Editorials
‘Old People’ – German Elderly Kill in Droves in New Netflix Horror Movie [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horror has a tendency to depict older folks as weak and vulnerable; they’re easy prey for a fast monster or a wanton murderer. On the genre’s flipside are those occasional movies where seniors are far less susceptible. Their advanced age gives them the illusion of kindness and fragility, but deep down they harbor resentment and rage. They seek to hurt everyone, specifically those unlike them, or those who remind them of their lost youth and opportunities. Netflix’s Old People belongs to the second category, though one certain factor sets the German movie apart from other elder horrors. This isn’t an isolated incident; there’s an entire legion of gray-haired killers on the loose.
From wicked adoptions to antisocial teens to demon spawn, the horror genre has always viewed youth as a potential threat. Yet the latest horror movie from Urban Explorer director Andy Fetscher shows children on the receiving end of terror. In Old People, Germany is rocked by a series of murders all committed by the elderly. A mysterious event sets off the octogenarian crowd, causing them to enact violence wherever they go. And for one unlucky family celebrating a recent marriage, these sinister seniors are heading their way.
The movie begins with a needless foreword explaining how an avenging spirit once inhabited older people and drove them into a “blind rage.” The story lightly touches on this again when two teenagers come upon an outdoor monument symbolizing their ancestors and the importance of family togetherness. Whether or not there’s actually a supernatural force at play here is unclear, but for the crowds preferring answers over vagueness, Netflix’s Old People promptly provides a direct explanation for what’s to come.
Following the opening scene, a cut-and-dry sample of the geriatric grisliness in store, the story shifts to the central event and characters. Ella (Melika Foroutan) has returned to her countryside hometown to see her sister Sanna (Maxine Kazis) get married. What is meant to be a joyous occasion with her children, Laura and Noah (Bianca Nawrath, Otto Emil Koch), turns into a sorrowful reunion between daughter and father. When Ella goes to pick up her father Aike (Paul Fassnacht) at the retirement home, the sad state of the place and the residents leaves Ella shaken and remorseful.
Aike isn’t the only thing from her past that Ella has to confront on her trip home; she runs into her ex-husband Lukas (Stephan Luca) at the wedding. They’re surprisingly cordial with one another despite the fact that Ella left Lukas to have a life and career in the city. Shared glances and lingering moments, however, suggest their romance isn’t entirely over just yet. Lukas’ current girlfriend Kim (Anna Unterberger), who happens to work at the retirement home, isn’t oblivious, and her growing jealousy leads to some surprising developments once the danger commences.
Old People smartly skips the wedding ceremony at the village church and gets straight to the horror. The remaining residents at Saalheim Retirement Home form a murderous mutiny and dispose of Kim’s coworkers in gruesome fashion. Their leader, simply credited as The Old Man (Gerhard Bos), then directs everyone to Sanna’s wedding. Gaiety is replaced with dread as the movie’s namesakes gather outside homes like the walking dead, biding their time and unnerving their prey. Although it’s odd for Ella and her kin to immediately assume their elders are out to hurt them, the story removes any of the usual doubts by leaning hard into the antagonists’ menacing presence. Their true intentions become unquestionable even before the dead bodies show up.
The yellow and warm glow of earlier scenes is temporarily replaced by doleful grays. A local electricity blackout augments the creepy atmosphere as well as urges the strategic use of flashlights to reveal hidden threats in the dark. The grimly howling wind and malevolent music both fill in any silences. The gloomy environment wears thin after a while, but as the surviving characters get closer to finding an escape, the light and colors slowly start to return on screen. Old People has an impressive look to it, even if that look is admittedly routine nowadays.
Andy Fetscher essentially remade Night of the Living Dead, but with decrepit and sadistic humans standing in for the zombies. And while the movie can and will be taken at face value — possibly possessed oldsters carry out their revenge against their familial neglectors — there is another metaphor looking right at the camera. One that can be applied to any society where unfair rules are decided by and benefit only the older generation. These dinosaurs disregard the young or different, and they actively harm their future and safety. Those who go along with their plan are eventually swept up in the damage as well. Even without the additional interpretation, Netflix’s Old People is already a woefully bleak movie.
The more obvious message here is delivered without any kind of subtlety, and for some viewers, that kind of metaphorical awkwardness is hard to overlook, much less endure for nearly 100 minutes. For others, golden-agers wreaking havoc is more than enough reason to watch. Aged antagonists have yet to really catch on in contemporary horror, but in light of today’s generational wars, the possibility of seeing more movies like Old People in the near future seems high.
Old People is now streaming on Netflix.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.