Imagine a drama with no character picture, only sound and minimalist abstract bands, what can be filmed?
The next door neighbor greened me, the husband slept with his sister on the eve of the wedding, the father and daughter fought secretly for decades, the whole process had no face, but the audience was surprised and directly sealed.
That's right, this is the new trick apple TV+ plays. A confused look went in, and in just ten minutes, he decisively sent him to his knees.
Douban 8.8, this sci-fi god work, has become an annual hit in the epidemic era.
Horrible calls
Remade from the French drama of the same name, "Scary Call" has a total of 9 episodes, each episode is less than 20 minutes. The first 7 episodes tell 7 separate short stories, and the last two episodes unveil the mystery, and the setting is chilling.
There are no shadows, no bloody scenes and exaggerated sound effects, but they can scare people out of their souls.
(Source: Yuanjian Subtitle Group)
In the first episode, the theme is "Final", and the protagonists are a pair of "long-distance lovers", Tim and Sarah.
Tim is in Los Angeles, busy with talk shows; Sarah is in New York, a nurse. After the "drip" sound, the two had a small quarrel because of the 6-month separation, but Sarah suddenly found that there was a person outside the house, which looked strange and the telephone signal was cut off.
But Tim didn't worry about his girlfriend at all, and instead called his agent Camilla. It turned out that the two had already given Sarah green, and the scumbag Tim was going to break up with Sarah this time.
Over there, Sarah called the police because someone outside wanted to break the door, and her tone was very panicked, and the one on the other side didn't look like a person at all!
Tim and Camilla couldn't wait to roll up the sheets, and then Tim went to the kitchen to drink water, but suddenly received a call from Camilla, saying that she would arrive late because she was taking care of her sister's children.
WTF！！！ Who was the on the bed?
Tim panicked and was explaining to Camilla when he suddenly began to scream for help, which was terrifying, and then the signal was interrupted.
More terrible is yet to come.
When the police rushed to Sara's house, they also fell into a deep fear, and Sarah also saw clearly the "monster" outside the door, which was facing Tim's face, but half of his body had melted.
At the last moment, Sarah called Tim, and there was a sudden earthquake outside, and the two suddenly took off into the air, drifting farther and farther away, breaking through the skyline.
The monster with the face of her boyfriend outside the door in the middle of the night, the stranger naked on the pillow, are the two horror scenes in the first episode very scary? Isn't the ending a bit confusing?
Don't worry, keep looking back.
In the second episode, the theme is "Beginning", the story takes place in Phoenix, still a couple, Mark and Louis.
Louis was pregnant, 4 weeks, but Mark did not want to be a father, and in a fit of anger, he did not say goodbye and drove to the desert to relax. Half an hour later, Mark got a call from Louis asking him to go home. But Mark is preoccupied with the desert center, planning to go to a friend's house for a day.
The phone suddenly broke and was answered again, and Louis was so anxious that he begged Rose to come home in tears and had called the police.
Please, after only half an hour, Mark became even more impatient, only to be told by Louis that he had been away from home for three days. Three days??? But I obviously only left for half an hour! Mark hung up the phone in a huff.
Mark's mother then called, very worried about Mark's safety, and told Mark that Louis was four months pregnant, urging Mark to turn around and go home.
Four months?? Isn't it just four weeks? It must have been a family that had joined forces to lie in order to force themselves to take responsibility, and Mark was so angry that he hung up the phone again.
Mark then called his buddy Andrew, wanted to spend the night, but was scolded by the buddies, and then got a more shocking news, his child has been born for half a year, and the brothers are taking care of their wives and children.
Mark panicked and waited until he contacted his girlfriend again, and his sons were already twelve years old. In the real world, Mark has been missing for more than a decade, declared dead, his girlfriend is married to his buddy, and his mother has long since died.
The call came to an abrupt halt and Mark couldn't wait to turn around and go home... This concludes the second episode.
Not only that, but the story direction of the next few episodes is even more bizarre.
The sister called the doctor sister, claiming that her hands were getting longer and her face was melting, but the sister was in a hurry to get a divorce.
In the end, the divorce process was repeatedly interrupted by the sister, and the sister was completely angry, why did the sister bother every time she was with her husband, even if it was a divorce?
It was true that the dripping sound was over, that the sister's body was melting, and that on the sister's wedding night and the brother-in-law rolled the sheets, it was also true.
Another example is that the next-door neighbor and his girlfriend rolled the sheets, and then tore their faces and planted each other's boots, and the man in the green hat was swept in.
Would he choose to trust his girlfriend or a neighbor he didn't know at all? Especially the neighbor who claimed he had received a call from the future, the person who called, or himself!
There is also a maniac who shot his girlfriend in the head, but when holding his girlfriend's body, he suddenly received a phone call, and it was his girlfriend at the end of the phone, who was the corpse in front of him?
Scary enough?
As the legend of parallel universes intensifies, a daughter who wants her mother to avoid a car accident takes the initiative to walk into the desert where she can call time and space. Will the mother on the other end of the phone be convinced? What are the consequences of changing the past for life now?
The first few short stories are relatively independent, while the next two episodes connect all the incredible and unexplained supernatural scenes and find their source.
Here's a no spoiler, you guys go and reveal it yourself.
Each story in the play begins with a call and ends with a call. What started out was a mundane daily chat, but in an instant it became scary and weird.
And we, like the receivers at the end of every phone, can only imagine the degree of "weirdness", and each person's feelings are completely different, constructing a completely different and terrible scene.
In other words, this drama only draws a general framework, the real background, relying on the audience to fill in, this kind of brain supplement that mixes previous experiences allows the audience to have a nearly realistic character experience.
The horror of imagination is the most terrifying.
The director of the play, Feder Alvarez, once said: "The whole play is about your imagination".
Alvarez, who specializes in horror films, has scared countless audiences out of their minds many years ago with a small and large low-budget horror film "Hold Your Breath". This time, he relied on sound and bands to make the audience's adrenaline soar.
Although the actors did not appear, the lineup was also very strong. "Cinderella" Lily Collins, "All Husband" Nick Jonas, "Midnight Nurse" Rosario Dawson... Once again, it was confirmed that the voice also had acting skills.
This drama has set off a storm at home and abroad, and the praise is overwhelming. Rotten Tomatoes freshness 91%, Douban 8.8, 52.1% of people gave a five-star praise.
Although there is no live-action picture, the director cleverly uses bands to present the picture, and every second has a very precise design, which is also very suitable for the story.
For example, when two people have a calm conversation, the band is simple and smooth,
Once the character has an emotional change or a phone line, the band will begin to show multi-faceted deformation.
Sometimes it is possible to make corresponding changes according to the position of the characters, showing a sense of space; when the characters on the phone move spatially when going up and down the stairs.
What is even more amazing is that sometimes the director will use line shapes to refer to the relationship between the characters, such as when the sister and brother-in-law and the sister talk to each other, the band presents a looming triangle shape, and with the exposure of the relationship between the brother-in-law and the sister, the triangle really becomes clear and eye-catching;
Of course, the color of the band is also very worthy of further study.
When the character feels the pain, the blood-red color rolls in front of the screen, accompanied by the effect of the electric shock version, and the pain comes to the face.
When the character is chased and killed, the red color becomes a messy tentacle, like an extension around, directly approaching the character, and the tense effect jumps out of the eye.
The text has been carefully designed.
When the earthquake is struck, the text also swings from side to side, and when the characters float, the dialogue also floats with it, which can be said to be very attentive.
There is no doubt that the breakthrough and innovation of "Scary Call" was successful.
But in addition to the novel form, the most impressive thing is the most simple emotional secret wrapped in "time and space chaos" and "cosmic restart".
Male and female; father and son; mother and daughter;
It is also in the face of the collapse and separation of the world that the touching humanity behind responsibility, love and family affection is re-explored. Almost every episode will be about the reconciliation of love.
Most importantly, if you had the opportunity to change the past, how would you choose?
Change, or unchanged?