Hot Skull

Starting off with captivating protagonist and promising story that delivers to some extend but not all. Epidemic, societal decline and government control are main themes. Beautifully shot with grim city scapes. Reasonable realistic character development but it crumbles a little at the 5/6 episode mark where the story takes detours. The biggest fail and why it is not high 8s for this review is the lack of explanation around this epidemic, the mortality and symptoms for example. Without this, it is difficult to feel threat or urgency which also sends other storylines a drift. It feels like the story is searching although the cinematography is excellent.

Having watched the first episode it is fairly obvious that this is a re-imagination of the 2008 Canadian film Pontypool with a COVID like setting/analogy.

That film had the exact same premise, a diseased state with the same symptoms and spread the exact same way, verbally (speech to hearing). Having said that, the production values are good, and the lead actors are good as well. I haven't watched too much Turkish cinema, but this seems to be a quality production even if the idea is not entirely original. Yes, it is Turkish, but the video I watched had a dual English Audio component and subtitles as well. I'm interested to see where they take this and will continue to watch. BTW, check out the original movie, Pontypool, it is quite good.

I was reminded of Pontypool and various story plots of Charles Stross and Greg Bear regarding mental virus ideas.

It was a nice change of pace from Zombies and the actors all looked "real".

A pleasant edition was no sex instead of love character plotting.

And older people were actually depicted as stars and not simply incompetent bystanders as one finds in most US productions.

I'm always surprised at the respect and wide characterization foreign media allows older adult roles. There is no pandering to the youth market or excessive gore and sexuality.

Either way everyone should watch and create their own opinions instead of following someone else's.

That includes mine.

It has many similarities from many other series, such as: stranger things, dark, matrix, you etc...

It started with a curiosity but cannot keep that momentum all the way to the end. There is no surprise on any of the episode except that one scene.

Sometimes main character behaved like a really childish, selfish but without any good valid background, therefore you cannot make the connection with him.

Topic is okeyish, but could be way better with a little bit intelligence. It turned out a classic Turkish series, which has long lasting dialogs without any meaning, very very slow scenes, meaningless moments. Especially i really looked for a 2x or 3x fast forward option on Netflix to be able watch it.

Well-fictioned scenario making the audience curious and waiting for the next episode. After two years with the pandemic, it forces us empathize and question our own world. Stunning acting from Turkish movie and theater industry.

Moreover, the fact that the book inspired by the script was written 3 years before the script was written is another factor that makes this fiction interesting.

Considering the low budgets that nerflix allocates to European productions, it should not be compared to Hollywood productions.

However, it can be said that 7 different local Turkish animation companies and more than 100 graphic-designers work meticulously and it is a good job worth watching.