Editorials

‘Siberia’ – The “Lost” Meets “Survivor” Horror Reality TV Series Turns 10

Published

10 months ago

June 30, 2023

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”

Editorials

Fifteen Years Later: A Look Back at the State of Horror in 2009

Published

3 days ago

May 3, 2024

Mike Holtz

Pictured: 'Friday the 13th'

Can you believe it’s already been fifteen years since 2009? I feel older than Jason’s mother’s head. But never mind all that. We’re going to look into the past in celebratory fashion today and take a month-to-month look at what the world of horror looked like back in 2009.

The dreaded month of January kicked things off in usual January fashion with a forgettable title, The Unborn. A David S. Goyer picture that’s not very memorable but managed to be the sixth most successful horror film of 2009 domestically, raking in over $42 million at the box office.

Right behind it on the calendar was Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine 3D starring “Supernatural” actor Jensen Ackles. This slasher remake took the idea of January horror and embraced it, making a silly and gory slasher that was the world’s first R-rated film to ever use Real3D technology. Anyone looking for legitimate scares was probably pissed (the film has a 44% Rotten “Audience” rating) but genre fans had fun with it to the tune of over $51 million at the box office (on a $14 million budget).

Next up, releasing on January 30 was the sleepy PG-13 horror flick The Uninvited. For the life of me, I’ll never understand the choice to release a movie called The Uninvited two weeks after a movie called The Unborn; to be fair, most of us are unable to remember much about either of them.

The reboot of Friday the 13th was served up to us for Valentine’s Day Weekend 2009. A slasher movie that made a ton of money and had fans begging for a sequel… that never came. The Platinum Dunes reboot may not be universally beloved, but I know a fair share of fans (myself included) who thought the new Jason, Derek Mears, and team made a film that was both fun and brutal. And it was juicy enough to come in as the number three most successful domestic horror film in 2009 to the tune of over $65 million. Friday the 13th ’09 was nowhere near perfect but it was a damn fun time with some underrated Jason Voorhees moments and a sleek plan to tell Jason’s origin story quickly via flashbacks that some superhero franchises could learn from. Oh yeah, and it starred the other “Supernatural” bro, Jared Padalecki. I’m sensing a pattern here.

‘Last House on the Left’

Next up, yet another remake of a classic horror film: The Last House on the Left. Wes Craven wanted to see what his low-budget horror film would look like with a little walking around money and the results were that we, the audience, got to see a dude get his head microwaved. The critics weren’t huge fans but let’s be honest, it could have been a lot worse given the subject matter and lack of nuance in the 2000s. Last House went on to land itself in the top ten horror box office returns of the year.

March would also feature one of the many notches in Kyle Gallner’s horror belt, The Haunting in Connecticut, a movie with maybe too many generic possession genre moments to make a major dent in the status quo but enough to make it memorable. I’d take it over many of The Conjuring franchise spinoffs of today, personally. Though, they’re all very much alike.

April Horror would conjure nothing for audiences but Sam Raimi would bring the loud, scary, and funny back to the genre with Drag Me to Hell on May 29. This film that was somehow still PG-13 even with a cat murder, flying old lady eyeball, and mouth-to-mouth puke action was a blast to experience in the theater. Audiences agreed as the film ranked #7 on the horror box office of the year, cashing out at $42 million thanks to a loveable lead in Alison Lohman, the forever horror victim Justin Long, and some good old-fashioned, Evil Dead II-type fun.

‘Drag Me to Hell’

July would shock horror fans in a completely different way with adoption horror flick Orphan. The ending may have had all of us feeling super uncomfortable and shocked but the movie itself had adoption groups majorly upset at how the film depicted the dangers of adoption. So much so that the studio had to add a pro-adoption message to the film’s DVD. No matter, the performance of Isabelle Fuhrman would carry the film to a $41 million box office run and later spawn a decent prequel in 2022.

Speaking of collecting, The Collector was also released in July 2009 and was a pleasant surprise featuring a shitload of originality and some scares to boot. Yet another horror success that would make $10 million on a $3 million budget and spawn a sequel. We’re still waiting on third installment, which abruptly stopped shooting several years back under strange circumstances.

The fourth Final Destination film graced us with its predestined presence in 2009 as well with The Final Destination; the 3D one with the race car track opening. The film was (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a financial success, raking in over $186 million (worldwide) on a $40 million budget.

Rob Zombie went Rob Zombie’ing as hard as he’s ever Rob Zombie’d with Halloween II later that month. He’d Rob Zombie so hard that we wouldn’t see Halloween on the big screen again until almost ten years later with Halloween 2018. And nothing controversial ever happened in the franchise again. *Shuts book* Stop trying to open it! NO! NOOOOOOOO!

‘Halloween II’

Another remake in Sorority Row was the first film to follow Rob Zombie’s divisive stab-a-thon with a schlocky Scream-esque slasher flick that had a good enough time and even boasted a few neat kills. Critics weren’t fans of this one but if you were? You’ll be happy to hear that writer Josh Stolberg just announced he’s working on the follow-up!

Sexy Horror September continued a week later with Jennifer’s Body and an all-new, emo kind of Kyle Gallner. Jennifer’s Body didn’t exactly crush it for the critics or the box office but has success in its own right and is considered somewhat of a cult classic thanks to some hilarious writing and leading performances from Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. Also, shout out to Adam Brody’s band Low Shoulder. Machine Gun Kelly could never.

Part of the low box office for Jennifer’s Body could have had something to do with what came next as Paranormal Activity would rock the horror world a week later. The genius marketing of the low-budget film would feature clips of audiences on night vision cameras losing their minds. Whether it scared you to death or you found the entire concept ridiculous, you had to see it for yourself. Paranormal Activity would bring in almost $200 million worldwide on a 15 THOUSAND dollar budget. I’m no mathematician but I’m pretty sure that’s good. The horror game changer may just be the most remembered of all the 2009 films and it’s one every studio in the world wanted to replicate.

‘Paranormal Activity’

One film’s game changer is another film’s flop as Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster’s space horror Pandorum had the unfortunate scheduling of lining up against Paranormal Activity on that fateful day and in turn, being mostly forgotten.

Spooky Season 2009 kicked off with the beloved horror-comedy Zombieland in October, complete with Jesse Eisenberg’s meta-rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, Bill Murray, and Woody Harrelson who just wanted a fuckin’ Twinkie. There’s nothing like a good horror comedy and Zombieland proved that all the way to the bank, making $74 million domestically en route to a second film that brought back the entire cast.

It’s only been twelve seconds since I said the word remake, so let’s fix that. The Stepfather remake would follow a week later and be met by an audience getting a little sick of them. Unlike some of the other spirited remakes that surrounded this era in horror (not that they ever stopped), The Stepfather felt like an uninspired retread of the understated but completely messed up 1987 Terry O’Quinn horror cult classic. It’s largely been forgotten over the years.

“Who am I here?” Oh yeah, it’s October in the 2000, there’s bound to be a Saw movie around here somewhere. Saw VI would be released on the 23rd of October and continue the story of Detective Hoffman while adjusting the rates of some shady insurance adjustors. Saw VI would also fall victim to a little bit of Paranormal Activity mania with the film being bested by the continued rollout of its predecessor. Things were looking a little bleak for the franchise at this point. Probably none of us would have imagined that fifteen years later we’d be talking about the same director (Kevin Greutert) returning for the eleventh movie in the franchise.

‘The House of the Devil’

After all these humongous box office successes, sequels, and remakes it would be three memorable indie flicks that would round out October of 2009; the ultra fucked up Willem Dafoe, Lars von Trier sex/horror flick Antichrist, followed by Ti West’s ’70s haunter The House of the Devil and rounded out with some Australian torture horror in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones. All three movies each make their mark in their own special ways. What a way to end October.

But it was November that would bring the movie that scared me more than any other on this list: The Fourth Kind. A lot of you are assuredly rolling your eyes right now but this one messed me up on a cellular level despite it being a complete and total fake. The Fourth Kind decided to meld a traditional horror film with the stylings of The Blair Witch Project in an opening designed to make you believe it was based on a true story. An embarrassing attempt but the film itself had me afraid to sleep near windows at night after seeing those found footage abductions. It still messes with me, to be honest. WHY ARE THEIR MOUTHS STRETCHING SO MUCH?!?!

December was too busy doing Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks-type family affairs for any horror movies but even without it, 2009 was quite a year for horror. I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some other memorable films that were released either straight to video, limited or overseas that year including Case 39 (that oven opening!), Exam, Daybreakers, Splice, Dead Snow, The Hills Run Red, The Descent 2, Blood Creek, Cabin Fever 2 and [REC] 2.

What were your horror favorites from 2009? Comment below and let us know!