absolute certainty that this book is a guide on how NOT to write a story. Beginning with the grammar errors, and we're not talking ONLY of mixing "your" with "you're" or "they", "their's" with "they're", putting "two" instead of "too" or "hear" instead of "here", and a lot of other mistakes like these, which would be annoying enough, but outright mixing up character's names, i.e. character A is talking with character B and suddenly, instead of saying "character A answer" it says "character Z, that's not even on the scene, answer"...

 Not to mention misspelled names ("Quuin", "Vodreen", "Peeter", etc.) not to mention punctuation errors, and again, we're not talking of semicolon or colon mistakes. We're talking of. Interop, ted phrases, like. This. Worst thing? The author is from the UK, name's Jack, no ESL. But let's forget about that for a moment. 

 Let's assume that the story was originally written in Sanskrit or something and let's suppose that whatever internet translator the author used is at fault. 

That doesn't justify the absolute lack of content and character development. The characters are flat and constantly act against the ideals they had allegedly lived their whole lives for, and there's a constant feeling of unnecessary deus ex machina.

 There's a character, Logan, that's a walking deus ex machina. Some machine is presenting difficulties. Logan can hack them. Making a circus on the internet, showing off unprecedented powers, drawing a LOT of attention? Logan has a private server, that BTW doesn't have any limitations. Lost in a cave system on another planet? Logan knows the exit. The whole school is after you? Logan can hide you and has a teleporter lying around his room.

 Other Deus ex: "Quuin" is lost on another planet, one that formerly belonged to the humans but was run over by monsters, and finds a locked important building. He uses the "inspect" skill and, whoops! It levels up at that exact moment and now it can tell the door's password. The plot itself goes nowhere, monsters pop out here and there, but "Quuin" is rarely pushed to his limits which is the main attraction of this kind of story. What was I thinking? Doubt your child self!      

Barbarian (Named after the chief editor or the scripting crew)

 PR: Sexual offender in '80s Detroit kidnaps at least twenty women, rapes them pregnant, and starts inbreeding until he creates some sort of super-strong she-monster that haunts the dungeon/super-sized basement/cave system the old guy built in his free time. Gotta love the shovel! Guy knew his holes, that's for sure. Now four characters battle against the monster and pretty much everyone dies, including the old guy but excluding the final girl prota that miraculously survives. 

The old guy's timeline is kind of sketchy since even though in just one generation of inbreeding there can be defects here we're talking of a barely human monster, so let's be generous and say that's three generations. Meaning, an old guy (50yo) kidnaps a woman and rapes her pregnant, then she has a girl baby, let's suppose on the first try, and then, supposing he's also a pedophile, has to wait at least 13 years for the little girl's reproductive system to sufficiently develop.

 So, now he's 64 and has to wait for another 14, making him 78, which means he's probably no longer fertile, but let's suppose he is, he'd have at least 82 years old, living in the basement dungeon without any source of food or other dailies for twenty years, making him 102.

 If you ask me he should be dead by the start of the movie and the monster shouldn't exist. But enough with all that minutiae.

 The movie is a minefield of plotholes, starting with the weird confusion of how they rent their house twice, how both characters agree to sleep one next to the other being both strangers, the fact that all motels are conveniently unavailable, the whole descending into the cave system without even a flashlight, the superhuman monster that apparently can live out of thin air, same as the immortal old man, the uncaring police is brought to an absurd point of thinking the protagonist that claims having being held prisoner is a crackhead, even though she clearly isn't, absurd shots and physics laws defied.

 Taking all these problems into account and the fact that the plot was already quite boring, the result would be disappointing enough, if it wasn't for the ENORMOUS advertising it received from many, many critics. Saying it provokes long-lasting reflections (?), wildly unpredictable (??), bracingly chilling (???), and truly unique (????), making the disappointment at this shallow,  predictable, boring, and quite generic movie even greater. 

Ozarks (Trying to set yourself apart from Breaking Bad)

 Marty and Wendy Byrd compose a dysfunctional family along with their two children that make a living out of laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel.

 The story is filled to the brim with the typical elements of crime drama, extorsion, murder, torture, infidelity, treason, and so on. They make good use of the "the enemy within" concept. The series is catching, and the plot develops quickly. 

Killing Eve (Drama obsessive love TV series)

Don't do that. Don't give me hope.

 Plot reminder: Eve Polaski works for the MI6 in the pursuit of Villanelle, a serial assassin that works for an organization called "the Twelve". They become obsessed with each other, swinging between love and hate at all times, while each deal with their issues mostly involving "the twelve".

 The first two seasons concern catching Villanelle and the last two are about destroying the organization, if that's possible. Power plays get increasingly more important.

With at least one assassination in each episode and the conflicting emotions of the main characters, the series as a whole keeps a well-round balance of suspense, thrill, and action. 

All the actors, and especially the lead actresses, are spectacular and thorough. This is one of my favorite series and I don't say that lightly, it stirred in me many emotions, especially at the end. Contrary to what some of my predecessors have said, I believe that although the focus of the series shifts midway through, this is not a decay but a necessity to make a satisfactory, anguishing ending.

Supreme Magus (spoiler alert, he doesn't get near to supreme in the thousand chapters I read)

(30/9/22 - 1/11/22) 

 Plot Reminder: Some cynic, bitter old man that grew up in a dysfunctional family avenges his run-over brother after finding out that he has cancer, and later commits suicide. Then he reincarnates as some alien soldier and dies miserably. Then he reincarnates again now in the familiar scenery, a baby in a fantasy world with magic and elves with an unfair skill that provides him with unlimited power growth and embarks on a quest to kill monsters to get more powerful to kill more monsters and so on, with his trusty sidekick the talking stone that happens to be a mage tower conveniently compress in pebble size. He goes on exciting adventures, such as killing magical bad guys, curing magical diseases, saving the magical girl in distress, and saving the world from magic daily. Contrary to a certain someone his success rate seems to be pretty high.*

Maybe point the lightning towards the enemy instead of your feet, pal?

 As most "claw your way to the top" type of fantasy, it starts great, and as the chapters go on the quality decreases. Battles pass from being innovative and exciting to becoming almost a chore, around ch. 550 I realized that there were two to five battle chapters and one or two interlude chapters to introduce new enemies. In comparison with other web novel authors, the grammar is impeccable and the characters have some depth to them.

 The distinctive trait of the novel is the uncanny detail of the magic system, which looks a bit patched up but quite complete and consistent. As far as I got it's not entirely true that the story is about the character's growth (personality-wise) as the author sells him. The character remains cynical and bitter, but now he realizes that one can't keep people locked in a tower. Sort of. He didn't lock anyone in a tower in his previous life and in the current world, he has moments of recession when he considers people objects of his possession. Not to mention that his stinginess, at first funny, starts irking after a while. So, did he grow as a person?

 The details in magic around ch. 250 at the magic academy becomes boring and redundant, and afterward, they simply disappear and turn into vague notions, the most powerful magic uses all elements so the distinction between them is irrelevant, and the tier-five spells start to repeat themselves. Burial grounds were used thrice in less than a hundred chapters to defeat powerful enemies. I'd say that is recommendable to read up to when Lith (or Derek whatever) enters the magic academy.  6/10

(Edit 2024: NOW I GET IT! I was refering to a Penumbra dialogue line where the parasite antagonist says "Okay, on the to-do list. Find this damsel in distress, kill the bad guys, cure infection, save the world! Chances of success? Nill! Chances of survival? Well, you got old Clarence on board, that should speak for itself. Chances you buggering things up royally? Almost certain!" MC effectively fails to save damnsel in distress)

Madness: project nexus 2 (now they removed the "2", a game allegedly based on the Madness Combat animated series)

 Back in the day, there was this series called Madness about a man named Hank, there was no speaking, only an endless flow of blood and gore. Things were simple, you wanted a mad combat full of mindless violence and Hank provided them, and he even fought Jesus. That man is my hero! 

 Concept art by Tarantulabean on DeviantArt

And then a flash game came up, and things remained simple. You pressed a button and a bunch of NPCs flooded the area and your character swiftly butcher them. There was no HQ, no stupid missions, no overcomplicated functions, and no EXP, and things worked. 

And then came these guys and promised heaven and earth. Or hell and Nevada, whatever. This thing came out, after years on kickstarter. Hank is reborn, with new adventures with new graphics, new weapons, and new enemies. 

Do you know what we got? A soulless game with a bunch of enemies that we already memorized stupidly taking turns to make their predictable attacks and the main character, punched one until it fell and then the next, and so on like a chore. The changes that they promised backfired.

 The not-so-isometric graphics make everything plain and ugly, and the combat mechanics more tedious. The XP needed to advance in the skills is very hard to get and quickly becomes a grinding experience like the worst soul game you ever played. This is the second Flash game (I think) that got remade and severely disappointed me.

1/10

(edit 2024; one-decision red haze, two- this one, three Infectonator survivors, four- deep sleep, five- Kingdom classic, six- the last door, seven- zombotron, eight- kingdom rush (though I didn't like the original either), nine- sword and sould "unseen", ten- the last stand, eleven- gemcraft...)

From (horror-suspense TV Show)

 

 Plot reminder: American dream family at the brink of divorce ends up in an inescapable two-square-long village that also happens to be targeted by some kind of shapeshifting vampires. Yes, they've tried driving away but they got looped, P.T. style. Will they escape the town or die miserably? We at Through Deviant Eyes hope for the latter. 

The suspense in the series is very well handled and the characters are interesting. They all seem to be affected by the extreme conditions they're in, even if pretending that everything is normal. There's gore and tension, drama, and mystery in a good mixture and combination. Expecting season 2.

For All Mankind (Waiting for something cool to happen, still.)

"I could've been the first man on the moon, you know?" -the protagonist every time he gets a chance

 The series is incredibly slow, and one has to pretty much push through the first few episodes, but the development of characters and the interest of the audience has steady progress as the storyline furthers separates from ours starting with the Soviets winning the moon race, passing through historical events and adding small details here and there that start to pile up big changes until season three where it has nothing to do with reality.

 Each episode lasts an hour and the three or four major problems entwine through the ten hours until they become one, giving the feeling that one's watching a ten-hours movie rather than a ten episodes series.

 Clearly meant for very, very patient audiences probably more mature than me. I kinda liked the series, but it left me a nasty aftertaste of waiting for some big event to happen that never comes. I remember being particulary dissapointed when the protagonist, who in the first episode, or one of te first episodes, almost becomes the first man on earth but aborts because of mechanical failure, gets a second chance to be the first man, this time on mars and still blows it. 

The Sandman (Supernatural drama TV series)

Literally my face during the whole show

 The best thing about Sandman is also what keeps it from being accessible to the public (I'm included), and that's the artistic approach. The scenes and the effects are very well crafted, and it makes me hesitate to say that it's outright bad, but it's certainly not entertaining and that's a big flaw for a TV show. 

 Now, on the review webpage, it's labeled under "superheroes" but I'm yet to see one, or any of those SFX-overloaded battle scenes with the bad guy on one corner and five good guys on the other. The Sandman, Morpheus, isn't a character meant to generate empathy, it's not a hero nor an anti-hero.

 He's neutral and cares only about his kingdom, which has unfortunately fallen apart in his years of absence due to captivity. 

Overall, a promising plot and good artistic direction, but heavily lacking accessibility and rythm.

Severance (Thriller suspense drama sci-fi tv series)

 

 The first three episodes are quite boring and made me question if I should push on the series, but after that introduction, the events start to chain in a way that puts you on edge.

 One has the constant feeling that the way Severance depicts reality is very close to ours, even if it's sci-fi, and at some moments in the office, I forgot about the fiction part. The suspense is very well handled and the characters feel real, the plot is full of twists and surprises, and it finishes on a cliffhanger. Expecting season 2!

Stargate SG-1 (Sci-fi adventure series, '90 style)

 

 The series that Macgyver picked and at some point even founded, was very changing and surprising, with a wide variety of characters, each unique and deep in their way.

 All of SG-1 members are of equal value to the others, with their traits, quirks, and sense of humor, from Teal'c, a strong-willed legendary alien warrior that can't quite get the full grasp on human society to Samantha Carter, a top-notch scientist that can brain her way out of very dire and sometimes confusing situations.

 Daniel Jackson, a tough-to-kill linguist architect, the key to the plot to Jack O'Neill unlike his previous role as Macgyver is sometimes hard-headed and difficult to reason with but charming in his own sarcastic, laugh-at-the-face-of-death way.

"Are you a russian spy?" "No! (in russian)"

 They go to other planets through an ancient wormhole gateway and meet new enemies and friends, with refreshing circumstances in each episode, sometimes is non-linear, sometimes there are double episodes, now and then there's a comedy episode, and sometimes they travel to other dimensions, sometimes they go back or forward in time.

 Few are the series that can go on for ten seasons and keep their originality, fewer are the ones that can replace part of the main characters with others and not decay. Fully recommendable. 

The Wheel of Time (Tolkien-like fantasy TV series)

 Even though there are a lot of awful similarities between the lord of the Ring and the Wheel of Time, like the white tower, the one power, the dark one, and things of the sort, the series indeed find its uniqueness in its way.

 Well, not unique exactly, but entertaining nonetheless.

 Unlike some other LotR wannabes, The Wheel pulls out a couple of concepts such as reincarnation that add a new spark to the matter, and they manage a fair share of special effects and regular well-rehearsed battles, not to mention a good grip on danger-sense since there's no clear main character. 

Les revenants (Don't watch things made in france)

                                                 

 Ever since the walking dead zombies had been overexploited in the entertainment media, and even the mention of them nowadays shuns the public away. I think.

 Les Revenant doesn't have zombies, nonetheless, and rather uses a very boring resurrected character as a device to fire up old secrets.

 The rhythm of the series feels heavy, slow, and always at the brink of being unbelievable.

 It has been said that French cinema was slow, but this is beyond the pale. Like a morbidly fat person who happens to be a rope walker. I'm not a fan of drama, and definitely not a fan of slow plots. It took me a season and a half to pin down what exactly wasn't working.

 There are scenes of characters walking in silence that could've been cut out the episode, and in the second season, there's a horrible ellipsis that breaks down whatever was they were trying to build in the first season.

Into the Night (The Sun is not smiley anymore)

Guys thought the title for their series was so cool, but it really sounds like cheap perfume.

 The most remarkable part of the series is that with practically no resources Into the Night manages not only to build an oppressive environment but also to put together a most diverse array of characters, all with a corresponding backstory to give them depth.

 As the series progress, the show gets more resources and the course changes, as it was inevitable to happen, to maintain things thrilling. The writers are not afraid of killing characters, and although all the death scenes feel a bit overdramatic, it's true that since there's not a clear main character, death can fall to anyone, further increasing the tension.

 The biggest problem is that, since they didn't use enough resources to end the world, the apocalypse is quite unrealistic with the sun just waking up in a morning mood and making people drop dead all of a sudden, through walls and bunkers. In summary, I think that since the whole series amounts, six hours is a good thing to watch in your free time.  

I get it that you make different nationality characters speak their native language for realism... but I'll stick with "only American" please. Not even British English, just american.

Sweet Home (Korean zombie "drama" Tv show)

I came with low expectations. To anyone watching Korean content: have low expectations.

The best part of the series is the effects and the visuals in general, which are smooth and complex. Now, as for the plot or the actual drama... I didn't feel it. It was there, but just didn't reach me.

 The settling is so unrealistic, and the actors so hard to believe, that it felt like something far away.

 Plot reminder: Some kind of curse that comes out of nowhere for no reason starts to affect people like a demonic possession, turning them less like possessed and more like zombies, but some people (for plot-convenient reasons) can withstand the curse and harness the positive effects of the curse without losing their humanity.

 The building where the story begins is some kind of purgatory where all the crazy, deranged, and god-forsaken people come to live. You got a psychopath, a pedophile murderer, a regular murderer, a super greedy wife beater, a couple of orphans, an ex-alcoholic katana-wilding priest, and the main character, the depressive suicidal guy that was beaten daily at school for literally no reason at all, plus some other unfortunate souls. It wouldn't surprise me if the building was on Hell Street 666.

 The monster is fun, but the surprise fades quickly, and the interaction between the characters is weird and uncomfortable. In general, the series is fun, but I don't recommend it. 

The Order (For teens, but enjoyable overall.)

 I approached this series with great disbelief, partly because it was Netflix and I have a great deal of unfounded prejudice against Netflix movies and series, and mostly because it has all the looks of a teen show.

Can you blame me?

 I wasn't entirely mistaken, all the characters' affairs with each other add nothing to the plot, there and the petty conflicts with the family and some questionable, irrational behavior.

 But that's not the important part, the important part is vengeance. It's the main driver of most if not all of the plot: It is vengeance that formed "the knights of Saint Christobal", the one that put Jack into the order, and the one that leads Pete to the ultimate consequences.

 The show was enjoyable and even if a bit shallow at moments generally well made, there are still questions left unaware but for the tweets, I read from the management of the series it got canceled just in time.

Mindhunters (Cop shows finally up the game)

  

The series takes a realistic approach to the beginning of forensic psychology, and show us the reticence that the federal bureau had to put resources into this investigation of the yet unnamed serial killers. I suppose that back in the day things like mind control and telekinesis were the hot topic.

It is thanks to the extraordinary skill (yet believable and still human) of the main character and his experienced partner that slowly but surely the ongoing research takes place in the mind of cops around the country. 

The fact that characters such as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Edmund Kemper, BTK, and other serial killers among which we can so on, kidnappers and other charming companies are all real, and their dialogues are based on actual interviews gives the series a sickening feeling that gets you to the marrow. 

Grimm (Beating the mega-demons with the power of friendship)

  The series seems to be written by season, which means that the series aim shifts radically from season 1 to season 6, and I mean it. 

Season one seems to be the one most according to the series title, intending to bring the Grimm brother's tales to real life in a sort of supernatural cop show.

 This approach had charm, but it didn't have much future. As the seasons advance Grimm takes the fairy tales into the political ground, placing different kinds of monsters in the ministry and resorting to changed timelines, adapting world events to Grimm's logic.

 In my regard, the unfolding of the series is perfect up until season four maybe five, where the Grimm cop show from the first season is completely discarded and the Wesen politics take power.

 The series final was disappointing. It would have been bad enough to resort to the clichè apocalyptic prophecy, with the devil coming to the earth and such because the devil has nothing new to show us. It would be worst enough to have this OP devil, more OP than Kirito and Momonga together, being beaten with the power of friendship.

 The only thing that could aid this made on the fly, generic end with all the dramatic slow-mo deaths of characters that once were meaningful but lost all uniqueness was indeed the Shakespearean ending, with everyone dead. But no, that would have been sort of a good ending.

 So what did the directors, the writers, the editors I don't know who takes the fault for this monstrosity do? They bring them all back and they hug and say "Yay, we save the world! Go us!" and then, as a coup de grace, they put the "legacy" scene twenty years after that unsatisfactory, inconclusive ending with all the kids of the characters being a new team of brotherly monster hunters. Unbelievable. 

Supernatural (TV series)

Is quite hard to make a single devolution of a series that undergo such a profound transformation throughout the years, which isn't intrinsically good or bad.

 The series gets a definitive and quite visible change in season six (probably the worst one), the story shifts from character development, mythological monster potage focus to a broader paradigm of evil vs good, god vs the devil (quite literally) Since there's so much to cover a couple of dozens of plot holes were to be expected. In my opinion, the first half of the series is much richer and more interesting, more carefully designed that the other half. 

In particular, I'd stay with the first two-three seasons- while the monsters are new in every episode. Perhaps, the reader is questioning my objectivity. They may be saying "Hey William, If season 6+ is so bad, why did you keep watching?" I ask the reader to understand that when a series that is more or less of your liking prolongs through saying whole years one starts having a sort of empathy towards the characters and thus a bit more indulging with the scriptwriter.

The series about demons and angels are many, the ones using mythology (Christian or else) are plenty, and I can't even count the ones in which there's some kind of menace to destroy the world. Rather, the series' charm lies in the complex, and sometimes contradictory relationship Sam and Dean have between each other and with their conflicted family which is more treated in the first seasons. As an old Russian said: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its way" 

X (When porn filmakers decide to make a real movie)

 

Should've known I'd be squish from the poster

 A bunch of porn actors takes a trip to a farm owned by an elderly couple that happens to have cheap rent, only to find out that the elders weren't as nice as they seemed. Well, they didn't seem nice at all. That's the thing, the movie attempts to show how we are supposedly afraid of becoming old and decrepit or something like that.

If you find old people scary because of wrinkles this is totally your type of movie. Unless you don't like getting slammed like five sex scenes on the face, it's not for picky audiences. 

 The youth as always is characterized by stone-headed stupidity, especially the camera guy. Didn't he think that if he made his GF record an amateur porn movie she might be tempted to cheat on him? It was kind of under the nose. Like the whole movie from minute ten. Slow, predictable... It seemed to me that they couldn't afford to show the end at the beginning.

Cocaine Bear (Action comedy movie with some touches of gore)

 Some drug dealer drops a load of coke into the woods and a bear that happens to be there consumes it and goes on a rampage. The reader might find it funny, but there was a lot of hype in this movie. A movie, a parody of itself, hilarious from start to end... Or that's what was expected. In reality, we got some Slayer-like movie featuring a bear that's just more vicious and fast than other bears, starts slow, and has too many characters. The ending is also disappointing and the jokes while fun is either too cringy or simply not funny, so, in the end, Cocaine Bear turns into another stupid movie, made by some producers that just got out of ideas.

Firefly (Good ideas, bad exposure)

Maybe it got cancelled due to bad marketing. I see this, and I don't want to watch it. What is it, space soap opera?

 There's this bizarre half-western, half-futuristic atmosphere hanging over the series,  kind of emulating older science fiction movies, which is somewhat interesting, and every episode has a refreshingly original adventure to present, unlike some other series that quickly fall into a pattern. Original regarding other science fictio.n "Space Mercenary", I mean.

On top of that, most characters in this renegade crew have some kind of mystery, a question that surrounds them, and the show gives you hints but never answers that question, making Firefly more interesting.

 Besides, the special effects are very good for a 2002 series, further immersing you in the experience.

 Unfortunately, the series got canceled. Star Wars Saga cost 2 billion plus, a new series they are airing with already three seasons, which costs 15 million per episode. Firefly just cost 40 million, and yet never got a second chance. Does that seem right to you?

I did find it a bit unnecessary, the whole "I'll rape the mechanic girl," but it was a common trope at the time. I think.