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| From https://crypticrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/darknet.jpg |
Series Directors: Vincenzo Natali, Rodrigo Gudiño, Jeremy Ball, Anthony Scott Burns, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Screenplay: Randall Cole, James
Kee, Sarah Larsen, Vincenzo Natali, Doug Taylor, Pascal Trottier
Based on the Japanese series Tori
Hada
Synopsis: Set in Toronto, Darknet
follows various individuals connected in different gruesome tales by
Darknet.net, a sinister website on the hidden side of the web which offers real
death videos and forums for questions such as how to dispose of a body.
In 2010, a Japanese show called Tori Hada came to be and went on to
have multiple spin-off films and additionals, Japanese horror notable in
grasping on the fears new technology from the web to mobile phones would
produce since the nineties. Enter Vincenzo
Natali, the Canadian maverick behind films like Cube (1997) and Splice
(2009) who decided to work on adapting Tori
Hada to the West as this Canadian production. Unfortunately, whilst it's
been made available for streaming online, the resulting show Darknet only last for six episodes
before being canned.
There are sign, clear, why this
was the case, but especially with the structure and style, it would've been an
innovative horror anthology even if it had a few more episodes. Initially, it
combines various stories in a non-linear fashion in the same world of Toronto
(usually after dark). Characters in one tale appear others or are connected to
each other; neither is it, as mentioned, linear in chronology, played t, with
the exception of the middle of the series where it sags, in interlinking the
stories in unique ways. Its mood is based on the idea of urban legends
especially in connection to how technology influences them, the title based on
the fears of the "dark net", the idea that once accessed, there's a subterranean
world to the net is a place of the worst in humanity. The real life version is
called deep web, and the fears of what transpires on it, whether true or not,
including it being a place where child pornography can be accessed or even
worst could be located. In the last few years, to take this review in a sad
real perspective, that mass murders can be streamed on Facebook off a profile
has made the deep net as a bogeyman unnecessary as the ordinary net can be abused
in real tragedy. It dates Darknet in
a tragic truth, but Darknet as a
series still touches upon this fear with a lot of interest.
For horror, even the idea of
this, to take this review back to covering a fun and creepy cancelled series, becomes
as much about horror stories of yore from the perspective of internet media.
Where there's a secret website, whose forums allow you to ask how to dispose of
a body, and even one's GPS map system isn't safe. Creepy Pastas, urban legends
with a known existence as being fictional, are close to what Darknet riffs upon but with the
exception that, barring one that gets in
Vincenzo Natali's obsession with body horror and the ending scene for the
whole series, there's no overt supernatural tale but entirely about the thick
evil morass of what people can get up to.
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| From https://css-princess.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/darknet.jpg |
The structure, when it's focused upon, is inspired, where even clichéd tropes of horror are given new life by wrong footing the viewer with the chronological structure. It also has no concern for getting over the top - the first episode has a businessman finding a key in a subway locker, sent on a wild goose chase with another key and so forth, logic not getting in the way of the creepiness. In terms of the fears the series plays on, many are "realistic" or at least about gristly things, and in one case you even have a story wrong foot you by never having any death at all, just turning into an amateur porn shoot. Even by pure accident, perception of characters as much as the twists provide a lot of great moments, alongside the sense of this being a horror series only possible to make in the 2010s. Again, it's dated a little now that even the regular internet is shown to be a dark and horrible place, but dealing with subject matter like internet trolls and furries, it stands out as having a fresh perspective on this type of storytelling by talking about new cultural ideas.
It makes a blunder with Episode
5, which is one single tale of an isolated young woman who witnesses a strange
vanishing figure on her CCTV camera footage at work. It's not as bad as I was
prepared for it to be, but its clichéd, bland and obvious. Throughout the series,
the stories are to the point, even intercut between each other for an
interesting pace, and have no fears of taking risks. Even those that overegg
their stories, Episode 4 including a woman being gas lighted using her
psychological issues, are contrasted by perfectly executed ones like a single
woman toying with a peeping torn across the road, little cliches kept fresh by
their invention and short lengths. One episode which is about one story, no
others, ends up completely missing the point of why the formula worked and
scuppers the pace due to there being only five other episodes for contrast.
Episode six improves and clears
up the failures of the fifth, although one has to speculate what caused Darknet to fail and only have these six
episodes. I suspect episode five didn't help at all - imagining if I was a TV
executive that the whole episode, alongside the plot with the gas lighting in
Episode 4 which stumbled into too many twists, there was a sense the production
had already drifted away from the tightly constructed work of before, and that
fear that it could happen over and over again if the future episodes had to be
rushed. Beyond that, there's only speculation, baring the fact that with
Episode One directed by Natali
himself, Darknet was starting off
well but with the potential danger that, in lieu of what feels like perfectly
and carefully worked over initial episodes, they could have easily gotten lazy
if he or someone likeminded wasn't planning ahead.
Episode 6 does at least return to
its point, as even Episode 5 distanced itself completely from its premise about
technology, stories varying upon a cartoon mouse as well as the dangers of
internet trolling. It does unfortunately end the whole series on a deeply
silly, and frankly bad, conclusion; returning characters, abrupt supernatural
computer technology without set-up, and the strange (and dumb) idea of an assemble
of deviants being pulled together for a Machiavellian group like a superhero
team. It thankfully doesn't undermine Darknet
too much but does feel like a sour note to finish on. Sadly, only three hours
long altogether, a much better outcome should've taken place even if Darknet was still cancelled, just for
its idiosyncratic take on horror anthology storytelling. What we got if flawed
but was still a fascinating construction.
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| From https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/10/darknet.jpg?w=680 |
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