'I Saw the TV Glow' Is True Horror
Horror movies don't scare me. I've watched so many of them that my husband and I tend to talk through the movie, loudly predicting what will happen and what jump scares we're expecting. The last great horror movie I saw was Talk to Me since it mixed trope-y fun with unpredictability. You can rarely go wrong with A24 films, and so when I saw I Saw the TV Glow last weekend I was expecting something similar to that. Whew! I was not ready...
Although I Saw the TV Glow is billed as horror, it's not your typical horror movie. It's definitely horrifying, but not in the way you expect.
The movie is about two teenagers in the '90s who are obsessed with a TV show reminiscent of Pete and Pete and Alex Mack. The show is filled with a ton of that mid-90s/Nickelodeon nostalgia and, much like that decade, presents itself as one long fever dream. But as the teens get older, weird shit starts happening. Is it just a TV show, or something more?
I don't want to say too much, but when the movie ended the entire theater just sat there. I think people were trying to decide if they liked it or not. My husband turned to me and said he was confused. I told him, "Well, I have depression now."
I guess the thing that makes it so horrifying is how universal its underlying message is. That we too could choose to have a better life but choose comfort and normality instead, while meanwhile our "better" selves slowly suffocate. We know it's happening, but we just continue working and aging, as usual.
A true horror story — and we're all living it.