Archive 81

[Wentworth Smith]

New Netflix horror thing now available to binge. Based on a podcast of the same name (and which I have never heard of) about a guy in the present searching through recovered footage of someone in the nineties and trying to piece together what happened way back when.

I'm a wimp but didn't find it particularly scary but enjoyed the mood. Wears it's references very much on its sleeve (Rosemary's Baby, every found footage film ever).

Nothing original but I thought it was fun, if suffering from characters being shoehorned into the format and not quite acting as they would (although that's probably a classic horror/mystery show trope at this stage).

[olliebean]

The podcast was great, went to some really bizarre places from season 2. I'm halfway through the TV series - can't help thinking it's going to bottle out of the weird stuff and just be a fairly standard supernatural thing, too soon to write it off yet though. The inclusion of one particular character from the podcast gives me hope it might go the same way.

[Campbell Soupe]

Binging this at the moment and quite enjoying it.  It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's ticking some favourite hoary old trope boxes for me - weird cults, Dhama Initiative style research stations, scratchy old video, "Evil" apartment buildings, shadowy corporations, x-files type conspiracies, past/present collisions... hell, even the mould conjured up memories of the "Blaaaaack!" artist from the Fast Show.

It suffers from the usual Netflix: throw-50-years-of-pop-culture-references-at-the-screen, but it's good, vaguely creepy fun for undemanding viewing.

Interest was further peaked by Benson and Moorhead's involvement on a couple of episodes. Thematically it dovetails nicely with their Resolution/The Endless, even though their eps sadly didn't live up to that promise.

Thought the trailer made it look shitter than it is.  Never heard of the podcast, but might give it a try

[olliebean]

Spotted an easter egg in episode 4: a poster in the background for "The Deep Vault," which is the name of another podcast made by the creators of Archive 81.

[SteveDave]

We're two episodes into this and it's building nicely.

The main character having Adam Driver's voice put me off for the first few minutes.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Going to give it a watch but it sounds quite similar to the film Broadcast Signal Intrusion that was kind-of along those lines but also kind of nodding to things like the Max Headroom incident.

[SteveDave]

Going to give it a watch but it sounds quite similar to the film Broadcast Signal Intrusion that was kind-of along those lines but also kind of nodding to things like the Max Headroom incident.

It starts off like that but then it moves on somewhere else. I'm worried it'll turn into "Lost"

[Sebastian Cobb]

It starts off like that but then it moves on somewhere else. I'm worried it'll turn into "Lost"

Ah well I'm taking a punt and 15 minutes in enjoying seeing Martin Donovan crop up.

[Sebastian Cobb]

3 episodes in and enjoying this. Although the priest sounds like a Resident Evil cut-scene.

[SteveDave]

Finished it tonight and I enjoyed it. The ending felt like a full stop that could be turned into a comma if needed.

Spoiler alert

I did say out loud "Kurt Cobain's dead" when the MTV News ident came up on the TV screen in the hospital though. I suppose it's the only pop culture world event that happened in 1994? Other than Oasis having the fastest selling debut album.

[close]

[olliebean]

Still got one episode to go of this, but I have to say, with regard to the podcast, it feels less like a direct adaptation and more like a merging of elements of the podcast with a separate story - perhaps one that the creators of the show were already working on when they were asked to do the adaptation.

Season 2 of the podcast takes place

Spoiler alert

entirely in the "other place" that has been mentioned in the Netflix adaptation, with that being a fully realised world in itself,

[close]

and I'm really hoping this goes the same way, rather than

Spoiler alert

the "other place" just being a generic hell dimension for bad things to come from.

[close]

[olliebean]

Yeah, definitely seems like the producers of this wanted to tell their own story, rather than the one they were supposedly adapting. Those last two episodes had practically nothing to do with the podcast.

[bgmnts]

Are the first 80 any good lol

[Sebastian Cobb]

Quite enjoyed this, it was a bit daft and mad and had that Netflix thing of production being good but most of the characters being unformed but still, quite enjoyed it.

[phosphoresce]

The fancy credit sequence is rather similar to Mindhunter (an altogether better show). Still, quite liking this.

[Jackson K Pollock]

Enjoying this so far (5 episodes in), but it really bugs me how Melody never seems to point the camera directly at whatever she's filming, and just sort of waves it around by her side. I guess it's so we can see her face, but it always really takes me out of the moment a bit.

Didn't realise it was a podcast either, may check it out once I'm done with this version.

[chutnut]

Started watching this the day after I saw Broadcast Signal Intrusion, the similarities have already been mentioned but there's scenes in both where one of the characters picks up the exact same model video camera which was a bit of a headfuck.
Only on episode 3 but I'm enjoying it so far, but I kind of wish they'd just stuck with one proper timeline and had the video footage as video footage. It really takes the creepiness away watching that woman awkwardly hold a camera while she does any old shit

[steveh]

Thought this was promising from the first episode, but it spread the plot over too many episodes and I felt it didn't find a new angle or come up with any new ideas. It also seemed a bit to be shoehorning in things from a checklist rather than using them because the story justified them.

In geeky tech nitpicking, it also slightly annoyed me that the tapes were supposed to be HDV format but appeared on 4:3 CRTs and LCD widescreen monitors in the right format and at times with inappropriate analogue-y VHS effects.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Thought this was promising from the first episode, but it spread the plot over too many episodes and I felt it didn't find a new angle or come up with any new ideas. It also seemed a bit to be shoehorning in things from a checklist rather than using them because the story justified them.

In geeky tech nitpicking, it also slightly annoyed me that the tapes were supposed to be HDV format but appeared on 4:3 CRTs and LCD widescreen monitors in the right format and at times with inappropriate analogue-y VHS effects.

They were Hi8. Or at least the Teac deck he was using to play them back was. The camcorder Melody was using did look a bit too recent for the time period though.

[steveh]

Was sure in some shots the tapes had an HDV logo on because I looked it up at the time. It wasn't especially consistent on the tech front.

[chutnut]

Up to episode 6 now, was anyone else really frustrated by

Spoiler alert

the way Melody was acting towards that woman who had just basically ripped her own face off? Immediately hassling her while she was on a stretcher semi conscious, getting in the way of the paramedics, then when she was in hospital asking her to try again?!. Really made me dislike the character which I don't think was the intention. I know she's all panicky about hearing she's supposed to die soon but still have some bloody respect!

[close]

[Enzo]

This has been cancelled by Netflix, which is a shame really as it was a decent watch if not particularly mindblowing story wise.

It also makes the last couple of episodes leading to the cliffhanger even more pointless than before.

[Mobbd]

I'm on Episode 4 of this and it's starting to get on my tits.

To begin with, I was all in. I loved the idea of restoring the creepy archive footage. Made me think of Berbarian Sound Studio and Censor. But since Episode 2, it's been less about that and less clever on the verisimilitude front. There are far too many mysterious ideas in it, competing for space and my interest. It might look like a classy and film-like production but I'm starting to think it's just trash like Lost. And at least Lost didn't dump about twenty ideas into the first four episodes, they drip-fed the drivel over the seasons.

I'm trying to see it as something like The Kingdom. That had too much shit going on too, but it was relatively early in the history of this genre and I guess I already trusted Lars von Trier to be interesting.

A classic horror scruple, I suppose, but I don't know why the guy is so fixated

Spoiler alert

on the mystery of the Catskills location and his employer. I wouldn't care about the cameras or the chapel. I'd just restore the film, claim my sweet $100k, and get the fuck back to those pre-Twilight Zone tapes at the Museum of the Motion Picture.

[close]

I'm still watching. Let's see where this goes. (Yes, I know it's been cancelled by Netflix).

[rilk]

Awful crowbarred in swearing in this, bad swearing

[Alberon]

It does have a great atmosphere in the early episodes which falls apart as the main storyline reaches the end. The

Spoiler alert

cliffhanger doesn't bother me even though I know its cancelled

[close]

as I'd lost interest by then.

[Mobbd]

Awful crowbarred in swearing in this, bad swearing

You're not wrong. It's really, really bad. I'm on Episode 5 and they really ramped it up in Episode 4. It's like it was written by someone who doesn't swear in real life, doesn't really understand how to swear, but thinks its important for drama or realness. It's the same mistake made in Star Trek: Picard and Discovery but far more frequent in this. Urgh.

I can't believe I'm still watching this. It's absolute crap.