Love, Dying + Robots has lastly returned to Netflix for Season 4 following a three-year break, and one horrifying episode soars excessive above the remaining. Actually. Directed by Diego Porral, Season 4, Episode 8, “How Zeke Received Faith” options traditional cell animation to relax viewers to the bone as a motley crew aboard a B-17 WWII bomber is savagely attacked in midair by a bloodthirsty, hyperviolent demon resurrected by enemy troopers in a church beneath.
With the breathless motion of James Cameron’s Aliens, the unremitting carnage of a Mario Bava flick, and the overt nod to H.P. Lovecraft’s model of supernatural horror, “How Zeke Received Faith” combines all the right substances to make a hair-raising and jaw-dropping quarter-hour of bloodletting terror. Maybe most unsettling, the inescapable claustrophobia builds rising dread till the fiendish finale strikes down.
Love, Dying & Robots
- Launch Date
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March 15, 2019
- Community
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Netflix
- Administrators
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Víctor Maldonado, Alfredo Torres Martínez, Jerome Chen, Robert Valley, Rémi Kozyra, Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, Alberto Mielgo, Maxime Luère, Dave Wilson, David Nicolas, Patrick Osborne, Simon Otto, Damian Nenow, Laurent Nicolas, Kevin Van Der Meiren, Vitaliy Shushko, Emily Dean, Owen Sullivan, István Zorkóczy, Javier Recio Gracia, Oliver Thomas, Jon Yeo, Elliot Pricey
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Fred Tatasciore
Rely Dracula
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“How Zeke Received Faith” Is Motion-Packed
Scripted by John McNichol and J.T. Petty, Diego Porral directs “How Zeke Received Faith,” the extraordinarily bloody eighth episode of Love, Dying + Robots Season 4. The motion instantly picks up inside a B-17 bomber airplane known as the Liberty Belle, the place a ragtag crew of American troopers prepares to bomb a goal beneath. One soldier expresses concern concerning the mission, claiming that the atheistic fellow fighter Zeke (Keston John) at all times stays cool and barely scares.
A quick flashback reveals Zeke and his crewmates receiving the mission, which entails bombing a church in France overrun by German troopers throughout WWII. Regardless of an ominous warning by Coombs, a mysterious man with bloodshot eyes being in cost, Zeke has no worries concerning the impending task. That’s, till the Liberty Belle comes beneath incessant fireplace from an unseen assailant, forcing the troopers of various non secular beliefs to band collectively and full the mission.
The breathless motion rapidly slides into bone-clattering terror when slicing contained in the church. A cabal of SS troopers is holding a sacrificial blood ritual, the place a number of people are strung up and dangle from the ceiling. As above, so beneath, with harrowing airstrikes exploding the skyline whereas a charnel home collects a river of blood beneath. Certainly, there’s nowhere to run or conceal.
A sinister minister chants in Aramaic with the intent of resurrecting a monstrous demon little one to do the German troopers’ evil bidding. Whereas little backstory is offered, the episode delivers gory, relentless, visceral doses of inescapable carnage that jolts the hearts of probably the most hardened horror fan.
How “Zeke Received Faith” Channels Traditional H.P. Lovecraft
In a heartfelt homage to Lovecraftian horror, “How Zeke Received Faith” first leans into the scribe’s cosmic horror by setting many of the motion within the air. Caught within the cramped hull of a B-17 fighter jet, there’s a palpable sense of claustrophobic dread within the episode that ratchets up because the story unfolds. Left with nowhere to go however to face the demonic fallen angel head-on, Porral does an beautiful job of constructing the characters really feel helpless and the viewers queasily squeamish.
Not solely does the dearth of maneuvering room and escape routes heighten terror, however the episode additionally crafts a daunting Lovecraftian monster of amorphous proportions, evoking the creator’s traditional Cthulhu Mythos. Even Zeke, the cool, calm buyer who by no means will get scared, is mortified to witness an enormous hovering black mass with jagged wings, crooked appendages, glowing yellow eyes, and a gold cherub masks over its face float onto the airplane. The devilish design of the multi-limbed monster is terrifying by itself, a slavering winged demon with an insatiable bloodlust.
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The demon’s unsettling look is outdone by its evil actions. Whether or not shredding a soldier in half on the waist, ripping one other’s face other than the cranium, urgent one other’s face towards a window till it gorily pops like a grape, the episode delivers one explosive dose of gore-sodden evisceration after one other.
Between the suspenseful claustrophobia, graphic carnage, and the menacing demon, the episode has all of the substances of Aliens meets Cthulhu meets Hellboy. It additionally calls to thoughts traditional airborne horror tales, comparable to Stephen King’s The Night time Flier and The Twilight Zone‘s “Nightmare at 20,000 Toes.” For hardcore horror followers, “How Zeke Received Faith” doesn’t disappoint.
Why “How Zeke Received Faith” Is the Better of ‘Love, Dying & Robots’ Season 4
Past delivering probably the most spine-tingling chills in Season 4, “How Zeke Received Faith” is arguably probably the most unique in comparison with the others. Most of Season 4’s episodes happen sooner or later and have a robotic or AI part of some form. Furthermore, most episodes use cutting-edge animation strategies to inform their modern story. But, in a deliberate throwback episode, “How Zeke Received Faith” employs traditional ’80s-style animation to inform a narrative from the previous to warn concerning the horrors of the long run.
Whereas undeserving of being named, the WWII enemies featured within the episode characterize the regarding rise of fascism world wide in 2025. “How Zeke Received Faith” is much less about Zeke’s religious awakening than the spherical rebuke of the non secular persecution inflicted by stated WWII villains. By equating fascism with the satan, the episode buries a refined message beneath the unsubtle cudgel of gory violence. Against this, the episode has a lot extra to say than acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher’s opening recreation of a Pink Sizzling Chili Peppers live performance from 2003.
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Whereas some have lamented that the episode doesn’t match throughout the bigger context of Season 4, that tends to be the purpose and why it stays probably the most unique. There is a cause why “How Zeke Received Faith” is the highest-rated episode of Season 4 thus far (7.1 IMDb rating). It enhances the remainder of the season, moderately than supplementing the themes concerning the perils of future AI. If the previous is a prologue, then “How Zeke Received Faith” features as a terrifying reminder of what may occur, albeit taken to fanciful heights, if fascism is not met with resistance. In fact, for a 15-minute cartoon, such weighty themes could not register with most viewers.
Nonetheless, the substance beneath the visceral carnage, claustrophobic terror, Lovecraftian cosmicism, and vivid cell animation is the tie that binds the entire episode collectively. Past informal and hardcore horror followers, “How Zeke Received Faith” will make converts out of the untrue. As somebody who reviewed horror films for over a decade, I adored what number of subgenres Porral mixed in a brief span to bombard viewers with unremitting carnage whereas having one thing to say. Love, Dying + Robots is offered to stream on Netflix.