The Monster - 2025 - Italy

The Monster - 2025 - 7/10
AKA - Il Monstro

 
Couples park in wooded seclusion for torrid backseat bouncing.
Unaware of the man outside with gun and knife.
Who kills and carves, then flees without a trace.
This plays like the making of countless Giallos, except it was true.
Gripping, if confusing yarn of a serial killer, active for a few decades.
This does “best guess” as to the perpetrator, but the installments can be maddening.
There are lies, fabricated stories, botched arrests, nothing solved.

The Last Socialist Artifact - 2021 - Croatia

The Last Socialist Artifact - 2021 - 7/10
AKA - Podrucje Bez Signala

 
The factory used to make turbines.  Before the problems.  When the nations were Yugoslavia.
Two hustlers arrive from the city, and try to convince the locals.
The won’t divulge who the customer is.  Nor how many orders there are.
Still, work is good, correct?  Not in the Balkans, where grudges endure generations.  
Six-part series, each focusing on a specific character, advancing the story from their p.o.v.
Bitter throughout, with Fate vying with Hope.
Compelling and satisfying.

Rest In Peace - 2013 - Croatia

Rest In Peace  - 2013 - 7/10
AKA - Počivali U Miru
 

The state prison at Zagreb is closed, scheduled for demolition.
Local reporter, doing a story on this, runs across the plot of unclaimed graves.
Why did no one want them?  What were their stories?
And why, inside the first coffin, was there no body?  Only a straw effigy.
What follows is a "story of the week."  A low rent Lothario, amateur bank robbers, a rube left holding the Ponzi scheme, and darker tales of vengeance, blood and murder.
Since most of their histories took place in the recent past, especially during the Yugoslav Wars of the 90's, there are numerous flashbacks throughout.
Also, the reporter, Lucia, needs an inside guide and finds one in retired guard, Martin.
Martin is crafty, secretive, helpful, corrupt, guilt ridden.  Truth does not come easy.
While we watch each corpse's life, there is an ongoing arc of the man who was the straw effigy.

 
Well told and nicely structured series from Croatia.
The show is steeped in the vendettas and atrocities of the Balkan conflicts.
A working knowledge of that history is not mandatory, but it will certainly help.