Editorials
‘Siberia’ – The “Lost” Meets “Survivor” Horror Reality TV Series Turns 10
Reality programs and competition shows are common during the summer months of network television. So naturally no one thought twice when Siberia began airing on NBC back in 2013. For most of its first episode, this reality series checked off all the necessary boxes: alliances, enemies, and obstacles. Toward the end of the episode, though, something unexpected happened. The once amiable host, now with a grave look on his face, announced that one of the contestants was dead.
While its artifice was made apparent in NBC’s advance trailer, Siberia still may have come across as genuine to unsuspecting viewers who had been channel surfing. At least in the very beginning. The producers captured all the fine details of actual unscripted television, which include the deliberate pacing and characterizing first-person interviews. Yet once the most likable member of the group, an environmentalist named Tommy (Tommy Mountain), was killed in an accident of some kind, the vérité aspect was more obvious. Even so, this moment is exactly where Siberia became intriguing.
Had this been a legitimate reality show, production would have presumably ceased after someone — especially a castmate — died during filming. Nevertheless, and for the sake of entertainment, Siberia continued. However, the invisible producers and their messenger, host Jonathon (Jonathon Buckley), offered the remaining contestants a chance to leave at this point and take with them a small consolation prize. The fact that most chose to stay, in spite of what has happened, is as unrealistic as it is cold. Life, including imitations of it, must go on.
Siberia 1.02: “A Question of Reality”
The basic setup here is a familiar one: people compete for a big prize as they fend for themselves in the remote wilderness. Left with literally just the clothes on their backs, the contestants were dropped off by helicopter somewhere in the Tunguskan region and sentenced to live in a pair of cramped cabins until there was only one person left to claim the cash reward. In actuality, the show was filmed in Birds Hill Provincial Park in Canada, but not every viewer will pick up on that. In initial episodes, though, the characters rarely left the area around their cabins. They wandered off in the nearby woods in search of food, supplies, or clues, but never for too long. They were compelled to always hurry back to camp. Needless to say, something was very off about this place.
The casting of less known actors helps sell this exercise in verisimilitude. The average American would not recognize that the show’s crafty villainess, Esther (Esther Anderson), is played by an Australian model and soap star, or that Carolina/Joyce’s actor, Joyce Giraud, competed in international beauty pageants. Others come from far more low-key backgrounds, and for many of them, this was their first major role. As a result of the broad casting, the performances did not always come off as natural. A few of the characters sounded overly rehearsed, however, their horrified reactions to the series’ startling moments were persuasive.
Siberia was indeed a slow burn, but it wasted no time dumping exposition or revealing its morbid inclinations in that first episode. As the sixteen contestants sprinted through the forest and toward their new home to avoid losing in a first-day elimination, the host told viewers at home that this region is called “The Valley of Death” by locals, and the camp was once a primitive settlement as well as an outpost for fur traders. To play up the creep factor, Jonathon added that the supposedly cursed camp was abandoned in 1908; its fourteen residents vanished without a trace. Coincidentally (or maybe not), the mysterious Tunguska event happened that same year on June 30. The show capitalized on this bit of eerie real-life history by premiering on July 1, and the game’s original number of contestants was cut down to fourteen after two people were immediately sent home in the pilot. Of course that number dropped even lower and lower until the main cast was reduced to ten for the remainder of the series.
Siberia 1.04: “Fire in the Sky”
Siberia was marketed as Lost meets Survivor. And based on the first few episodes, that description is accurate. Shortly after Tommy turned up dead, another player, Victoria (Victoria Hill), experienced brief but disturbing visions. As she made her exit from the show, Victoria told the brains of the group, Daniel (Daniel David Sutton): “You guys are all gonna die, I know.” Soon thereafter, a phenomenon in the sky caused two characters to black out and not recall what happened during that lost chunk of time. The truth came out later. Then there were the disembodied, bestial roars coming from the woods that conjure up thoughts of the Smoke Monster. Maybe the most relevant instance of the show channeling Lost, though, was the unseen but ever present strangers spying on the contestants. These “Valleymen” left behind peculiar footprints in the dirt, and somewhere along the line, the characters discovered the meal they had made out of a full-grown Siberian tiger. While Siberia did not get the chance to show the Valleymen in person, their existence was clear, not to mention unnerving.
Despite its creeping pace, Siberia features an eventful, out-there story. Cold war conspiracies, monsters, and mutants are just some of the things to look forward to in this singular TV experience. The horror parts are admittedly more subtle and out of sight than genre buffs might like. Yet from an early start, this series mastered the art of using practically nothing but the faintest diegetic sound or a peripheral, questionable sight to make the characters — and the audience — feel absolutely unsafe.
For a short time, Siberia was an ideal summer diversion before “normal” television resumed that following fall. It became increasingly screwy and unpredictable. Not everyone was won over by the show, but avid followers tuned in every Monday night to see how this was going to turn out. Unfortunately, Siberia lacks a proper ending; the series concluded with fewer episodes than planned, and the finale only offered more unanswered questions. Creator/executive producer Matthew Arnold and the cast had all hoped to make another season, however, nothing has since materialized. And with production company Sierra-Engine now out of business, fans may never get closure.
There has been nothing quite like Siberia since it went off the air, and perhaps there never will be. After all, reality TV simulations have not been able to match the success of the real deal so far. Yet with its commitment to uncanny storytelling and presentation, this series remains a memorable disruptor in the history of modern summer television.
Siberia is currently streaming on Tubi.
Siberia 1.09: “One by One”
With there being an overlap between wrestling fans and horror fans, it only made sense for WWE Studios to produce See No Evil. And much like The Rock’s Walking Tall and John Cena’s The Marine, this 2006 slasher was designed to jumpstart a popular wrestler’s crossover career; superstar Glenn “Kane” Jacobs stepped out of the ring and into a run-down hotel packed with easy prey. Director Gregory Dark and writer Dan Madigan delivered what the WWE had hoped to be the beginning of “a villain franchise in the vein of Jason, Freddy and Pinhead.” In hindsight, See No Evil and its unpunctual sequel failed to live up to expectations. Regardless of Jacob Goodnight’s inability to reach the heights of horror’s greatest icons, his films are not without their simple slasher pleasures.
See No Evil (previously titled Goodnight and Eye Scream Man) was a last gasp for a dying trend. After all, the Hollywood resurgence of big-screen slashers was on the decline by the mid-2000s. Even so, that first Jacob Goodnight offering is well aware of its genre surroundings: the squalid setting channels the many torturous playgrounds found in the Saw series and other adjacent splatter pics. Also, Gregory Dark’s first major feature — after mainly delivering erotic thrillers and music videos — borrows the mustardy, filthy and sweaty appearance of Platinum Dunes’ then-current horror output. So, visually speaking, See No Evil fits in quite well with its contemporaries.
Despite its mere setup — young offenders are picked off one by one as they clean up an old hotel — See No Evil is more ambitious than anticipated. Jacob Goodnight is, more or less, another unstoppable killing machine whose traumatic childhood drives him to torment and murder, but there is a process to his mayhem. In a sense, a purpose. Every new number in Goodnight’s body count is part of a survival ritual with no end in sight. A prior and poorly mended cranial injury, courtesy of Steven Vidler’s character, also influences the antagonist’s brutal streak. As with a lot of other films where a killer’s crimes are religious in nature, Goodnight is viscerally concerned with the act of sin and its meaning. And that signature of plucking out victims’ eyes is his way of protecting his soul.
Image: The cast of See No Evil enters the Blackwell Hotel.
Survival is on the mind of just about every character in See No Evil, even before they are thrown into a life-or-death situation. Goodnight is processing his inhumane upbringing in the only way he can, whereas many of his latest victims have committed various crimes in order to get by in life. The details of these offenses, ranging from petty to severe, can be found in the film’s novelization. This more thorough media tie-in, also penned by Madigan, clarified the rap sheets of Christine (Christina Vidal), Kira (Samantha Noble), Michael (Luke Pegler) and their fellow delinquents. Readers are presented a grim history for most everyone, including Vidler’s character, Officer Frank Williams, who lost both an arm and a partner during his first encounter with the God’s Hand Killer all those years ago. The younger cast is most concerned with their immediate wellbeing, but Williams struggles to make peace with past regrets and mistakes.
While the first See No Evil film makes a beeline for its ending, the literary counterpart takes time to flesh out the main characters and expound on scenes (crucial or otherwise). The task requires nearly a third of the book before the inmates and their supervisors even reach the Blackwell Hotel. Yet once they are inside the death trap, the author continues to profile the fodder. Foremost is Christine and Kira’s lock-up romance born out of loyalty and a mutual desire for security against their enemies behind bars. And unlike in the film, their sapphic relationship is confirmed. Meanwhile, Michael’s misogyny and bigotry are unmistakable in the novelization; his racial tension with the story’s one Black character, Tye (Michael J. Pagan), was omitted from the film along with the repeated sexual exploitation of Kira. These written depictions make their on-screen parallels appear relatively upright. That being said, by making certain characters so prickly and repulsive in the novelization, their rare heroic moments have more of an impact.
Madigan’s book offers greater insight into Goodnight’s disturbed mind and harrowing early years. As a boy, his mother regularly doled out barbaric punishments, including pouring boiling water onto his “dangling bits” if he ever “sinned.” The routine maltreatment in which Goodnight endured makes him somewhat sympathetic in the novelization. Also missing from the film is an entire character: a back-alley doctor named Miles Bennell. It was he who patched up Goodnight after Williams’ desperate but well-aimed bullet made contact in the story’s introduction. Over time, this drunkard’s sloppy surgery led to the purulent, maggot-infested head wound that, undoubtedly, impaired the hulking villain’s cognitive functions and fueled his violent delusions.
Image: Dan Madigan’s novelization for See No Evil.
An additional and underlying evil in the novelization, the Blackwell’s original owner, is revealed through random flashbacks. The author described the hotel’s namesake, Langley Blackwell, as a deviant who took sick pleasure in defiling others (personally or vicariously). His vile deeds left a dark stain on the Blackwell, which makes it a perfect home for someone like Jacob Goodnight. This notion is not so apparent in the film, and the tie-in adaptation says it in a roundabout way, but the building is haunted by its past. While literal ghosts do not roam these corridors, Blackwell’s lingering depravity courses through every square inch of this ill-reputed establishment and influences those who stay too long.
The selling point of See No Evil back then was undeniably Kane. However, fans might have been disappointed to see the wrestler in a lurking and taciturn role. The focus on unpleasant, paper-thin “teenagers” probably did not help opinions, either. Nevertheless, the first film is a watchable and, at times, well-made straggler found in the first slasher revival’s death throes. A modest budget made the decent production values possible, and the director’s history with music videos allowed the film a shred of style. For meatier characterization and a harder demonstration of the story’s dog-eat-dog theme, though, the novelization is worth seeking out.
Jen and Sylvia Soska, collectively The Soska Sisters, were put in charge of 2014’s See No Evil 2. This direct continuation arrived just in time for Halloween, which is fitting considering its obvious inspiration. In place of the nearly deserted hospital in Halloween II is an unlucky morgue receiving all the bodies from the Blackwell massacre. Familiar face Danielle Harris played the ostensible final girl, a coroner whose surprise birthday party is crashed by the resurrected God’s Hand Killer. In an effort to deliver uncomplicated thrills, the Soskas toned down the previous film’s heavy mythos and religious trauma, as well as threw in characters worth rooting for. This sequel, while more straightforward than innovative, pulls no punches and even goes out on a dark note.
The chances of seeing another See No Evil with Kane attached are low, especially now with Glenn Jacobs focusing on a political career. Yet there is no telling if Jacob Goodnight is actually gone, or if he is just playing dead.
Image: Katharine Isabelle and Lee Majdouba’s characters don’t notice Kane’s Jacob Goodnight character is behind them in See No Evil 2.
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