Archive 81 (Netflix)

 

I watched one more solo episode, then right down the rabbit hole I went, bingeing the rest.  I thought the show was great.  It maintained it's tense, paranoiac atmosphere throughout.

Melody in her Visser apartment building with floors nobody is to go on, toxic mold that is a drug to some, a bloody seance, the inexplicable happenings in the "community room".  Her camera is always on, even at a dinner party. No one seems to mind.  Melody's reason for being in the apartment and for trying to interview everyone is that her mother lived there. Could still live there.

Dan in his bunker haunted by his own past and Melody's as he restores her video tapes.  Careless of his employer's rules, Dan knocks through walls to explore further into the facility where he's working.  He maps out where all of the cameras are in the bunker once he's aware of them. He has an architect's skill in mapping out the facility.  He's nice to a rat he finds. I believe he names him "Ratty". 

Dan's friend Mark, who has a podcast called Mysterious Signals, runs countless errands for Dan, helping any way he can, even as Dan becomes a bit unhinged by all he has seen.

On the other hand, Melody's best friend Annabel moves into the Visser with her and quickly becomes immersed in the community of the building.  She's an artist who is soon driven mad by the place.

We get a peek back at 1924, when the troubles for the site of the future apartments began in a sprawling mansion.  

Loaded with fantastic characters, you can't always tell who the good guys are. Except for Dan and Melody and Mark.

Archive 81: Mystery Signals (Netflix)

 

Dan Turner does film restoration work for a museum of video history.  His boss asks him to do a special restoration of an old tape that looks small enough to be an audio tape.  It turns out to be a recording from the 90s that was taken on a hand held camera.

Melody Pendras is doing a graduate oral history of the Visser building in New York. It was built directly on top of another building that was destroyed by a fire.  Why this particular building fascinates her we don't know. She's dedicated enough to pursue getting an apartment in the building.

Her efforts to interview the residents come to nothing until she talks to Jess Lewis, who is a teenager who was born in the building.

While Dan watches the restored tapes, his mind goes back to his family dying in a house fire while he was out walking the family dog.  He sees a picture of that dog on Melody's bulletin board, and is somehow sure she has his dog.

Dan is restoring the tapes in an old concrete bunker of a building. In a remote area of the Catskills, there's no Internet and poor cell service.  The isolation of the place creeps up on the viewer and Dan.

There was a scene where he was outside trying to call his friend, where it looked like someone in a red shirt was nearby, though Dan never saw him.  So creepy!

As the tape continues and Jess talks about someone named Samuel just before having a seizure. The tape gets grainy and the shape of a man (?) alternates with Melody trying to help Jess.

Then Melody is screaming, that they took Jess, and several men in uniforms come in and out of the frame.  She looks into the camera and says "find me!"

Really a rattling experience.  The tension just builds and builds.  I'll have to space out my viewing of the episodes.