Enormous Pilot Is A Monstrous Good Time
This article is more than 2 years old
We love giant monsters almost as much as we love giant freakin’ robots, and with Pacific Rim still fresh in our memories, and Godzilla quickly stomping towards us, those massive bastards are everywhere. The King of the Monsters has his own Snickers commercial for crying out loud, but if you can’t wait until May 16 to get your creature fix, Machinima has just released the pilot episode of their new monster-based web series, Enormous, and it should tide you over for a while at least.
Directed by Bendavid Grabinski, and adapted from a graphic novel by Troll Hunter’s Andre Ovredahl, Enormous has just about everything you want out of a story like this. There are monsters, first and foremost, but what it does well is drop you into the middle of a situation—in this case a post apocalyptic world ruled by monsters where the surviving humans have been decimated by a mysterious virus—and, without forcing details down your throat, manages to give you a good feel for the world. This is a bold choice that pays off big, there will be time to fill in the blanks later. That’s not bad for less than ten minutes worth of work.
The action centers around a UN search and rescue team. Resident badass Ellen (Ceren Lee) wanders through an irradiated building looking for survivors, while the rest of her team has something else to deal with. No, it isn’t monsters, not yet anyway. This time it is a gang of marauders led by Miller (Steven Brand, The Scorpion King) and including Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies).
Fortunately for the heroes, just when things look like they may not turn out particularly well for them, or the 11-year-old boy that Ellen finds, they catch a break. Now we’re talking about monsters showing up on the scene. I know what you’re thinking, the arrival of giant hungry creatures isn’t usually something to celebrate, but when you’re being held at gunpoint by hardened killers, sometimes you have to take what you can get.
Here is perhaps the most important lesson you will walk away from Enormous with: when you shoot a giant monster in the giant monster eye, you’re probably just going to piss him off, so you might want to avoid doing that if you can.
This is definitely something we will be keeping our eyes on. Though the pilot is only ten minutes long and on the Internet, this has a big, cinematic feel to it. The creature design is solid, and from what we see here, the team has a solid grasp on story, character, and setting. I can’t wait for the chance to check out more.
