Mr Nuff

Excellent body horror episode, starting with a startlingly frightening patient whose face appears frozen. A scary monster is key to his horror. But what I like best in horror is a smart, determined main character whose history reveals their motivations. This episode delivers on that. The twists and turns that come are somewhat predictable, but executed wonderfully to give you just enough doubt.

One reviewer is right in that filming in black and white doesn't add anything to the plot or theme. I suppose it does give it an old school horror (e.g. Twilight Zone) feeling.

The actors deliver, especially Henry Winkler.

After watching Green Room and Rebel Ridge, I decided to watch this film. I was not disappointed.

Someone told this director and writer "show, don't tell" and this film takes that to heart. We don't even know why the protagonist is so disturbed to find out someone is getting out of jail, but slowly the story comes together as it needs to. Meanwhile, we watch as a rather milquetoast character exacts revenge with a lot of skill and a good helping of luck. I'm reminded of the obscure video game Lester the Unlikely, in which a bespectacled nerd in sweats embarks on an adventure worthy of Solid Snake, Samus, or Lara Croft. In this movie, a man clearly in over his head decides to harm those who have clearly harmed him in his life. Perhaps, his skills thoroughly shown by our brilliant director (hiding guns, setting up noise traps, branding into cars) are too much for a man who isn't an ex-marine, unlike Rebel Ridge. Perhaps it's unrealistic. Or perhaps he did his research or watched lots of films like this one. He clearly gets caught slacking at several points, so there is some balance.

In any case, it's a riveting tale of revenge, masterfully told with plenty of surprises and essentially zero expository dialogue. Quiet and sharp.

One reviewer said not to downvote this series if you don't like anime. I love anime. I love the Terminator franchise, despite some bad movies. And that is the problem. It was hard to watch another good setup go to waste, despite my low expectations going in. I watched 3 episodes and gave up.

My main issue is with the nerfed Terminator. The T-800 is supposed to be a killing machine, effectively unkillable in the 80s and 90s with street weapons. Yet in the first few minutes we see him missing shots like a Star Wars stormtrooper. That's ok, the hero Eiko is likely enhanced, which is why she's so good at killing and dodging bullets. Then another Terminator heads to the past where he has difficulty killing or even containing three schoolchildren in the 90s, and that's before Eiko arrives to help.

Meanwhile, the other main character, Malcolm is having a long drawn-out conversation with an AI which looks like 3 cyber ladies in Disneyland's Circlevision. Fine, it's good to have nice visuals rather than an engineer speaking to a box. But why is it taking him so long to think of any reason to save humanity? Why does his AI need convincing when he programmed it? What's his backstory anyway? Why are all the characters so annoying, especially the babysitter who stumbles absent-mindedly and loses the kids almost immediately to a ruse so bad even the older brother rolls his eyes? None of the characters are interesting or given a chance to show any dimension except Eiko, kind of.

We know why the robot cat wanders off: to have the little girl chase it in cutesy sequences. That's what every kid wants for Christmas: a toy that unexpectedly runs away from him/her so they have to go searching for it.

Even the action isn't very good: the Terminator shoots at one of the characters (the crossbow actually is very cool), misses, gets slightly damaged by Eiko, then dropped off a cliff somehow so that everyone can regroup.

From the other reviews, it seems there are large reveals that make the show worth it. After 3 episodes I didn't feel like wasting any more time.

Points for sticking to the basic concept of a Terminator show and keeping the Terminator emotionless, slow, and intimidating, even if he becomes a bad shot around the plot-armored main characters. I also liked the makeshift crossbow.