zombie

I'm very late to the party for this animated series, but better late than never: If you love unique titles in horror TV, then Death Note is an absolute must-watch. Death Note started as a manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata between 2003 and 2006. An anime adaptation of the manga series aired in Japan from 2006 to 2007, running for a total of 37 episodes; this review covers the anime series. I noticed that this series was finding a fan base in the U.S. years ago, but I didn't bother watching it until Netflix started carrying it. Now that I've finally watched the whole thing, I can say that its popularity is completely justified. Death Note tells the story of Light Yagami, and exceptionally intelligent teenager who stumbles upon a supernatural notebook called a "Death Note". According to the rules stated within the book, people who have their names written on its pages will die shortly afterwards. Convinced that the Death Note ca...

One of my all-time favorite CGI animated comedies is Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), a loving tribute/sendup of the pulpy sci-fi flicks from the "Atomic Age" of the '50s and '60s. What I didn't know was that MvA went on to become a short-lived CGI cartoon on Nickelodeon that ran from March 2013 to February 2014. I found out about this series completely by accident last month when I was scrolling through my digital cable TV menu and saw an ad for MvA that looked familiar but included characters that I didn't recognize from the movie. Boy, was I surprised--not just to find it, but to see that it's a worthy follow-up to the movie that should have lasted longer than a single season. Read on for my complete review. Running at 26 episodes that still air as reruns on Nickelodeon, MvA picks up shortly after the events of the movie (and, presumably, after the two specials that followed-- Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space and Night of the Living Carrots ). The cast...

After my many years of media consumption, I've come to a particular conclusion about movie and TV adaptations of books. If the adaptation is to stand on its own, its creative team should be permitted to change the source material in ways the work to the benefit of the visual mediums in which they are working. In contrast, slavish devotion to the precise replication of a book into another medium runs the very high risk of the adaptation being regarded as little more than an imitation of an original (and an inferior one at that). The opportunity to experiment with source material has allowed novel-based films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers , Planet of the Apes and Jaws to be viewed as equal or superior to their points of origin. Another example that can be added to this list is Hannibal , a TV series that just ended its three-season run on NBC. Read on for my complete review of this short-lived exercise in smart and stylish TV horror. Hannibal was based on a series of book...