Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 1]
The Body
Shown 05 Oct 18
It is Halloween night, and a hitman has to move the body of his latest victim to a specific location by a specific time in order to complete the contract. Unfortunately some trick-or-treaters have egged his car ... and slashed a couple of tires for good measure. Worse, the cops have arrived to stop these tricksters.
The hitman tags along with Ashley Prime ( Aurora Perrineau ) and Nick (Harvey Guillerin - What We Do In The Shadows ) to a halloween party run by Ray Santiago ( Ash Vs Evil Dead ). Luckily, his blood-smeared appearance and body-looking bundle look like the ultimate halloween costume.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 2]
Flesh & Blood
Shown 02 Nov 18
A tweenage girl ( Diana Silvers ) has had crippling agoraphobia since the death of her mother ( Meredith Salenger ). She lives with her father (Dermot Mulroney - ), and her limited social interactions are with her online support group and her psychiatrist ( Tembi Locke ).
As Thanksgiving approaches, the girl begins to suspect her father is a serial killer. He is a bit overprotective, but she is the violent one.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 3]
Pooka!
Shown 07 Dec 18
The protagonist is an out-of-work actor who moves into a new apartment and befriends his new neighbour ( Dale Dickey ).
The actor gets a job as a sales mascot in a stuffed costume. His job is to sell stuffed toys named Pooka, which have an electronic implant that alternates their mood between good and bad. The actor discovers his own mental states fluctuating, as if the Pooka is somehow influencing him.
This is a slow burner, but it slowly develops into a surreal suspense effort. However, it is let down by the twist - a version of the Untruthful Narrator, which means that the protagonist must have halucinated events that he was not personally present at.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 4]
New Year, New You
Shown 28 Dec 18
Four young women meet up on New Year's Eve, 2018. They are old friends who went to High School together, so they talk about the good old days.
Danielle is a wellness influencer, and the others seem in her sway. However, there is more to it than that.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 5]
Down
Shown 01 Feb 19
On Valentine's night, a pair of office drones are the last to leave the building for the evening. Unfortunately they get stuck in the elevator. For some reason, the building's security guard does not seem to be answering.
Eventually, the actual plot takes off. One of the trapped people has a stalker, and this turns into a battle reminiscent of the movie P2 (2007) . There may be a bit of a new spin on it, but in all fairness it is just not that original.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 6]
Treehouse
Shown 01 Mar 19
Peter Rake (Jimmi Simpson - Unhinged ) is a celebrity chef with his own cooking show on TV. He takes a few days off work to hang out in his father's old house in the countryside. It is too big and fancy to be a Cabin in the Woods , but it fulfills the same function.
A group of women go camping nearby. They are a diverse bunch - the hot one ( Julianna Guill ), the older one ( Mary McCormack ), the Latinx one ( Stephanie Beatriz ), the Black one ( ) and the English one ( ). They claim to be a bachelorette party, but this is a horror series so they are probably up to no good.
Peter is the viewpoint character, so we presume he is the hero. Simpson was clearly cast because he is an everyman, so he can be a reactive victim without the expectation of being a proactive action star. In other words, he is the Final Girl.
The bachelorettes are witches, and in the #MeToo era they are made to look like the good guys. The male character gets victim-blamed: Peter is in his old home to hide out, not unlike Justin's character in Barbarian . Of course, all this really does is pretend that every generation of women has been powerless ... even the current one, with the exception of an elite group of empowered avengers. They are so inferior to men that they cannot compete on a level playing field ... but they can take revenge with impunity when they get the urge.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 7]
I'm Just F*cking with You
Shown 01 Apr 19
Larry is an Internet troll. He is not political, he just loves posting cruel things on social media. His specific target is a girl named Cindy who is about to get married the next day.
Larry books into the Pink Motel, where he waits for his sister Rachel ( Jessica McNamee ). The motel's night manager, Chester, is a weirdo and a practical joker. Of course, he is just messing with Larry the same way Larry messes with people online. However, the jokes take a violent twist.
The end credits sequence puts a different spin on things, and actually add a bunch of questions.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 8]
All That We Destroy
Shown 03 May 19
A female geneticist ( Samantha Mathis ) clones a young woman, to provide murder fodder for her tweenage son - a burgeoning serial killer. She uses a VR simulation to talk with the boy's father (Frank Whalley - Broken Arrow ), so such technology is clearly commonplace. However, either she never considered using it or it is inadequate as treatment for her son.
A tweenage girl moves into the nearest house, half a mile away. She becomes attached to the tweenage boy, and suspicious of the girl he is living with. Since both of them match the victim profile, the story's suspense comes from the question of which one will get killed first.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 9]
They Come Knocking
Shown 07 Jun 19
A widower (Clayne Crawford - Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) takes his two young daughters on a road trip. They stop off at a deserted stop in the desert, and get besieged by monsters.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 10]
Culture Shock
Shown 04 Jul 19
The protagonist is a pregnant Mexican woman. She wants to get across the border into the USA - not necessarily to make a better life, but to get even with the man who impregnated her. She joins a group of migrants on the way north. One is a tattooed gangster, so she is obviously not the only killer in the group. However, there is a small boy along as well.
The route is fraught with dangers. Not only are there cartel gunmen on the loose, but the US Border Patrol is around.
The protagonist wakes up in suburban USA. The town's Mayor, Thomas (Shawn Ashmore - X-Men 2 ), is friendly and keeps an eye on her. However, the place is too good to be true. It is like Stepford crossed with The Matrix .
The end credits show a mocked-up version of the US right-wing channel Faux News explaining their version of the immigration situation.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 11]
School Spirit
Shown 02 Aug 19
This starts with a couple of horny teenagers trying to hide a video camera in the girls' showers at the High School. Yes, like an updated Porky's. The horny teens fall victim to another classic 1980s film trope - the masked slasher killer.
A week later, the bodies have not been found so the teens joined the school's list of missing persons. The protagonist, an Asian-American Final Girl, is among a group of schoolkids who have to do saturday detention. Yes, this is an updated version of The Breakfast Club. The first thing the supervising teacher does is confiscate their smart-phones, so the kids are in the same position as they would have been in the 1980s.
When the teacher leaves them alone, the kids share the school's ghost story - about a teacher who died when a practical joke went wrong, and now wanders the school as a ghost punishing naughty kids. Then they split up to start clowning around by themselves. This means they can be picked off one at a time ... but also, none has an alibi so any of them could be the killer.
Into The Dark (2018) [Season 1, Episode 12]
Pure
Shown 06 Sep 19
A group of young women go on a religious Purity retreat. Not actual purity, but an American Xian daddy-daughter cult. The preacher, a gun-toting reactionary, is at least open-minded enough to teach the story of Lillith. Yes, instead of blaming Eve's female weakness for all evil be makes that weakness seem like a good thing because it enables Adam's masculinity to dominate her.
Four of the young women sneak out at night, and conduct a secret ritual that summons Lillith. After all, they see her as a female victim of Patriarchy.
The main protagonist is the only one who can see Lillith. Her visions are a series of jump scares. After all, the ghosts cannot actually harm anyone. The real conflict is with the Patriarchal oppressors, because this is a female empowerment show.
