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NotUv2
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Saw this Netflix horror mini-series over the past couple of days. I enjoyed it.

The spoiler-free commentary first: it's as much about surrealism as about scares, with ingredients that feel like equal parts Cronenberg, Lynch and Hammer Horror. A young woman filmmaker's quest to get her short film made into a feature in L.A. winds up detouring into a twisted and violent supernatural odyssey featuring a homicidal bruja, psychedelic spirit visions, mayhem and murder, curses and zombies, bizarre body horror, and perhaps the single creepiest couch ever to appear in a show. Oh... and kittens. It stars Rosa Salazar, Catherine Keener, and Eric Lange, all of whom are excellent.

To get into spoilers a bit:
Spoiler
There's some genuinely memorable gross-outs and frightening imagery in here, but it's not really scary for the most part so much as it is just... off-putting and fascinating and bizarre. There are some really interesting touches: I'm pretty sure Catherine Keener's "Boro" character concept is based on a very cool villain from the old Octavia E. Butler book Mind of My Mind, and it's really great to see zombies represented not as some world-ending plague but as what they are in their actual mythology, which is the undead tools of a sorcerer. (That latter one is so rare in film, in fact, that I can only think of three other examples of it in the past ninety years.)

The series flirts with sexy content -- which Rosa Salazar is more than gorgeous and charismatic enough to sell -- but as per its surreal horror mission, it is never just doing straight-ahead sexy. There's always something bizarre and supernatural in the frame, sometimes at the heart of the proceedings. Salazar's protagonist (she's a bit on the dark side to really call a "heroine") spends a lot of time mentally or physically fucked up, or both, as part of trying to carry out a curse on a producer who sexually harassed and betrayed her. At some points, truly Videodrome-worthy weirdness ensues.

(And as for where the curse lands him, well... let's just say without getting too specific that if you're down for seeing smarmy Hollywood predators get a bit of comeuppance, the miniseries doesn't disappoint. He certainly does not, however, go quietly.)

There is plenty of gory violence and murder. Most of this, to be honest, is a bit too cartoony to really have much impact, feeling halfway played for laughs... except for one or two key moments involving eyes (you'll see what I mean if you watch it). The glimpses the story gives us of a psychedelic and unsettling spirit world are usually, for my money, way more memorable than most of the physical violence. It doesn't always quite make sense how the supernatural works in the story, especially the things that the main character can and can't do at various points, but it's not worth overthinking.
Overall, I'd give it an 8/10. Especially if you like surreal horror fare like Videodrome or Dead Ringers, Eraserhead or Lost Highway or Inland Empire (with a splash of old-timey Hammer Horror classics like White Zombie) this will be right up your alley. It's a fun watch with plenty of enjoyable twists and unsettling moments.

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I was going to post last night (after I finished episode 3) that it struck me from the beginning as being like eXistenZ, specifically, but I couldn't articulate why.

Well now I've seen episode 4, and there it is.
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Just the name does it for me, Her as Alita battle angel was amazing, she is a great actress, maybe smells and tastes like cherry too!!!! Looks like a great weird series
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The ending left a bad taste in my mouth, but the journey was still very worthwhile.

About the ending...
Spoiler
I know not everyone is a storyteller -- some people just have a story to tell and once it's told they're done. And I can see the POV that the protagonist found her identity in the spirit of the jaguar. But it still feels like a give-up. It feels like a writer's lament that the film business is so irretrievably toxic that the only answer is to get out. That's bad enough as a writer's lament, but the protagonist is a director -- everything was about her vision and style and the impact of her film's climactic image -- and going back to Brasil because making films means answering to money is... ugh, even through the more abstract lens of Hollywood as just a stand-in for the patriarchy it feels like a defeatist message. Sure, a simple horror film only needs the protagonist to get out alive, but the film business's baggage is not a neutral backdrop. I wanted some indication that she was going to survive as a creator.
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Imagineer wrote:
2 years ago
The ending left a bad taste in my mouth, but the journey was still very worthwhile.

About the ending...
Spoiler
I know not everyone is a storyteller -- some people just have a story to tell and once it's told they're done. And I can see the POV that the protagonist found her identity in the spirit of the jaguar. But it still feels like a give-up. It feels like a writer's lament that the film business is so irretrievably toxic that the only answer is to get out. That's bad enough as a writer's lament, but the protagonist is a director -- everything was about her vision and style and the impact of her film's climactic image -- and going back to Brasil because making films means answering to money is... ugh, even through the more abstract lens of Hollywood as just a stand-in for the patriarchy it feels like a defeatist message. Sure, a simple horror film only needs the protagonist to get out alive, but the film business's baggage is not a neutral backdrop. I wanted some indication that she was going to survive as a creator.
I do get it about the ending. I kind of had a similar reaction, but it is worth considering another point at issue is that there might simply be a line you can cross from which there is no going back. To get more spoilery:
Spoiler
I think her decision to return to Brasil might be more about how her specific choices can't be escaped. Alvin Sender sending up red flags once terms like "serve" and "answer" and "master" start turning up in his dialogue is one thing, and creepy in its own right. But also: the vengeful friend whom she allowed to rip out and eat her own eye and then USED THE FOOTAGE to sell her film is a big part of the final act. Learning about what happened to Mary was a huge turning point in the story for me: at that point, Lisa was no mere victim. She had made choices, scurvy ones, that set this whole train of events in motion.

Additionally, in that last scene with Alvin, she has bullet holes in her. I think the hitman who left them is still out there. Boro, who recently attempted to possess her and almost succeeded, is still out there and has a specific interest in her as part of a tug-of-war between itself and an ancient spirit. She has to lie to Alvin during that interview about the gruesome beheading of the actor being considered for a starring role. I think she just reaches a point that she's ready to take some responsibility for having poisoned the well she was hoping to draw from with her own choices and with allowing herself to be dragged into this netherworld from which, it becomes clear, there is no escape unless you fully cut yourself off from it. I don't think that's a metaphor for the industry in general, or not as much as it's about her specific story. Who knows, maybe even that won't work and there will be a sequel.
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Your interpretation is little doubt closer to the creators' intent. I'm not really a horror fan.
Spoiler
(And you know what? The show gives you the terms of the ending in her first meeting.)
But I'm still disappointed.
Spoiler
To me she wasn't nearly lost to evil and triumphant to reject and walk away from it. To me she was transformed, the actual badass that she'd merely faked being in the beginning. She understood the forces against her and was equipped to thrive. The bullet wound? Fixed. Boro? Not afraid of her. Assassin? Really not afraid of him. Alvin?

The story didn't turn on "the big reveal" the same way for me, because from the opening it was clear that she was running from something, and specifically from a wrecked relationship. It's interesting how we interpret things differently: you say "learning about what happened to Mary" and I'd put it "learning about how hard Mary yanked her down the rabbit hole." Not that she's without fault -- she did violate the sacred covenant of the director: keep your people safe. To me that exposed unreadiness, but I suppose others might interpret it as unfitness.

And while I suppose it's technically justified, my suspension of disbelief damn near broke completely when, after all she'd been through, she was *surprised* that her mentor had turned on her just because she rejected him sexually. I know she came to town with masculine energy -- those loafers are a genius touch -- and was slow to appreciate Roy's attention, but how did it never occur to her?? In hindsight I could chalk it up to her being born an apex predator, but then I come back to disappointment in the ending.
But make no mistake: the show is rich and brilliant, provoking reactions and giving you stuff to think about, while being very WTF.

Of course it has nothing for fans of this website to get excited about, but if anyone likes getting meta about Hollywood and isn't turned off by the occult and a bit of body horror, chow down.
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Imagineer wrote:
2 years ago
Spoiler
To me she wasn't nearly lost to evil and triumphant to reject and walk away from it. To me she was transformed, the actual badass that she'd merely faked being in the beginning. [further content snipped but not ignored]
Really interesting take. I do enjoy how stories look different from different perspectives. And I am 100% willing to admit that no matter how "bad" Lisa was, I was still fundamentally cheering her on regardless. In that sense, she was an effective protagonist for me, whether or not she was heroic.
But make no mistake: the show is rich and brilliant, provoking reactions and giving you stuff to think about, while being very WTF.

Of course it has nothing for fans of this website to get excited about, but if anyone likes getting meta about Hollywood and isn't turned off by the occult and a bit of body horror, chow down.

100% agreed, of course.
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