Editorials
“The Island” – SCREAMBOX Series Is Your Next Post-Apocalyptic Binge
If you’re already experiencing The Last of Us withdrawals after the finale, let SCREAMBOX fill the post-apocalyptic void in your life with The Island.
Known internationally as Sløborn, the series combines elements of disaster thriller, coming-of-age drama, dystopian sci-fi, and survival horror. The German-Danish co-production was created by filmmaker Christian Alvart, who directed the genre films Pandorum, Case 39, and Antibodies before creating Netflix’s Dogs of Berlin.
It’s never been easy to be a teenager, but it’s particularly difficult for Gen Z, who are doomed to reckon with fears of the future — or lack thereof. As 15-year-old Evelin Kern (Emily Kusche) puts it in The Island‘s opening voice over, “Ever since I can remember, the world has been ending. Species extinction, deforestation, economic crises, environmental pollution, terrorism, and climate change. Happy days. Somewhere there is always the next crisis, the next war, and mankind has to fight to avert the apocalypse. You get used to it.”
Evelin’s troubles extend beyond conventional teen drama and existential dread. Shortly after discovering that she’s pregnant from a secret relationship and learning that her parents are separating, a deadly, airborne virus breaks out in her remote island hometown of Sloborn.
One might mistake The Island for being inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, but production on the first season wrapped shortly before the world shut down. It’s eerily prescient, predicting how the public would largely ignore the threat until it’s too late, paving the way for conspiracy theories and political propaganda.
Akin to The Walking Dead sans zombies, The Island is a character-driven slow-burn. Although tension simmers just below the surface from the start, the outbreak doesn’t really take hold until halfway through the first season. In the interim, the show takes its time to develop the characters and the interweaving plot lines in which they’re involved. The investment is rewarded by rich storytelling.
In addition to Evelin, the ensemble includes belligerent bully Fiete (Tim Bülow), his meek target Herm (Adrian Grünewald), strung-out author Nikolai Wagner (Alexander Scheer), Evelin’s illicit lover (Marc Benjamin, Eddie the Eagle), reformed criminal Magnus Fisker (Roland Møller, Skyscraper), delinquent youths Devid (Aaron Hilmer, All Quiet on the Western Front) and Ella (Lea van Acken, Dark), Evelin’s parents Richard (Wotan Wilke Möhring, Antibodies) and Helena (Annika Kuhl), and gruff police officer Mikkel Schwarting (Urs Rechn, Dogs of Berlin), among others.
The Island premiered in July of 2020 on Germany’s ZDFneo. The first season builds — and destroys — the world in eight episodes, while the second season follows the surviving residents after the collapse of civilization for six episodes.
Both seasons are streaming on SCREAMBOX.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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