‘DARK’ & DREARY
Boys’ disappearance unnerves German town in Netflix series
`Dark,” Netflix's first original series from Germany, is an “X-Files” story without Scully and Mulder.
The disappearances of two boys decades apart threaten to rip a small town apart — not to mention the space-time continuum.
“Dark,” which is subtitled in English, will hook a lot of viewers with its ghastly opener.
In June 2019, a man leaves a note with a warning that it shouldn't be opened until Nov. 4 at 10:13 p.m.
He then stands on a chair, fits his head into a noose and kicks the chair away.
That's some teaser. What would prompt this man to take his life? And why the so morbidly specific instructions about his last thoughts?
Answers around that mystery are not quick to come in this 10-episode season.
After that promising teaser, “Dark” becomes ter- ribly familiar.
Weeks after his father's suicide, 16-year-old Jonas (Louis Hofmann) is not coping. His return to school reunites him with friends but jacks up his anxiety, as one of his classmates, Erik, has gone missing.
Some of the residents of the town of Winden believe the boy just ran away. But what teenager would leave his cellphone behind?
There are those who actually argue that nothing bad could happen in their town. They have short memories: A boy disappeared in 1986 and no trace was ever found. That boy's brother, Ulrich (Oliver Masucci), is now an adult with a family of his own, and “Dark” suggests his suffering is a circle of lost lives.
The center of this otherworldly peril might just be Winden Caves, a perfectly ominous outcropping with a stone maw that only lacks a dancing Pennywise and a sign saying “All Who Enter Will Be Eaten.”
I kid. A little.
Having a very “Twin Peaks” moment, an elderly gentleman repeats,“It's going to happen again,” rouses himself from his chair and heads to a town meeting.
No one listens to him, and he's too late, anyway.
Jonas and some of his classmates decide to go out to Winden Caves to look for Erik's stash of drugs. Before you can say, “Bad idea, man,” the forest seems to turn on the kids. In their panic, they become separated. One doesn't return home.
“Dark's” acting is serviceable, the musical choices questionable and the location shooting in Berlin is ominous. The jump scares are out of an '80s slasher film and get tiresome.
William Faulkner famously said that the past is never dead. It's not even past.
Watching “Dark,” you might be left with the idea that there are no new ideas. Only remakes and reruns.