Undead Murder Farce – 9 [Werewolf]

Welcome all, to another late episode of Undead Murder Farce! I’ll admit, I just sort of forgot that this episode aired. I just watched it last night, that’s how hectic things have been. Apologies for all the delays, life is busy at the moment, and I appreciate y’all sticking around. Now pity party aside, on with the episode!

Right off the bat, and I know I’ve been harping on this a lot but I swear to god it just keeps coming up, Undead Murder Farce has no idea how to handle darkness. That whole opening scene with the mob chasing someone through the night? You could barely tell what was going on half the time. When the lighting was good, whether from torchlight or burning buildings, the sequence looked good. Just skip to the end as the windmill burns down, there’s some great contrast in there. But the rest of the time? Good luck picking out details. It’s a shame, because Undead Murder Farce has the answer to these problems. Use dark blues instead of blacks, let the torch or moonlight extend farther, go for a more stylize/high contrast lighting. Any of these would help! But the show just refuses to use them.

Getting into the actual story, this episode is the beginning of a new arc all about werewolf hunting. Right off the bat this is easily the most interesting “mystery” Undead Murder Farce has had. Right away something is funky with this possible revenge plot with the surviving werewolf child, Jutte, just by her physical similarities with the most recently kidnapped child, Louise. Are they the same person, with Jutte sneaking her way into the village/replacing them? And what about that question Aya asked about if they were sure the bodies belonged to the same children? Hell why attack children to begin with, and every 4 months at that. Everything about this seems premeditated and suspicious, like there’s more going on than a simple serial killer. And this being so far out in the mountains, it’s not like any police or anyone can intervene either.

On top of that, the setting itself is perfect for horror. A small town in the mountains, far from civilization, with a history of violent mobs? The possibility that a werewolf is hiding amongst them, causing them to accuse and attack each other until the culprit is found? Their distrust of strangers, which our leads are, and the possibility that they will find themselves on the wrong end of aforementioned mob? Everything about it feels like we walked into a classic Lovecraft or Stephen King novel. Maybe not in quality, not yet at least, and our leads are far more capable of defending themselves than the average horror protagonist. Yet it’s still a vibe I find myself very engaged by, one that fits Undead Murder Farce to a tee. It’s creepy, there’s a mystery, I’m in.

Now obviously at some point this is going to go full shounen battle, after all Moriarty is on his way and the insurance agents are already here. Sidenote really quick, not at all enthused about that last one, the Insurance/Exterminators were easily the weakest part of the last arc. Even with one being a cowgirl and making this a 3-way fight, I’d just sort of rather they… didn’t. Leave this to Moriarty and Jack. Getting back to them, I’m quite curious how that will go down as this time they don’t have Sherlock or Lupin to distract some members of Moriarty’s party. Will the werewolves most likely located at this secret village join in? I don’t know! However like I said before, I’m really curious. I could easily see this being a losing/uphill battle for our team, which is always a plus.

Most of all though, I’m looking forward to Jack and Tsugaru’s reunion. They had great chemistry in their little time together last arc, only a few minutes. Yet they bounce off of each other well and have this sort of kindred connection. It’s honestly a lot better than I was expecting considering the small scene of Jack in the OP where he looked like a knock-off Tsugaru. Maybe this time Aya will get to meet him as well, resulting in some back and forth. Either that or Aya will get to have a longer, more interesting chat with Moriarty. Either way, I think it’ll lead to some great scenes, as Aya just has good chemistry with… basically everyone I think.

Speaking of chemistry, I want to beat one more dead horse. Aya and Tsugaru are great. I swear they make her reveal to “normal people” sillier and more dramatic every single time. Even Aya is clearly getting in on it with how they revealed themselves to the towns people, with Tsugaru just hanging back and making jokes to himself. Speaking of jokes, his little rakugo story as they climb the mountain was great to. God there’s just so much character to these two, I don’t understand how the rest of the show varies to wildly in quality. Like just look at their investigations this week compared to the vampire case at the start. These feel so much more like puzzle pieces, fitting together to give them a clear picture, plus the little experiments they do while there like with Tsugaru’s pillow. Just… More of this, please.

So yeah, all in all this was a good week for Undead Murder Farce, a strong start to a new arc after it picked itself back up near the end of the last. With 4 episodes left this will most likely run until our finale, but that’s fine by me. More time spent in our horror hamlet, learning about werewolves while under threat of a public lynching is fine by me. My main hope is that the exterminators don’t bring down the arc like the last pair did, only really existing to even up the odds in a fight and nothing else. They are easily the weakest part of the series, not really belonging in any meaningful way. Even their outfits feel to ostentatious to me, not fitting the time period at all where everyone else’s does. Maybe Undead Murder Farce will fix that this arc. I wouldn’t hold me breath though.