INTO THE DARK: Half-Way Point Retrospective

Since I do have to talk about movies on this blog, I figured I'd kill time between my album reviews and lists with a post about this new Hulu show, Into the Dark. This show is a unique horror anthology series with new full-length movies produced every month with different casts and crew, all produced by Blumhouse Television Productions. The gimmick is that each show represents the most significant holiday of that month (i.e. the first show, from October, is set on Halloween, the second on Thanksgiving, etc.) - which makes the recent March episode the half-way point on the full year of shows.

While the show itself is a fine bit of free horror fix for Hulu subscribers, the amount of critical divisiveness has become far more interesting to me than the show itself. To me, the show has averaged out to be less than stellar, but still fine. However, the reviews for each episode always seem to range from amazing to god-awful, especially with the most recent two episodes. Sure, every TV show gets good and bad reviews, but the level that this has polarized for an overall mediocre show is strangely astounding to me. How did this happen? Let's find out below:



The good aspects of the show mostly boil down to its excellent choice of indie directors. Some of the episodes feature directors that only horror fanatics would know, like Nacho Vigalondo and Daniel Stamm, while some are making their feature-length debut on this show, like Paul Davis. So far, 3 of the 6 episodes have seen the directors working off scripts they co-wrote, and many have production credits as well. We have seen a wide range of television actors, both recognizable and not. But as is often the case with these anthology series, the level of consistency is way off the charts.

Inconsistency is the main detriment to the show but does not necessarily less the appeal of the overall series. People like different horror qualities in different movies, probably further attributing to the vast inconsistencies in reviews. Let's start with the worst (and also some of the most divisive):

Bottom Rung: Down (#5, Valentine's Day) and The Body (#1, Halloween)

To me, Down is easily the worst of the bunch so far. Story and script-wise, you couldn't get more bland and basic. A consistent issue in almost all Into the Dark episodes is lack of scariness, but this one is actually just painfully unscary. Oddly, many reviews consider it the best episode, but I highly disagree. Praising its simplicity is not the same as recognizing that it's just plain boring and predictable; the phrase "letting the actors do the heavy lifting" should definitely read as a criticism to Stamm's phoned-in direction. Also, a site I usually trust, Paste Magazine, considers Down the best entry, while marking the recent Treehouse as its worst. It treats the "twist" of Down as a genuinely unexpected quality seems downright naive, but I mean somebody got paid for this and I don't get paid so...

The Body is better, but not by much. The Body is written and directed by Paul Davis, who has done almost no major film work besides a short-film version of this film. The story and violence are gleefully graphic, and the characters are clearly well-formed and well-interpreted by the actors (except for the one-note main character, who is really more symbolic than anything else). As expected, this expanded short has too few additions to really work as a full-length film, and the supporting characters get a lot of time saying "what is going on" and the main dude sulking. The storyline of Maggie, though, make this entry worth it for originality.

Mid-pack: Flesh & Blood (#2, Thanksgiving) and Treehouse (#6, the Ides of March?)

Flesh & Blood definitely improved slightly on the show's first entry, and really showed the potential that good pacing and direction can accomplish. Unfortunately, not everything connects quite yet, and a good performance from the two mains can't help there's not enough material to fill even the 90-minute running time. Ultimately, Flesh & Blood can never distinguish itself from its other mystery/thriller/horror parent sources and ends in a forgettable mess once all the pieces fall into place.

Treehouse is the exact opposite: far more memorable, but less well-executed despite a good original idea. Some say it's the best, some say it's the worst - ultimately, it's just relevant. The themes of sexual assault undercurrents are certainly ahead of the curve in terms of what will surely be a popular topic in future films, but unfortunately, the end product just does not quite do the story justice. The dark, indie horror tone, supplied by Psych star James Roday as writer/director, gives us distinction from some basic tactics used in some of the other Into the Dark films, but ultimately, the results are likable but wanting.

Top-tier (but just barely...): Pooka! (#3, Christmas) and New Year, New You (#4, New Year's Eve/Day)

These two have so far hit the best balance between good story and execution - Pooka! is an inventive and serpentine psychological thriller, genuinely putting the viewer in Wilson's fraying mind, while New Year, New You gives a new take on the unexpected dangers of self-help thinking, placed in the context of trapped-in-a-house horror tropes. Though neither are perfect, I imagine this is the best the series will get, since Jason Blum will probably be saving any genuinely good stuff for the big screen.

Still, both have a little bit of everything to save the series as a whole: good performances, good stories, effective thrills (still not quite scary, sadly), and plenty of twists and turns that force the viewers to actually pay attention. If you only pick two to watch of the first six episodes, these two are no question the best.

Just don't be expecting anything here to be Hereditary level, but more as just your free horror fix for one day each month. Enjoy!