Every month its new horror series on Netflix. To inaugurate the year 2022, the streaming platform has put a serious candidate online with Archive 81, based on an eponymous American podcast. Hosts Daniel Powell, Marc Sollinger and Amelia Kidd tell a fictional horror story, in which a young archivist gets his hands on tapes with strange and mysterious contents. The adaptation of the podcast has been entrusted to showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys, Outcast), while director James Wan (the Conjuring saga) is present in the production.

The series uses the original pitch of Archive 81. Dan is an archivist specializing in the reconstruction of old cassettes and VHS for a museum. One day, he is hired by an enigmatic businessman who seeks to learn more about the Visser, a residential building with a dark past. To understand the events that took place there, Dan must retype cassettes burned during a fire, which served as a report for a student's thesis in the 1990s. Through these magnetic witnesses, Dan does so the meeting of Melody Pendras and her investigation within the building, which filmed terrifying images which could well put the life of the archivist in danger.

At the crossroads of The Ring and Videodrome

ⒸNetflix

In a few years, Netflix has established itself as one of the most generous platforms in terms of horror. The American giant is multiplying genre projects abroad and in France, from Marianne to Ghoul via the virtuoso The Haunting of Hill House. With Archive 81, she explores a more contemporary (and above all trendy) form of horror, inspired by urban legends and other creepy past born on the Web. The staging, which combines contemplative camera movements and sizzling found footage, bears witness to this union between horror cinema's past and present, but also to a desire to pay homage to the original podcast.

The series is generally divided into two parts: the observation of Dan's life, who discovers Melody's report and vice versa, like the two sides of a coin. Because in reality, the more the archivist immerses himself in the story of the young woman, the more a form of interaction seems to arise between the two despite the years that separate them. Archive 81 mainly plays on this fantastic tension that is ultimately very meta, which works wonderfully from the first episodes thanks to a frankly heavy and distressing atmosphere, a worthy heir to the productions made by James Wan.

The adaptation draws on iconic references to the genre, including Japanese horror cinema and David Cronenberg. We immediately think of The Ring, which traumatized Millennials in the early 2000s, with its disturbing and subliminal archive images. As in Hideo Nakata's film, Dan witnesses terrified nightmarish forms trying to escape from the tapes. In the same genre, Archive 81 also evokes the cult Videodrome of Cronenberg, where the character played by James Woods watched helplessly as a series of filmed murders.

ⒸNetflix

Already very faithful in its narration, the adaptation also relies on the original podcast with soft horror influences drawn from the 1990s. The creators of Archive 81 regularly cite Twin Peaks and X-Files as references, with a idea of ​​parallel worlds and an antechronological investigation found in the series. The immersion is frankly successful, so much so that Dan's growing paranoia wins over us as he watches the tapes. We can also salute the performance of Mamoudou Athie (Sorry for Your Loss) and Dina Shihabi (Altered Carbon), the two main performers, who make us vibrate and shiver throughout the season.

In subtext, the series explores our relationship to images and the overconsumption of these, which sometimes pushes the unconscious to see in them what we want to see in them, precisely, and to play with our imagination. It's hard to say in the early episodes if Dan's depression and loneliness aren't the cause of his angst, or if paranormal events are really happening inside and outside of Melody's camera. A rather basic but very effective mystery to be solved throughout the season, which will give you a few shocks as the suspense is well dosed in the series.

Finally, we will remember from Archive 81 its very convincing work on sound, and in particular the soundtrack of the series composed by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. Parasitic, chilling and dissonant, it symbolizes Dan's loss of control over his investigation and his sanity. The two composers have presumably combined tape sounds to form most of their tracks, for a feeling of galvanized immersion. Archive 81 is ultimately a nice horrifying surprise, which we can't wait to find in a potential season 2, while waiting for the return of the messiah of horror on Netflix, Mike Flanagan.

The first season of Archive 81 is available in full on Netflix.