Our ongoing series covering web-based productions in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror genres. If you have a recommendation for a web original that we should look at, contact us at mail@axiomsedge-scifi.com.
By John J. Joex
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars
Devil’s Trade is one of the very first web series I ever watched after I stumbled upon it at Hulu.com several years ago (it’s no longer available there, but you can catch it at FearNet.com). This one is actually a professional production that comes from Ghost House Pictures, Sam Raimi’s company that has produced films in the horror genre like The Grudge and Drag Me to Hell as well as short works and television series like Legend of the Seeker and Spartacus. Devil’s Trade follows a gloomy goth-kid who buys a creepy wood cross off the internet despite warnings of the curse associated with it. Once it arrives, things start to go bad for him and his sister (and her boyfriend) and they decide that they must get rid of the cursed item. However, attempts to destroy it prove disastrous, so they try to track down the person that sold it to them in the first place and return it.
The series runs seven episodes of three to five minutes each and tells a mostly complete story. And it’s definitely a very creepy tale that stands up well when compared to some of the better television horror anthology shows such as Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside, and Masters of Horror. The directing is actually first rate for a web series and comes Toby Wilkins who has professional experience helming the horror films Splinter and The Grudge III. The actors all do a good job as well, helping us really feel the horror of their predicament. I would love to see more along this lines from this crew, and this seems like a great way for new talent to get some experience under their belts and also deliver some decent genre tales. But it doesn’t look like Ghost House Pictures has done much else in the way of web series beyond a couple of 30 Days of Nights entries (which I sampled and did not really care for). Devil’s Trade is definitely worth checking out for Horror fans and for anybody wanting to get started with web originals but perhaps prefer more professional production values (though don’t discount some of the less professional entries, because there’s some good stuff out there). You can watch the full serial over at FearNet.com and also at YouTube.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Sure, you survived the zombie apocalypse, but what now? Yeah, you’ve armed yourself and fortified your position and stockpiled food, but what’s to do while waiting for the zombies to die out and society to rebuild itself? That’s what this morbidly funny little web series is about. Three twenty-something survivors of the apocalypse live together in a flat in Britain and fill up their spare time blogging about their adventures or lack there-of. This includes going to the local market and trying to dodge the zombies there while looking for things like a light bulb as well as competing with another group who have also started up a post-apocalyptic blog.
The series can be quite cheesy at times with the zombies seeming rather slow and almost unthreatening (more often than not at least) and it does not provide a whole lot of answers (through the first season at least) of what exactly happened to cause the zombie apocalypse and what social order remains. Questions like how the power is still working and how they have internet connection go unspoken. Still, it has its entertaining moments though it can be a bit too British and it also delivers some pretty morbid humor at times (like when one of their blog competitors runs from a zombie and drops the camera followed by us hearing the creature munching on his flesh). I have watched the full first season which is comprised of six episodes ranging from eight to ten minutes each. There are two additional seasons as well which I will get to at some point. Zombie fans will definitely like this one and sci fi fans in general might enjoy this if they go in knowing it’s a bit rough around the edges at times. You can watch the full series at the show’s website Zomblogalypse.com.
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