Netflix has given us a lot of horror classics in the past. Especially on the TV side of the equation. Shows like The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Brand New Cherry Flavor, and the criminally underrated Marianne have all done their part to memorably horrify audiences. The new Netflix series that premieres early next year, Archive 81, looks to accomplish that same terrifying feat. In preparation for the show’s release in January, Netflix has released a handful of images to start raising your blood pressure ever so slightly.
To understand the images, we must understand the plot and the synopsis reads as followed:
Archive 81 follows archivist Dan Turner (Mamoudou Athie), who takes a job restoring a collection of damaged videotapes from 1994. Reconstructing the work of a documentary filmmaker named Melody Pendras (Dina Shihabi), he is drawn into her investigation of a dangerous cult at the Visser apartment building. As the season unfolds across these two timelines, Dan slowly finds himself obsessed with uncovering what happened to Melody. When the two characters form a mysterious connection, Dan becomes convinced he can save her from the terrifying end she met 25 years ago.
One of the images sees Mamaoudou Athie’s Dan presumably restoring a videotape to its original state and in a couple more images we see him try to put the mystery of the tapes together. The other sees Dan with Matt McGorry’s Mark as they look off screen, presumably watching a tape, with eerie charcoal drawings behind them. The drawing looks to be of Dina Shihabi’s Melody who made the tapes and is featured in this narrative's other timeline.
These images all display their own set of complex questions and if Netflix wanted to get people's attention drawn to this series then this definitely does that.
With these new images, a trailer is certainly just around the corner and this is where we are going to get a clearer picture of what this horror mystery is all about. In particular, it will be interesting to see how the supernatural elements play out in this multi-timeline terror. With people like modern horror legend James Wan serving as Executive Producer and Rebecca Sonnenshine, the Producer of the hit series The Boys, being the showrunner of the series, horror fans are most likely in for a spine-tingling genre treat.
The series premieres on Netflix on January 14, 2022 and for all the latest news on Archive 81, stick with Collider.