What Is The Kaelego Demon in ‘Archive 81’?

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As the first season of Archive 81 rolls into its eighth and final episode on Netflix, tape archivist Dan Turner (Mamoudou Athie) has uncovered a host of secrets about just what went down in the Visser Apartments back in the 1990’s, before the building burned to a crisp in a mysterious fire. The investigations of graduate student Melody Pendras (Dina Shihabi) into the Visser have become Dan’s obsession, and have led him to a confrontation with the demon Kaelego.

Fair warning: by asking for the 411 on Kaelego, you’re asking for Archive 81 spoilers. Proceed with caution!

There was more than just a boiler and rat kings in the basement of the Visser. A culty bunch called the Vos Society were down there, too, and they were using scary masks and the statuette Kaelego’s essence was trapped inside of by a different kind of cult way back in the 1300s to make the demon manifest in the ’90s. In fact, Kaelego is why LMG CEO Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) hired Dan for the tape restoration project in the first place: he hoped the footage would reveal the road map to summoning Kaelego for his own ends.

Now, Virgil, the Vos Society and 14th century coven that originally cornered Kaelego aren’t even the only cults popping off in Archive 81. “Let’s break it down,” Dan’s buddy Mark (Matt McGorry) says after they watch some more insane archival footage and pick up their jaws from the floor. “Iris Vos, 1924. She and her high society cult of Kaelego-worshippers execute a ritual. Ugly shit. Human sacrifice. Something goes wrong, big explosion.” And it’s then that Dan and Mark sort out how the tapes and footage have offered them a glimpse of the dimension Kaelego the Demon calls home. That’s right, folks, Archive 81 has given us another multiverse situation to keep track of! And it becomes Dan’s mission to enter that mirror world and locate Melody, who’s stuck over there with Kaelego. As the saying goes, good luck with all of that … in Archive 81 Season 2!

Matt McGorry Says Re-Watching ‘Archive 81’ Put Him “On the Edge of His Seat” (EXCLUSIVE)

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Streaming giant Netflix is home to original shows and movies that have dominated news feeds with their creative tales, and among those in the horror genre, like Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, Archive 81 is its newest psychological tale.

The series is loosely based on a podcast by the same name (though the two are quite different), following Dan Turner (played by Mamoudou Athie) as he unravels the mystery behind nearly-destroyed tapes that depict a dangerous cult.

Netflix Ratings: ‘Archive 81’ and ‘Cheer’ Enter TV Top 10

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“The Witcher,” “Stay Close,” “Cobra Kai,” “Emily in Paris,” and “Manifest” all retained their dominion on Netflix’s English-language TV Top 10 list for the second full week of 2022, while the sixth season of makeover show “Queer Eye” fell through the cracks, leaving room for newcomers “Cheer” (Season 2) and “Archive 81” to join the ranks.

“Cheer” was No. 5 on the list with roughly 29.1 million hours viewed, and horror drama “Archive 81,” from showrunner and executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine, landed in the seventh slot with 22.2 million hours viewed. The suspenseful series stars Dina Shihabi, Mamoudou Athie, Matt McGorry, Ariana Neal, Julia Chan, Evan Jonigkeit and Martin Donavan, and involves a deadly mystery involving a cult, arson and a disappeared director. “Stay Close,” the limited thriller series based on the Harlan Coben novel of the same name, climbed to the No. 1 spot with 53.72 million hours viewed.

On the non-English Top 10 list, the Colombian love story “Café con Aroma de Mujer” triumphed for the second consecutive week in a row with 98.85 million hours, making it the most-watched title of the week of Jan. 10-16. Other Spanish-language entrants include the sophomore season of “The Queen of Flow” for the ninth week in a row, the inaugural season of the “Rebelde” reboot for a second week, and the last installment of “Money Heist” for its 13th consecutive week. Korean-language hits “Single’s Inferno” and “Our Beloved Summer” were at No. 4 and 5 respectively, and “Squid Game” landed in last place for its 18th consecutive week on the Top 10 chart.

Over on the film side, “Brazen,” the romantic thriller based on the novel of the same name by Nora Roberts, took the gold on the streamer’s English-language Top 10 list with 45.34 million hours and was in the Top 10 in 93 countries. “Don’t Look Up” took No. 2 and “Red Notice” continued its streak on the chart for its 10th straight week, along with “Back to the Outback” for its sixth week. The Polish flick “How I Fell in Love With a Gangster” made it to the top of the non-English language film ranks with 11.51 million hours viewed — a whopping jump ahead of the Italian movie “Four to Dinner” in the No. 2 slot, with 4.75 million hours viewed.

“Archive 81” Just Debuted On Netflix, And Here’s What Horror Fans Had To Say About The Series So Far

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Get ready to sleep with the lights on because there’s a new horror series that just debuted on Netflix

Based on a found footage podcast of the same name, Archive 81 is the supernatural scare that’s perfect for a cold winter day. It has everything from spooky happenings in a remote research facility to the twisted mystery that’s buried in the tapes itself.

So whether you’ve already binged your way through or are currently debating if you’re brave enough to push play, let’s take a look at the most memorable fan reactions to the show so far:

This week in streaming: The buzz for ‘Yellowjackets’

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Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Internet Insider, where we tell you what you should be watching this week.

TODAY:

It’s the perfect time to join the Yellowjackets hive

Netflix horror series Archive 81 is an eerie twist on the found-footage genre

How I Met Your Father can’t escape the shadow of its polarizing predecessor

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BREAK THE INTERNET

It’s the perfect time to join the Yellowjackets hive

Between the TV I wrote about and the stuff I sought out on my own time, I watched a lot of television last year. Some of it was terrible, some of it was fine, and some of it was great. But nothing captivated my attention like Showtime’s Yellowjackets, which concluded its first season on Sunday. I already recommended the series as part of the Daily Dot’s best-of-streaming list a few weeks ago while the show was still airing. Now that the season is over, I want to talk about Yellowjackets again.

The series—which is from Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco—is two stories running parallel. One half is a mix of Lost, Lord of the Flies, and elements that may or may not be supernatural as it centers on a New Jersey high school girls’ soccer team in 1996 whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness, where they would spend the next 19 months trying to survive. The other half is more aligned with our current wave of prestige TV dramas featuring survivors trying to keep darker elements of their past hidden; this one happens to be filled with beloved actresses from the ’90s Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci. You might end up favoring one half over the other, but both are fascinating in their own ways (and are held together by the connection between the two sets of actors playing these characters). As you’d expect, it has an incredible ’90s soundtrack.

Ritualistic cannibalism is teased in the show’s opening minutes, and throughout the 10-episode season, the characters of Yellowjackets have to deal with blackmail, kidnapping, séances, secrets, young love, people whose identities are a mystery, dealing with menstruation while out in the wilderness (Lost would never), the occult, someone known to us as the Antler Queen, and a looming high school reunion. We’re picking apart every detail—the show’s subreddit was a central hub over the past 10 weeks—and people are already eagerly fancasting at least one character who we now know will have a 2021 counterpart. (To fit the meta-commentary of Lynskey, Lewis, and Ricci’s casting, they’re leaning toward other actresses who came of age during the ’90s.) The show’s rise has been a boon for Showtime, which renewed it for a second season a few weeks ago—the creators originally pitched it as a five-season show—and it’s aiming to return by the end of 2022.

I found myself gravitating towards other elements of Yellowjackets, too. Even though I’m generally a theory person, I didn’t mind that Yellowjackets didn’t try to pull one over me as shows like Westworld have continually done; the answers we got were pretty straightforward. I love its Jersey sensibilities, the fact that it spends time working through these characters’ trauma vs. being a show that’s “about” trauma, and I love that every day, more people are discovering it. It’s prime for memes, and I’m still thinking of Jeff’s (Warren Kole) line reading of “There’s no book club?!” from episode 9. It’s the journey (how and why the soccer team resorts to cannibalism), not the destination (resorting to cannibalism). And the final shot of season 1 had me wanting season 2 immediately. The show might crash and burn before the end, but right now? It’s the anticipation that has me excited.

Not bad for a show that was, in part, sparked by the backlash to reports of an all-girl Lord of the Flies movie, which was based around disbelief that girls could ever be as vicious or uncouth as boys.

—Michelle Jaworski, staff writer

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REVIEWS

Netflix horror series Archive 81 is an eerie twist on the found footage genre

Drawing inspiration from 20th-century occultism, paranormal phenomena, and investigatory podcasts like Serial, Archive 81 shares a lot of DNA with audio dramas like The Black Tapes, Limetown (also adapted for TV), and The Magnus Archives. It’s a popular subgenre, but this adaptation suffers from sticking too close to the original format.

Dan (Mamoudou Athie) spends far too much time watching and reacting to video footage, an uphill struggle for a lead actor. Meanwhile, Melody (Dina Shihabi) has to carry her camcorder in virtually every scene because we’re only meant to see things she personally filmed. Several other characters also record helpful clues for Dan to discover, straining credulity in an era before smartphones.

By episode five or six, Dan’s investigation begins to feel like a point-and-click video game, relying on a constant stream of environmental storytelling as he watches new video clips, discovers hidden rooms in his house, and so on. When further exposition is required, his loyal BFF Mark (Matt McGorry) invariably phones up with a fresh clue: Another amusing fictional conceit because what kind of millennial always calls instead of sending a text?

Archive 81 may actually work better if you’re not familiar with this style of podcast. Format problems aside, it’s better paced than most Netflix shows, combining mystery thriller cliffhangers with some effective horror direction. There’s also a strong supporting cast among the inhabitants of the Visser Building and a finale that wraps things up.

Archive 81’s first season is now streaming.

—Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, staff writer

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NOW STREAMING

How I Met Your Father can’t escape the shadow of its polarizing predecessor

Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, which debuts nearly eight years after its predecessor, the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, went off the air, comes ready to play with a lot of baggage. While the series was popular throughout its run, HIMYM is remembered more for an ending that may have hued close to its original vision but burned its audience in the process. It also, sight unseen, reminds us that HIMYM creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays once tried making a gender-flipped spinoff (and even shot a pilot starring Greta Gerwig) that was never picked up. (Thomas and Bays are attached to HIMYF as executive producers.)

Creators Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger (Love, Simon; This Is Us) tweak the format along the way—dating apps are a natural part of things, for instance—and the show’s version of New York is a lot more inclusive than its predecessor ever was. But the baggage is heavy, and in the first four episodes provided to critics, HIMYF struggles with that weight. The cast is full of mostly likable characters, but they struggle to gel together, and while most of the show may take place in a COVID-free 2022, the show feels dated by several years.

The first two episodes of How I Met Your Father are now streaming on Hulu. —M.J.

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