Anyone watching Archive 81?

A creepy 1920s apartment building is built over a burnt down library and apparently there is a satanic cult hidden in the building.

It ends on a cliffhanger! They must be confident they're getting a second season.

Don’t tell me because I honestly don’t know how it will end even though I have a good idea how it’s going to go.

R2, did you binge watch it? It is very hard to put down.

I thought it was very good otherwise I wouldn't have binged watched it. It was pretty intelligent and engrossing, a good mix of horror/science fiction. It got a little shaky and convoluted in the last 2 episodes. The female protagonist started to get annoying because she was always intent on saving people and getting herself in trouble..

The monster attempting to break through all the tv screens and monitors was scary.

Holy crap, Matt McGorry has gotten FAT!!!

yeah, he's got a big gut now

I just finished the first episode. So far so good.

But, yeah, I came on here to post how fat McGorry is now.

That was a phenomenal show. Even if it doesn’t come back for a second season, it was absolutely worth it.

It just needs a little more gay sex. Preferably with Evan Jonigkeit being totally naked showing penis.

I thought it started off well but I started getting bored by the third episode.

Evan Jonigkeit was effective as the creepy villain, as was Martin Donovan. And Matt McGorry was fine as the funny fat sidekick friend. However, the actor playing the lead character was kind of meh, and it became difficult for me to sympathize with him or with the female protagonist who had so many chances to flee.

It picked up again a bit in the last two episodes, but I was hoping it would wrap things up (which it did not; instead it looks like there is going to be a second season).

Yes, there will be a season 2.

I thought it was great. I liked that it didn't spoon feed you with title cards, you just had to figure out what was present, what was past, what was dream, what was real, what wasn't. I thought it was very cool, beginning to end.

The actresses here look kinda annoying. Do they?

R12, I found the actresses and actors a perfect match for the show.

Really a terrific show--they get atmosphere, the key to any successful Gothic, down perfectly. The teenage African-American actress who plays Jess is a genuine find, as are Dina Shihabi (who looks like Alexis Bledel but is an infinitely better actress) and Mamoudou Athie (who has a gorgeous speaking voice and is a fine actor).

I predict the breakout star, though, will be Evan Jonigkeit, who plays Samuel. He is handsome in such an unusual way. I cannot believe his romantic partner in real life is (ugh) Zosia Mamet!

The main character was pretty cute, but I felt he was boring. Way too much like me. I want passionate characters for the sake of escapism. Jerk off in front of the camera or set up some booby traps around the estate or something.

aint no hot men it it

It was one of.those series that started out good...Peaked halfway through and went straight into bad

Black dude in trailer is butt-ugly. Is he the main character?

I am deeply hoping we get to see Evan Jonigkeit with his shirt off at some point.

Er, doubtful.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I found it tedious and its influences too obvious. Both Suspirias, The Shining, The Ring, Rosemary’s Baby.

I liked the main actor. I think he is so handsome and his voice is beautiful. But the girl grated on me. And some of the dialogue and situations were contrived enough to push it into “bad tv” territory.

One thing I will give it credit for. In the beginning, they lead you to believe the main actress is some privileged, frivolous, white wannabe academic type. Then they pull the rug out from underneath all of that with the true nature of her search.

I’m ambivalent I guess.

The black guy accepts a job where he is alone in an isolated building in the woods in the middle of nowhere with no internet? The girl wanders around a Manhattan apartment building knocking on strangers' doors?

I just couldn't get past how unbelievable it all was.

I thought the black guy was hot.

I can’t get past episode 4 - does it get less boring? Less Canadian like?

There were some crotch shots that show main guy's VPL. Looked like he's packing.

They are just turning out garbage. Garbage after garbage after garbage.

I can’t believe they cancelled it already. That news ruined my night.

I just happened upon this series and watched it over the past week. It ties together all the elements I usually like about the horror/supernatural thriller genres and left out almost all of the elements I find stupid that take away my engagement. I love the combination of occult magic and mysticism, "curiosity killed the cat," nonphysical time transcendence/disordering, the pairing of things in the physical world that can actually cause disorientation and detachment from reality (mold, religious fansticism) and traditional horror elements and giving them (from the vantage point of the story being told) logical integrity. I'm so impressed with it. Of course Netflix canceled it. It was too well written. They need to make room for more Stranger Things Spielberg imitation trash.

I think this and The OA are my favorite Netflix shows and among my favorite series ever that fall outside the realm of standard drama or comedy. The only thing I didn't love was that they chose to show the demonic creature, and special-effects monsters always come up really short compared with the unseen for me. But at least it was onlt a few glimpses and it wasn't a stupid-looking monster like in Stranger Things.

I enjoyed it and thought the main actor was very appealing.

It got hokey sometimes but that monster statue creeped me the fuck out.

[quote] I found it tedious and its influences too obvious. Both Suspirias, The Shining, The Ring, Rosemary’s Baby.

Hmm. I see all those influences for sure, but the only comparison that holds up for me is Rosemary's Baby. I liked the newer Suspiria but I thought it was ultimately very light on story and simpleminded. I hunted for the original Suspiria when I read it was so influential and couldn't find it for years until I randomly came across it on some free streaming service. It's visually stunning but a really dumb horror movie when it's all boiled down. Gorgeous direction and set design that conjured a really cool atmosphere, but the story was mindless.

The Ring was effective with its use of montage of attraction, but it didn't invent the technique and that was the best part of the movie. The story, again, was a simple one that made for an enjoyable flick but it's not smart horror.

The Shining is a great and very smart movie, IMO, but due primarily to Kubrick's direction and the various ways it can be interpreted is really beyond the basic King slasher flick. Another movie that is good more despite its writing than because of it.

Rosemary's Baby is a psychological occult thriller that *really* works for me storywise, and I would say it holds up in comparison to this series, but the TV show is a lot more complex and it engaged me a lot more mentally than viscerally. It does make good use of all the tropes mentioned here but it presents more questions about what's real versus what's imagined, how time may work differently and how that could affect perception or be used in abusive ways, the scary yet compelling idea that mind-altering substances may be communications pathways and not generators of imagined realities, and instead of making it a drug-abuse metaphor, the writers skirted recreational drugs and opted for a natural mind-altering substance. I just think it's so creative, certainly not just a pastiche of prior horror stories.

I watched it through because it had a lot of things that were done quite well or that held much promise, but it faltered.

Had it been planned as a six episode (one season only) mini-series, ut could have been very good indeed. It's my complaint uttered again and again that 6 or 8 episodes are the ideal number for most mini-series (conceived as one season only.)

The lead actor is so unattractive (ugly) that I quit after Episode 1.

R33 That's too bad. I don't think he is ugly, but I also have noticed that a lot of great TV shows (especially on HBO) feature average-looking or even homely people, and I think that that adds a lot in the sense of making me focus on the story and see the characters' human qualities.

On principle, I find it disturbing that mostly pretty young women and professional-athlete-like men get cast in everything even when they can't act, but besides philosophical opinions about that, I find it distracting when a bunch of models with glasses run around impersonating scientists and doctors and lawyers and it's clear that the showrunners are basically filling in time between unclothed scenes with story.

Back when I loved movies in the 90s, they were full of actors like Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, William H. Macy and others like them who played distinctive and interesting characters, and now it's just a parade of Chris Hemsworths, Chris Evanses, Chris Pineses et al. showing off the benefits of their CrossFit memberships in and out of superhero costumes, like movie audiences are locked forever into horny adolescence and their higher-thinking brains have been switched off.

I didn’t think he was ugly at all! I liked his face. I don’t know if I would’ve kept watching had he not been in it.

[Quote] The lead actor is so unattractive (ugly) that I quit after Episode 1.

Well, we have our gold medalist for the “superficial viewer” games.