Editorials
[Editorial] A Note on the Current State of Horror Television to All Our Twelve Year Readers
This essay is a [now belated] Christmas present written for all you young bastards out there. First off, I know many of you aren’t actually bastards. I use the term as a sign of fake-tough guy affection. Because deep down, we are all fake tough guys. That’s why we watch horror films.
But maybe some of you are too young to watch horror films. Stupid mom won’t let you and you don’t have a dad (again, I understand that you probably have a dad). I used to be in your boat. My mom wouldn’t let me watch any horror films until I was about fourteen years old. While most kids pretended to get lost in the video store so they could ogle the porn room, I spent my video story visits pretending to be lost so I could stare at VHS box art in the horror section, which admittedly had its fair share of boobs, as well.
I had a serious horror film itch, and there were only two methods by which I could scratch it. One was to stay the night with friends, since most of them lacked mothers as lame and draconian as mine. Unfortunately, this rarely worked out. Most of my friends had no interest in horror films or had already seen them before too many times. I saw Halloween 4 and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 by this method, but that’s about it.
Fortunately there was method two: Television. Granted, this wasn’t good for horror films but it worked wonders for horror itself because mom couldn’t monitor everything I watched. Plus, she figured if it was on TV, it had to be suitable for children.
Both Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th had television shows. The USA network had great “Up All Night” programming. We had The Hitchhiker, a new Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks offered weird surreal nonsense when it wasn’t caught up in Soap Opera nonsense, even Stephen Spielberg’s Amazing Stories occasionally hosted genuine scares. And then there was the king of hidden TV horror: HBO’s Tales from the Crypt.
It seemed like a golden age of televised horror. But it wasn’t. Compared to what you guys have today, the horror solace I found was like a G-rated examination of the powers of friendship starring a bunch of big-eyed cartoon ponies. My point is, you really young horror fans need to take a moment to marvel at how good you have it.
Today if you’re hungry for horror you can turn on the television and watch The Walking Dead, a show that might suffer from two years of narrative stupidity (something you probably don’t care about when good violence is on the horizon) but it still represents a new high water mark for zombie makeup and gore. And as one of the highest rated shows on TV, you don’t even have to search that hard to find it. We live in a zombie-happy culture, and The Walking Dead is everywhere, teaching young horror fans all you need to know about human anatomy and the many ways it can be destroyed. Plus, it seems to be improving by the episode.
If you think your budding horror fandom might run a bit more kinky than that, current TV has you covered as well thanks to the truly mental American Horror Story, which outshines pretty much any 1980s VHS treasure my mom tried to protect me from as far as perversity goes. Aside from American Horror Story’s completely thorough, yet possibly affected stupidity, the show offers you a plastic mixture of Cronenberg and Verhoeven that has the potential to implant the more impressionable among you with really unique and interesting lifelong fetishes.
Even if you think you might like horror, but feel a bit wimpy about it, you can fall back on the middling masterpiece that is Supernatural. Currently in its 100th season, Supernatural is not as scary as it used to be, but you still get a good kill every once in a while. Plus it’s hilarious and will teach you all ever need to know about the bible. On this same note, if you’re not afraid of watching something a little dated: Buffy the Vampire the Slayer. Or, if you’re a boy (and I kind of didn’t write this paragraph for boys), Angel. Both shows are probably rerunning all over the place right this very moment.
Here’s my point. You kids have it better than we ever could have dreamed. And because of that, you’re going to grow up even more awesome than we are even in our own heads. If you want a prepubescent dose of horror, all you have to do is turn on the television and it’s there in high definition, most of it probably eons more gruesome than Freddy’s Dead. If your mom comes in the room, you need only change the channel. With this power, I do believe you are all going to make the horror world a better place. Please keep in mind, there are no television horror shows based around the found footage concept. So there’s no need to make that part of your takeover. Unless you know a way to make it awesome.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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