I recently discovered this new anthology series about monsters and I checked it out to see if it was fun and worth watching. I have only watched the first episode so far and it was fine. This show approaches the monster topic in a very casual way, we have typical people from American small towns having their normal lives and jobs, and quietly a different and strange person arrives at the city and has an impact on the life of a troubled girl.
This girl has taken some bad decisions in her life. She is a single mom of a little kid but she doesn't earn much money working as a waitress and sometimes it feels her life is crumbling down with so much pressure and responsibilities. Plus, her ex who is the kid's father isn't really a good person which means she is all alone and a little bit traumatized.
I wouldn't say this is a horror show because this episode was mainly focused on the drama. There are certain scenes that clearly belong in the fantasy-horror genre but it was not too hardcore. The show doesn't explain anything about the origins of the monster, it simply portrays it as a fairly normal being who has a very special and crazy ability but is not necessarily out of control.
It can even be said this monster has a "human" side, especially after seeing how it interacts with other people. Maybe this being was a normal human in the past and somehow it changed and acquired its special ability.
There were a lot of things left unsaid and unexplained in this episode, but this wasn't a huge surprise. As a comparison, in HBO's series called The Outsider, there was no explanation whatsoever for that monster for the special abilities of one key character. Monsterland isn't as good as that series of course, but its lack of proper answers is similar. This doesn't prevent the show from being enjoyable though. The performances were good although there weren't too many characters involved in the episode.
If you are looking for a drama focused fantasy story about monsters then perhaps you might enjoy this series. As far as I understand, there will be a different monster for each episode so there should be a lot of interesting takes in this series.
The best
- It provides an interesting approach to the monster topic.
- The performances were good but since this is an anthology with different actors and stories for each episode this doesn't mean future performances will be equally as good.
The worst
- The episode wasn't particularly exciting.
More information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11348332/?ref_=ttep_ep1 Review: AAA In numbers: 7.5/10