Review: The Bizarre Stories of Professor Zarbi “The Clown”; “Cosmic Parasite”

 

 

Overview:

“The Clown”

On Halloween night, an evil clown is kidnapping trick-or-treaters and dragging them in the sewers. Worst of all, the evil entity has the power to exploit anyone’s darkest fears. While Zarbi and Benjamin cower from their own nightmares, the shapeshifting clown is going to confront his own demons.

“Cosmic Parasite”

A local farm is in chaos when the barn animals keep dying and turning into mutants. Thankfully, Zarbi and Benjamin can quickly identify that the animals have been infected with a cosmic space parasite. But as they attempt to exterminate the infection from the land, the parasite reveals its tale of survival. Now, they must decide from causing this alien race to go extinct or save all of mankind.

 

Our Take:

As we approach the season two finale of The Bizarre Stories of Professor Zarbi, the patterns of the series are unfolding. There are three types of tales that get told through this anthology series. First, there are the classic supernatural stories involving mythological villains like the mummy and vampires. The second style includes original concepts, which can consist of anything from superheroes to aliens. Finally, there are the episodes that are complete parodies of famous movies.

This fresh pair of quarter-hour episodes are both horror movie satires from two memorable features.

Obviously, an episode titled “The Clown” will have at least one reference to the Stephan King classic, It. Professor Zarbi manages to take the story in a new direction that can be compressed into 15-minutes. The main message from the story and the villains’ powerful abilities remains in the plot points. However, the conclusion takes an alternate direction that surprisingly works well.

The second episode of the double-header, “Cosmic Parasite”, is an indirect parody of John Carpenter’s The Thing.  Though, instead of an isolated research laboratory in Antarctica, the setting for this piece is the same farm Zarbi visited in the episode “Terror on the Farm”. Thankfully, the impressive animation does the creepy parasitic mutant creatures justice.

Funny enough, both new episodes share multiple similarities. Not only are they satires of a particular brand of film, but they also feature shapeshifting creatures. Additionally, at the conclusion of each episode, the paranormal creature is shown to survive in one way or another. It is actually rare for Zarbi to leave this type of cliff-hanger, signifying the intention to bring both these monsters back in the future.

The Bizarre Stories of Professor Zarbi is set to wrap up season two next week. On top of that, the future of the series is still uncertain for Adult Swim Canada. The collection as it stands right now is already an excellent anthology collection of occult stories. But episodes such as these add to the series with original takes on cult-classic movies. Making this style of Zarbi stories one of the best parts of the show. When it comes to rewatching all the episodes, these ones will be stand-outs.