ARCHIVE 81: Season 1
This new series whose origin comes from a podcast created by Marc Sollinger and Daniel Powell is a supernatural horror/thriller that relies on found footage to effectively tells its story. The setup is an archivist named Dan Turner (Mamoudou Athie) is hired to restore some damaged tapes from a fire that occurred back in 1994 at the Visser apartment building. However, the more he watches, the stranger things become and he shockingly finds himself entangled in the mystery of what happened to Melody (Dina Shihabi). She’s a documentary filmmaker in search of her mother who she believes lived in the Visser. Yet her search takes her down a dark and dangerous path where a devilish cult is pining to open up another world beyond our own. Dan and Melody’s stories may be 25 years apart, but are deeply and disturbingly connected.
Developed by Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys, The Vampire Diaries), the show at times thinks it’s more clever than it actually is. Some things are simply silly and deserve an eye-roll or two. The eight roughly one-hour episodes enjoy their little twists and turns. And while some work, others do not – especially in the last couple of them. As those reveals keep coming, the more obvious it becomes that it’s definitely biting off more than it can chew. Although, this debut season remains recommendable as it includes strong central performances from Athie and Shihabi and continues to find ways throughout to keep us hanging on. It’s just a shame it couldn’t have ended as strongly as it began.
THE HOUSE
A striking yet incontestably dark and strange stop-motion animated anthology of a house with hideousness living inside of it. Divided into three frightfully different chapters, each one having its own distinctive directors – we get stories of humans becoming furniture, a rat realtor dealing with an infestation of furbugs, and cats living in flooded apartments. The first two are deranged with elements of horror, but the last one ends on a good note with a small glimmer of optimism. This is such a unique, creepy compilation that’s tough to define. But one thing is for sure, the beautiful craftsmanship is on full display as the animation is staggering. Though the fascination that’s found within these walls is quite limited as each chapter comes to a close. All of them suffer when it comes to the fundamentals of storytelling, resulting in this going from weird and appealing to weird and wearisome.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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