What I liked
While sets are minimal, the staging is excellent, with strong, effective use of sound. The show demands a lot of its cast, and pretty much all of them are up to the task, drawing us into often dramatic moments of fear, anger, sadness and mystery. The show starts strong with a simple, but tense zombie tale and ends on a solid note with its arguably most ambitious story. However, the strongest story is undoubtedly “Blind Date,” a slightly sinister take on online dating with a great twist and that finishes with the most haunting image of the evening.
What I didn't like
Sadly, not all the stories work. Many seem like they’re not fully fleshed out, and a couple start really strong, but end unsatisfyingly. The transition between one brief story that really seemed incomplete and the one that followed it was particularly confusing in that they both use the same actress, so it took a moment for me to realize she was playing an entirely different character. Monsters of Man was entertaining, but I wonder if the show would be stronger if some of the weaker stories were cut and the stronger ones were given a bit more room to breathe. Certainly, I wouldn’t have minded staying in some of these worlds a bit longer.
My overall impression
Monsters of Man is an ambitious, well staged, overly dense horror anthology that will likely appeal to fans of The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, but as with all anthologies, some of its stories are much stronger than others.
