January 17 brushed this drama, as of today,
The Douban score rose from 6.8 to 7.2; the imdb rose from 7.5 to 7.6...
So, what exactly is File 81 about?
Why is the opening score low, but the trend is constantly rising?
The first thing that has to be mentioned is the so-called "Wen Ziren Supervision" spell.
From the bloody and violent Chainsaw Horror series, to the Ghost Hunting Universe...
Wen Ziren most successfully opened, a genre film that relies on supernatural powers.
The Conjuring Cinematic Universe ⬆️
However, as Wen Dao became busier and busier, and more and more titles were given, the works cloaked in "Wen Ziren's supervision" were constantly deformed in mass production...
After being poked a few times by Mortal Kombat, Chainsaw Horror 9: Vortex, Conjuring 3, and The Curse of the Weeping Woman, I became allergic to "producers."
Most of these movies have weak minds and dog blood, even if the beginning is acceptable, the acting will collapse in its entirety, and the scariness depends on a shock at first...
The play is based on the radio drama "File 81", so you may find that no one mentions 81 in the play, but just follows the name of the radio drama.
Directed by Rebecca Thomas, she directed the second season of Stranger Things.
There is also a screenwriter in the main creative team , Rebecca Sonnesien.
In 2021, she won the 73rd Primetime Emmy Award for Best Screenplay in a Drama Series (nominated) for the second season of "Black Pickets"
Didn't you suddenly feel a little interesting?
The opening rhythm is slow, the horror elements are few, I believe that many people abandoned the drama in the first two episodes or rushed to bad reviews.
But by the fourth and fifth episodes, the plot was unexpectedly exciting!
Spoilers begin below
01
The story is two-line parallel.
The first line is daniel, the male protagonist who lives in 2019, buying films on the side of the road.
Originally thought that Dan was an antique lover, he later learned that he was a craftsman and worked at the Moving Image Museum.
The restoration task Daniel received that day was a burnt tape of the camera.
This is a 1994 tape, a subject recorded by a graduate student named Melody Panderas.
Interview with residents of East Village Weser Apartments, a small community in New York City.
The video doesn't look special, but there are two doubts:
1. The client instructs Daniel to keep it confidential and not to copy it;
2. On March 26, 1994, a fire broke out in the Apartment of Viser, and 13 people were missing.
And this tape completely involved Dan in this strange event, or rather, he was already in it.
The client's name is Virgil Devenpo, and there is a whole set of videos that have been badly damaged.
One hundred thousand dollars, the suburban research institute office, no network, working alone, cracked the fire mystery of 25 years ago.
It sounds very unreliable, but Daniel accepts the task because they give too much (no)
Because he inadvertently saw his dog that disappeared when he was a child from the video footage...
And, his father and sister also died in the fire at home, and he vaguely felt that there was any connection between them all.
As the repair of the first tape begins,
The second storyline gradually pulls away...
Note that this is a supernatural thriller suspense drama, don't take it seriously to solve the case and get close to science.
At the heart of the story are the Witches, Psychics, Evil Spirits, and Comets.
The Apartments of Visser in 1994 are like an old castle in isolation.
Inside are all kinds of strange people, as well as strange decorations.
These are several videotapes with a lot of content, the first four episodes have not stepped into the main topic, I think the first four episodes can actually be explained in two episodes.
Let's just pick a few key people and events.
Antique art collector Rich Woman - Kassandr Huar:
She and her sister Elena participated in a campaign known as the "Psychic Receivers."
A psychic medium who is passionate about divination, Beatrice Reyes;
Lost control during a soul-summoning ceremony, scratched his face and was taken to the hospital.
Came to the apartment to accompany Mei's good friend, Annabelle (a Wen Ziren-style small Easter egg);
After moving into the apartment, Annabelle gradually began to have a mental disorder.
In the end, some strange paintings were drawn and he was sent to a sanatorium.
Priest of St. Albert's Church – Russell;
After a series of investigations into the Viser apartment, he died on the subway tracks.
Organizer of the occult ritual – Sammyo;
First of all, Melody's real purpose in coming to Viser's apartment was not to do a research project, but to find her biological mother, Julia.
Her birth mother had left her in church, leaving only a necklace pendant.
The pattern of this pendant is consistent with the mysterious and ancient Totem of the Padang Witches.
Recently, she received a letter about her mother from The Weser apartment, which is why she rented it here under the pretext of doing a project.
Daniel's father was Melody's psychiatrist, so the photo showed her with the dog.
Secondly, there was a strange cult in the basement of the apartment, where hymns were sung every night for rituals.
In addition, there is a mysterious sixth floor in the apartment, which is closed to a lot of addicts.
They were not smoking drugs, but mold coming out of the cracks in the walls of the entire apartment.
Also, the psychic medium Beatrice tries to help Melody determine if her mother is dead.
Recruited in the spirit-calling ceremony was Daniel, who was watching the videotape in 2019.
And, Daniel told Melody, in 1994, she would die in a fire.
Daniel had several conversations with Melody in 1994 during the restoration of the tape.
They both thought it was a dream.
Until Melody, at the scene of the psychic summoning, overhears her conversation with Daniel in her "dream";
Daniel himself is in the video (no footage but dialogue).
The video was indeed recorded in 1994. Typical passive information plot.
02
There is a very interesting thing about this play.
At the beginning of each episode, there is a "starter", and there will be key plots in this episode to echo it.
At the beginning of the sixth episode, the key puzzles of the film have only begun to be revealed.
Do you accidentally feel like there's someone behind you?
Sometimes feel a dark shadow passing by?
It is not an illusion, but behind the real world, there is an alien world with super power and energy.
Fast forward to 1784, Comet Charon, which skipped over Earth every 70 years, disintegrated and crashed near Earth.
At this time, the curtain of separation between the real world and the other world is the weakest.
The mysterious Padang Witches learned of and obtained the methods and rituals of communicating with the other world.
The Witches made a deal with the gods of the other world and the devil Kelgo, and it is not known what the deal was.
But according to the plot that follows, Calego can do everything: giving eternal life, unlimited wealth, perpetual peace, foreknowling the future, changing the past, and reuniting with dead loved ones.
However, Calego is not a god, but an evil spirit, and when it is used more, it is naturally repulsed.
During a summoning ritual, Calgo killed most of the Padang witches.
The surviving Padang witches abandoned the code that recorded the ritual of summoning Calego.
Since then, the remaining descendants have always regarded it as their duty to track down and seal Calego.
In 1920, World War I ended, and many people lost their loved ones.
Alice Vos of the Voss family accidentally obtained the Code abandoned by the Padang Witches.
Alice founded the Voss cult, and many became followers of the cult.
Because they all want the mighty Calego to help them, reunite with lost loved ones and children in their lifetime.
In 1924, Charon's Comet once again approached Earth.
Alice Voss, who has lost her father and husband, in order to help evil spirits open the otherworld as a trade, wants to get a child of her own.
However, due to the lack of the necessary conditions for summoning, she repeatedly failed.
So she decided to sacrifice a believer, her maid Rose.
The ceremony still fails, Voss Manor is burned to ashes, and Alice is pulled into an alien dimension.
Everyone else was killed in the fire, and the Voss cult was destroyed, but videotape of the ceremony was left behind.
In 1932, the Weser apartment was rebuilt on the site of the Voss cult, whose founder was suspected to be an admirer of the cult.
In 1958, director William Crest saw the ceremonial tape and disappeared after filming the film "Circle".
In 1974, the psychic Kassandra and sister Elena were attracted to and moved in with the Apartments of Viser.
Together with a wealthy man named Sammuel, they recruited many adherents and rebuilt the Voss cult.
Because the Kassandra sisters were collectors, they collected materials for the summoning ceremony, but lacked the blood of the Padang witches who could perform the rituals.
Samui assumed another identity, Professor Alexander Devinbo.
He disguises himself as a historian who studies the bloodline of Padang, and looks for suspects in society who match the characteristics.
In 1994, fellow psychologist Professor Steven Turner (Daniel's father) discovered that Melody fit these traits.
Anonymously sent some research materials to the historian, thinking that it was for academic discussion.
Unexpectedly, Samui pretended to be a mother who was looking for a daughter and sent a letter to Melody, leading her to the apartment.
During the final summoning ceremony, Melody enters the other world with Sammyo.
The Wesser apartments, like the Voss Manor 70 years ago, were reduced to ashes.
Virgil Devinpo, the younger brother of Samuille (Alexander De wenbo), is also attracted to the mysterious power of Calego after studying his brother's missing Viser apartment.
This isn't the first time That De Wenbo has repaired a videotape of Visser's apartment.
Thomas, who repaired the tape last time, was insane...
Daniel studied the tapes and was also on the verge of madness.
However, he has already made some kind of contact with Melody, and he decides to open the other world again and rescue Melody...
03
Countless pits were dug at the front of the story, and the latter episodes were mainly filled with pits.
But still only filled in a seven-seven-eight-eight, the ending is also open-ended.
Among them, the second episode begins with a DNA advertisement that is very important.
The genetic testing company was founded in 2006 by Virgil.
In his institute, a large number of genetic specimens and materials are preserved.
The gene bank collected blood samples from all kinds of people around the world, and Virgil and his brother were doing the same thing — looking for the blood of the witch gene.
This gene was really found by him, that is, Melody's still-alive mother, Bobby.
She pretends to help Virgil carry out his summoning plan, in effect waiting for an opportunity to pull her daughter back from the otherworld.
As a young man, Bobby abandoned Melody in order to avoid her daughter being used by a cult.
She had hoped that her daughter could grow up carefree as an ordinary girl, but she still could not escape her fate.
Necessary elements of the summoning ceremony: the blood of a Padang witch, three tuning forks, a statue of Calego and a prayer from the Code.
Originally, there was no need to sacrifice a person, but because of the lack of a tuning fork, the Voss cult created its own sacrifice Dafa, so it failed every time.
What exactly does Calego have? I really can't see it.
What is certain is that he can appear on different videotapes or photographs, using images as a medium to interfere with the real world.
The interference of these heterogeneous dimensions can generate a mold, like a psychodigmatogenic psychedelic drug, which is addictive and goes crazy.
The projector that shows mold videos is also full of mold.
Dan's father, Steven Turner, later tried to save Melody from the disaster, but also contracted mold after the tape was played in his home.
Eventually, he burned down his mansion (presumably), possibly cursed by evil spirits.
Melody's friend Annabelle is also hallucinatory because of mold, and she can see pictures of other worlds.
So, in 1994, her paintings were all Alice Voss, who was trapped in another world in 1924.
And in 2019, when Daniel found her, her paintings became Melody, who was trapped in another world in 1994.
Maybe it's because Annabelle has some psychic abilities. Most of the people who were once drawn into Viser's apartment had some psychic abilities.
Mold amplifies the psychic's abilities,
Ordinary people will become the crazy people on the sixth floor.
It is clear that the other world is not a paradise, and the time and space of the people in it are distorted.
Therefore, the people trapped in it are constantly sending out distress signals.
The overall rhythm of the play is relatively slow in the first half, and the middle begins to accelerate.
If you survive the first three episodes, you will find more exciting later, and the open-ended ending also indicates that there will be a second season.
Of course, if you want to compare this work with "The Conjuring" and "Latent", it is naturally incomparable.
But as a suspense thriller, it is still above the passing line.
There is no surprise scene in the play, you can rest assured, the horror elements are not particularly many, but the atmosphere is still well shaped.
There are actually many works related to cults and videotapes.
In the fall chapter of 2021's World of Wonders, there is a story that is also related to reading past saves, but it is a game save.
As a storage tool, these media also stored a kind of otherworldly space when storing data at that time.
And when future people read these memory cards, they will also read out that world.
The idea isn't new, but it always gets some resonance.
Especially when we are older, we often look through past photos and videos, and look at our past selves like a strange acquaintance.
Who hasn't had a dream of changing the past?
Talk to your past self and reveal several wealth codes;
Interact with your past self to accomplish what you didn't accomplish;
Make peace with your past self and say sorry to the deceased.
In the finale of the first season, Daniel rescues Melody through a summoning ceremony, but he is trapped in 1994.
The second season will probably continue to save Daniel's story, hoping that he will not waste time and buy some Apple stock first.