Brief Story Line
Dan Turner (Mamoudou Athie - Underwater etc) was working at a Museum of the Moving Image as specialist in retrieving damaged footage or archive from old tape, films or videos. Being one of the best in the fields, Dan was hired by Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan - The Portrait of a Lady etc) who was the owner of a Fortune 500 company LMG to restore some videotapes by a filmmaker named Melody Pendras (Dina Shihabi - Jack Ryan TV series etc). The tapes were found from the ruins of fire on Visser apartment back in 1994.
Against the advice from his best friend Mark Higgins (Matt McGorry - How to Get Away With Murder TV series etc), Dan accepted the assignment where he had to work in a secluded location by himself. While working on restoring the videos, Dan found himself to be captivated by Melody and intrigued on what happened to her. He also found out that Melody was best friends with Annabelle Cho (Julia Chan - Katy Keene TV series etc) and attracted to one of Visser apartment's tenant Samuel (Evan Jonigkeit - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot etc). She also grew close to a 14 year old kid named Jess (Ariana Neal) during her stay at the apartment.
As he continued his works, Dan started to notice something wrong about the past and realized his assignment might be a lot more than just restoring old archives. So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this eerie horror series.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was quite an experience. When I read the synopsis of this series and saw its trailer, I knew it's going to be a bit terrifying. But I never expected it to be giving lots of eerie moments especially in the first half. The first episode of the series was something that made me intrigued, as the gloomy feel was very strong and the mysterious nature of the work given to our lead character Dan Turner was making me curious. However, not until few of the videotapes were restored that things got really interesting.
I thought the series was excellent due to the great acting of Dina Shihabi as Melody, the maker of the video tape and obviously Mamoudou Athie as the restorer. But it would not have been possible had it not been for the wonderful directing by the directors Rebecca Thomas (episode 1, 2, 7 & 8), Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (episode 3 & 4) and Haifaa Al Mansour (episode 5 & 6). For me the most mind blowing episode was the 4th (Spirit Receivers) while the 5th (Through the Looking Glass) was giving some shocks as well. There was also the name of James Wan whose name has been quite synonymous with horror genre movies/series as one of the Executive Producers.
The story telling in this kind of series was the standard slow burn type. The supernatural sense was powerful due to the amazing background music that was giving uneasy feeling, especially with the humming done by some of the people. My most favorite part in here was the way they managed to make me feel that I was like Dan who was looking at the videos and experiencing what Melody had. There was even brief jump scare scene that shocked me (which made my wife a bit complained as I watched it on Saturday night and surprised her). Oh since it was only having 8 episodes with duration of around 45-58 minutes, it did not take too long for me to finish it.
Funny thing about this series was that after revelations, I thought the eerie feeling was not as strong as before. There was only the curious feeling of how it was going to play out. The ending was very interesting. I am not sure whether there would be a second season since there was no clear indication at the time I wrote this post. But if Netflix decided to renew it, I think such ending would be the basis for the new season. Btw, the series was said to be based on the successful podcast of the same name created by Daniel Powell & Marc Sollinger. As I never listened to it, I have no idea if the series was as good as the podcast. It definitely resonate well enough to audience and critics as it has high rating from both.
As I said above, I think what made this series interesting was the story telling and the mystery solving combined with the horror which was quite scary at times. With the wonderful performance from the lead cast plus the appearance of Matt McGorry who provided few lighter moments, it was indeed exciting to watch. The horror in here was not an all round supernatural type but rather the horrifying feel that was properly built by the series makers. So if you are fans of this kind of slow burn horror series, then you would likely enjoy this one. But if your preference is the slasher gore horror type, or the one with lots of supernatural horrifying images to really scare you, then you might not like this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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