The Twilight Zone (2019): The Twilight Zone: Replay
April 12, 2019 11:35 AM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe
On a road trip to move her son into college, a woman captures this momentous life milestone with an old family camcorder. But soon she discovers the device is capable of more.
‘The Twilight Zone’ Director Gerard McMurray Recreates the Horror of ‘Driving While Black’ in America -- “The First Purge” director spoke to IndieWire about how “Replay” lives in the same universe as “Get Out.” (Hanh Nguyen for Indie Wire)
‘The Twilight Zone’ Director Gerard McMurray Recreates the Horror of ‘Driving While Black’ in America -- “The First Purge” director spoke to IndieWire about how “Replay” lives in the same universe as “Get Out.” (Hanh Nguyen for Indie Wire)
Over and over again, black motorists in America have been victims of the racial profiling and now this act has been brought to terrifying life on “The Twilight Zone.” In the latest episode “Replay,” director Gerard McMurray takes on that real-life recurring nightmare and dramatizes it through a camcorder that literally rewinds time.With a near-classic episode, the new Twilight Zone gets a do-over (Noel Murray for TV/AV Club)
Interpreting the black experience through the lens of horror brings to mind Peele’s directorial debut “Get Out,” which McMurray acknowledge is a fair comparison.
“It’s in the same universe for sure in a lot of ways, but it’s just across the universe,” he told IndieWire. “Ours pushes the boundaries in that it’s more pointed. We replay this over and over so you can understand this stuff happens in the real world, which we see replayed and replayed over and over again. I felt we made it more personal, made it more real.”
Glenn Fleshler nails the unavoidable lurking cop. Just nails it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:22 AM on April 21, 2019
posted by flabdablet at 8:22 AM on April 21, 2019
In each episode so far, the hero meets a devil character and is then doomed. The first devil offers the comedian his heart's desire, the second lets the reporter's greatest strength (his desire to do good) lead him to his doom, and this devil succeeds through sheer evil and perseverance.
This episode was truly frightening. The mother was smart from the very beginning, tried several ways to escape the fate. Then told her son and brother and asked for help. She couldn't have done anything better. She spent the next ten years in fear, while her son lost that fear and accepted that they had to go on without the camcorder's protection. His implied immediate death is all the more horrifying for him having believed himself free.
The repeated motifs of storytelling were striking. The son wants to make films and tell stories, the uncle is documenting the destruction of the black neighborhood, the crowd filming saves the son at the university. They mention starting to believe the stories their elders told. And of course the whole thing is told as a story to the viewers.
The message to our world is that racism and murder by cops are inescapable, but equally or more powerful is the collective multigenerational struggle against them.
In the twilight universe, I'll be interested to see if any character can escape their fate.
posted by starfishprime at 2:51 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
This episode was truly frightening. The mother was smart from the very beginning, tried several ways to escape the fate. Then told her son and brother and asked for help. She couldn't have done anything better. She spent the next ten years in fear, while her son lost that fear and accepted that they had to go on without the camcorder's protection. His implied immediate death is all the more horrifying for him having believed himself free.
The repeated motifs of storytelling were striking. The son wants to make films and tell stories, the uncle is documenting the destruction of the black neighborhood, the crowd filming saves the son at the university. They mention starting to believe the stories their elders told. And of course the whole thing is told as a story to the viewers.
The message to our world is that racism and murder by cops are inescapable, but equally or more powerful is the collective multigenerational struggle against them.
In the twilight universe, I'll be interested to see if any character can escape their fate.
posted by starfishprime at 2:51 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
This was.... unsubtle. Really good performances and cinematography, absolutely gripping through most of it, but the climax just didn’t resonate with me.
posted by bq at 3:50 PM on March 13, 2021
posted by bq at 3:50 PM on March 13, 2021
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posted by GenderNullPointerException at 12:53 PM on April 15, 2019 [1 favorite]