'Bad Wolf Down'. Written and directed by Rob Schrab. During WWII, a platoon of American soldiers is forced to hide from German forces inside an abandoned police station. There, they find badly mangled bodies and a distraught French woman (Kate Freund) with a deadly secret. Once they find out what her story is, they decide to use it to their advantage in order to escape the German soldiers who are closing in. Other than a typically fun performance from genre stalwart Jeffrey Combs (as a vengeance-crazed Nazi officer), this basically amounts to pretty goofy nonsense: watchable enough, but terminally silly. The gore is fine, and this viewer didn't mind the look of the werewolves too much. Most of the acting is not-so-hot, especially from a Jerk soldier named Quist (Nelson Bonilla); the name, of course, is a reference to "The Howling".
Things pick up a bit in the macabre but endearing "Man and his Highly Unusual 'Pet'" yarn 'The Finger'. Written by David J. Schow, and directed by series creator Greg Nicotero, this has a lonely but sympathetic loser, Clark Wilson (DJ Qualls) finding a severed finger during his walking tours of L.A. (The guys' main character trait is that he likes to pocket things that other people have discarded.) The finger soon grows into a full-sized creature, admittedly kind of a variation on the Xenomorphs in the "Alien" franchise, but not a full-blown imitation. Clark dubs the creature "Bob", and finds that Bob constantly displays a real loyalty to his master, nastily dispatching anyone with the capacity to cause Clark misery. (Even a debt collector!) The appealing relationship between Clark & Bob makes this an entertaining enough story to watch (Bob loves popcorn and watching soap operas), and there is more than enough splatter to keep some horror fans happy. Qualls delivers a very engaging performance, although this viewer could have done with a little less of that popular "lead character talks directly to the audience" device. The dialogue actually manages to reference "Midnight Run"!
All through the episode, there is some truly wonderful comic book art; those responsible truly need to take a bow.
Seven out of 10.
Things pick up a bit in the macabre but endearing "Man and his Highly Unusual 'Pet'" yarn 'The Finger'. Written by David J. Schow, and directed by series creator Greg Nicotero, this has a lonely but sympathetic loser, Clark Wilson (DJ Qualls) finding a severed finger during his walking tours of L.A. (The guys' main character trait is that he likes to pocket things that other people have discarded.) The finger soon grows into a full-sized creature, admittedly kind of a variation on the Xenomorphs in the "Alien" franchise, but not a full-blown imitation. Clark dubs the creature "Bob", and finds that Bob constantly displays a real loyalty to his master, nastily dispatching anyone with the capacity to cause Clark misery. (Even a debt collector!) The appealing relationship between Clark & Bob makes this an entertaining enough story to watch (Bob loves popcorn and watching soap operas), and there is more than enough splatter to keep some horror fans happy. Qualls delivers a very engaging performance, although this viewer could have done with a little less of that popular "lead character talks directly to the audience" device. The dialogue actually manages to reference "Midnight Run"!
All through the episode, there is some truly wonderful comic book art; those responsible truly need to take a bow.
Seven out of 10.