Zero degrees of separation
The pandemic is horror enough without this adding to it
Lockdown and a global pandemic are gold for a fiction writer, but you have to give it time.
You know that saying “too soon”, when a joke is made after an event that still stings? On its own, it’s not really a saying so much as a statement of fact, but add the disappointed head-shake, the furrowed you-should-know-better brow and the reproachful tone and you’ve got yourself the perfect response to Prime’s new web series, Inside.
It’s an eight-part series based in New Zealand after a second wave of Covid-19 has forced the country back into lockdown — something which, as we now know, has actually happened.
It follows ultimate loner and tech support worker Rose (played by Morgana O’Reilly) who uses her backdoor access to a Zoom-like video call app called Bunny, to spy on people’s calls.
She witnesses affairs, watches cam-sex, sits in on classroom lessons, laughs at family catch-ups and does it all while scoffing back two-minute noodles like she’s watching an episode of The Real Housewives.
Now that, I actually quite like, because it makes you think about a) what we were all up to during lockdown and all the sordid things Zoom has seen, b) how lockdown turned us all into reality TV stars, vlogging and live-streaming our every move in an effort to stay connected and, rather grimly, c) the lack of security and actual privacy we have online.
But I digress.
The story centres on Rose reconnecting with her high-school bully (Sam Snedden) when he calls tech support. This apparently prompts “a haunting vision from her past” to appear and stand creepily outside her window and, as the sales pitch goes: “Now she’s got to work out what is real and what is just pandemic-induced paranoia”.
To Inside’s credit, it plays into the mystery/horror genre well with all the old tropes, right down to the hallway full of plastic sheeting for ghosts to hide behind, thanks to the fact that Rose has built herself a quarantine tunnel to stay separate from her flatmate across the hall.
It’s got the suspense, it’s got the creepy schoolgirl staring into the window, the computer glitching ominously, the front door being mysteriously left open, and O’Reilly does a brilliant job of playing her way through it all.
I just don’t know how good a move it is to release a Covid-based show with horror/thriller undertones while the pandemic is still killing hundreds of thousands of people around the globe.
I get the desire to go there; as soon as lockdown came into play I remember saying to a friend: “Every author and screenwriter in the world just made a note of this.”
Lockdown and a global pandemic are gold for a fiction writer, but you have to give it time, or at least make it a zombie apocalypse so there’s a degree of separation.
I could be wrong and Inside could pull off a twist to justify itself; I’ve only seen two of the eight episodes, but I think to play on general anxiety or lockdown paranoia at all is just mean, especially when people are still going through it.
The really annoying thing about Inside is that under different circumstances it would’ve been quite good; the writing is funny, Josh Thomson is there (a face I’ve missed on my screen!), the funny side of Kiwi cringe is definitely there, and as I said; the suspense/thriller side of things is doing its job.
Because not an awful lot happened in the first two episodes (they’re only about 10 minutes apiece), it’s hard to know where
Inside will go and whether the Covidlined path it’s on will make or break it. For now, though, I can’t help but feel like some type of dramedy based on Rose’s Zoom-stalking might’ve been a safer bet.
And I know, it’s 2020 and creators don’t want to play it “safe” any more, but I just think Inside is hitting a little too close to reality and frankly, if Covid-19 isn’t enough of a horror, I don’t know what is.