Archive 81

Created by Rebecca Sonnenshione, US 2021 Streaming on Netflix

A film curator in the present day is hired by a billionaire to restore fire-damaged video tapes which were shot in 1994 in an apartment building which burned down. The researcher soon discovers that he has a personal link to the fire. Timeslips, occult covens, worship of a strange god/ demon and weird drugs are involved. He also finds a lost film by a famed horror film director. There are a quite a few jump scares, but it’s the conspiracies and apparent contact between timelines – 2020, 1994, 1924 – that add to the overall strange mood of the series. Psychological horror predominates, with so many secrets held by different people and contending forces.

There are some excellent performances from Mamoudou Athie as Dan Turner, the film curator, Dina Shihabi as Melody Pendras the researcher who shot the tapes in 1994, and Ariana Neal as Jess Lewis, a precocious young teen who gets tangled up in the mystery.

This series, developed and co-written by Rebecca Sonnenshine from a podcast by Daniel Powell and Marc Sollinger, goes far beyond its found footage roots in the way the various past timelines are fleshed out and is well worth a look.

Pat Corcoran

★★★★★