Scavengers Reign - An Exploration of Xenomorphology

I saw this trailed last year and, as a big fan of the art of the great french comic book illustrator Moebius aka Jean Giraud, I was gobsmacked with how similar in style it looked to many of his amazing strips.

It immediately brought back memories of watching Les Maîtres du temps (The Masters of Time) and I knew I would have to give it a watch.

More than just a Robinson Crusoe Rehash

The story revolves around the lives of three groups of survivors who landed their escape pods on a lush and verdant planet in very different circumstances.  Many of their shipmates have not been so lucky and did not survive to reach the surface, although it is not long before you start to realise that maybe its the dead who are lucky.

The 12 episodes are a busmans guide on how to create a planet full of interesting and diverse flaura and fauna which spends all of its time trying to eat you.  Wrapped around this core survival trope are evolving backstories which explore why each of the very differnt characters chose to thrust themselves out into the great void.

Beautifully animated and biologically complex, the writers have crafted a world which has so much natural diversity and complexity in their life cycles and symbiotic relationships with each other.  This goes well beyond the simple and makes Gieger's Xenomorph look like a children's story book.  

In the same way, the individual backstories of each character are explored in detail from the venal and pathetic Kamen to the strange relationship between Azi and her robot companion Levi.  These are as complex and interesting as their surroundings.  However, sometimes I feel this is designed to lull you into a false sense of security.  Needless to say in these more tender moments their next brush with the disaster is only around the corner.

Traveller Eat Your Heart Out.

This is exactly how I remember early Traveller scenarios going back in the day.  Every scenario was an exercise in exploration and discovering new and deadly lifeforms.  I remember playing those classic double adventures like Shadows or the Chamax Plague and loving them.   

Justifiers - Out of The Mists	Traveller - Shadows

It also brought back memories of running my favourite long dead sci-fi exploration RPG Justifiers.  With only a little modification each of these episodes would make for an entertaining set of encounters for any party.

Is Scavengers Reign Worth Watching?

If you enjoy carefully crafted and beautiful landscapes filled with interesting biology then yes, absolutely.  If you want fast paced action then this is not the animation for you.  If you can imagine watching a 6 hour long Studio Ghibli masterpiece where your own mortality is repeatedly rammed down your throat in the most violent but interesting ways.  Only then are you getting somewhere close to the gorgeous grotesqueness of this show. 

It is rare for a show like this to ever get greenlit or make it past a 30 minute long short so we have to reward the creative geniuses behind the scenes and watch their show.

Movieweek 5 - The House with Gunpowder Milkshake

Hopefully my real life has settled down a bit and I can get on with doing what I love which is watching movies and playing games.

The House (2020) - 6/10

This is an incredibly creepy stop-motion animated film comprising three short stories.  To be absolutely honest took me several attempts to get through the first story as it was so creepy.  The set dressing and animation style is perfect.  It's a blend of Coraline meets Fantastic Mr Fox and there is a good deal of "boil" (when a models hair or fur moves between shots and makes it look like their skin is boiling) which adds to the creepiness of the whole thing. 

The voice cast are a all great British talents, including Mark Heap, Paul Kaye, Stephanie Cole, Helena Bonham-Carter, Miranda Richardson and even Jarvis Cocker.  I'm a big fan of Mark Heap who just manages to deliver his officious lines as Mr.Thomas in a way that hints subtly at something dark, something with menacing undertones. 

I'm not a big fan of creepy movies in general, so I was glad that the second story was much more to my liking.  The central character is a struggling hobbyist property developer trying to renovate and sell the house as a recession begins to bite.  Anthroporphised animals doing human things is stock in trade for animated movies and this one pulls it off extremely well.  It leans hard into the weird rather than creepy and there is a moment that reminded me of the Whoopi Goldberg movie The Telephone which brought a wry smile.  

The third act was even better and definitely an homage to both Wes Anderson's animated work with shades of Studio Ghibli thrown in for good measure.  It was a great way to end what were three very different tales about this mysterious house and the people who live in it. 

There's a gem of an RPG plot in there as well.  It would be very interesting to play a game where the location stays the same but you play different descendents of your character throughout time.  Sort of how they reused the set of Nerva Beacon in the epic Dr Who stories Ark in Space / Revenge of the Cybermen story.   

If you can get past the first act then you will enjoy this.

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

Karen Gillan and Lena Heady team up in this brutal comic book style assassination story.  It feels like it was based on a comic book in the same way as Guns Akimbo or Polar, but this is an original story from the pens of Navot Papushado and Ehud Lavski.

Very stylishly shot, with heavy 50s come 80s pop culture palette this movie leans heavily into dramatic cinematography.  Paul Giamatti is seen once again as a menacing crime boss (I loved his role in Shoot'em Up) and I absolutely loved the Librarian characters played by Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino.  In fact I've been a massive fan of Angela Bassett since I first watched the dystopian sci-fi movie Strange Days which has to be one of the best cyberpunk movies of them all.  

This movie is popcorn fare of the highest order, a classic tale of the hitman who hits the wrong man and then gets thrown to the wolves.  Very enjoyable if you are a fan of violent gun movies like Hard Boiled, John Wick or Nobody.  Karen Gillan performs adequately but when she shares the screen with real acting talent she just doesn't dominate the screen.  Intensity is the name of the game here and she just doesn't burn as bright as her co-stars.  Ralph Inneson also does a good turn as Jim Mcalester.