Tuesday, February 5, 2013

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Tales Of The Black Freighter

This is an original animated feature which takes all the material from the actual Watchmen comic, and comprises it into a single short-movie. This OVA pertains to the live-action Watchmen film. If you were to get the Watchmen Motion Comic, you'd see it as it was in the comic in relation to the events going on around the reader, who is a geek that uses pirate comics as a way to escape the sense of doom the world is heading towards in this "doomsday clock" alternate 1985.

Tales Of The Black Freighter is a straight-up pirate/horror story about a sea captain who is the lone survivor of an attack on his vessel by a possibly-undead band of buckaneers. He makes it to a deserted island, along with the floating remains of alot of his crew including his first mate. The captain makes a raft out of the corpses, and heads home to warn of them of the mysterious Black Freighter which threatens to destroy their town. After seriously tripping out on some bad seawater, the captain makes it back home, but under the delusion that the town has already been sacked by the pirates. He subsequently murders two innocents he believes sold his people out, and bludgeons his wife(maybe to death)who he thinks is a pirate that's invaded his home. The captain then heads out to sea while being chased by the townsfolk, only to find the Black Freighter waiting for him. This played out like a great Tales From The Crypt-styled horror comic set in a pirate world. The animation is very well done too, a little different from the type your probably used to from Bruce Timm's style though.

The other feature on this is Under The Hood, which is a live-action documentary about the life of Hollis Mason who was the first Night Owl(aka: "Night Owl I"). This is formatted like a TV news show from 1985 which looks back at an interview they did with Mason(Stephen McHattie)back in 1977 when his book tell-all book about being a superhero was released. They talk with Mason about being in the original Minutemen, which was the Golden Age superhero team that preceeded the Watchmen. They also have the original Silk Spectre too played by the totally fine Carla Gugino, who looks hot even back in the 70s. Plus, Matt Frewer(Max Headroom)as the retired supervillain Moloch is particularly creepy. There's also a documentary which partially goes over the regular Watchmen movie, and the making of Under The Hood. Also included is the first episode of the Watchmen Motion Comic. Black Freighter is available either on its own, or in the Watchmen Ultimate Edition.

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