Movies
Beyond the Black Rainbow
“Unique, hypnotizing art… [it’s] not for everyone by far, but it broke so many rules. I thought it was landmark.” – JM via e-mail.
Welcome to the new age of enlightenment.
Its 1983. You are about to hypnotized by a film of the likes you have never seen before. A dystopian vision of a cutting edge sci-fi/substance horror dream so cinematically beautiful and vivid that it feels like you’ve traveled back in time to the early ’80s to witness the birth of a new film by a legendary director who had otherwise been long gone – Stanley Kubrick. Yes, its true. If you’ve been mesmerized and cerebrally enticed by the trailer, or have simply sniffed it out via primordial instinct and interest – believe in yourself. You’re onto something out of this world.
Soaked in dualities and a retro representation that spans from its analog synthesized score by Sinoia Caves to its Odysseyian sets, director Panos Cosmatos tells an abstract tale that offers very few direct explanations, allowing your own mind to drift off into its drug induced plot of etherealness – to unravel personally, through blinding white antiseptic lights and self-developed, deep thought. Its a doctoral nightmare from a timeless world, like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE on morphine – shot almost completely in slow motion from start to finish and paced like no other movie I can recall – relying on sound and vision rather than speech (Cosmatos claims an 11 page script for this near two hour film), and once you experience it, it will linger in the mists of your memory forever whether you like it or not.
In the pharmaceutically spa-like, experimental Arboria labs, a girl is all but being held prisoner by a strange scientist who keeps her heavily sedated in a prison like state. There is an odd relationship here between Dr. Nyle (played award worthy by Michael Rogers) and this patient named Elena (Eva Allan, who personified a delicate but powerful character of emotion without barely speaking). Nyle’s interest borderlines love, for reasons you should discover on your own, as he manipulates control over her mind and domain via a large crystal, new age psychotica style. Arboria was founded many years earlier than this by Dr. Mercurio Arboria himself (Scott Hylands), who embarked on a scientific journey to master and open the mind via chemical enhancement, with the purpose of finding the ultimate inner peace.
Back in the day, Dr. Nyle traveled this journey himself as a patient, and during an incredibly deep narcotic-like immersion, he mated with a woman in what is the most tripped out “love” scene I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime, where his soul seems to merge with another, and as we are late somewhat explained – where he crossed beyond the black rainbow and looked the eyes of God himself. It is a bad LSD moment of a scene complete with tar covered bodies, crawling out of dimensional holes, vomiting and kissing – skulls dripping and melting upward like THE DEVIL’S RAIN against gravity. He comes back having seen too much, not quite the same man he was before, to say the least. The world to which he returns with completely dilated black eyes, becomes absurdly small and meaningless to him, and it unravels from there.
WARNING: this film again, is not for everyone. This is more for the bed ridden science fiction enthusiast dosing pain meds into their arteries through an IV. It does step into the horror genre at points – exploding heads, escaping bloody alien-like abominations – including a vicious knife wound worthy of entering your favorite gore moments of the year – but as I looked around the crowd of people watching at its Tribeca Film Festival world premiere, a majority of the audience was as confused as they were entranced, and the more sober and “ready for action” they were, the more disappointed, uncomfortable, and out of their element they became. Its for the psychedelica hungry mind – worthy of being interpreted as everything from horror, to sci-fi, to a love story. BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is an incredibly unique masterpiece of “art” by its entire cast and crew, from its director of photography Norm Li, its oddly augmented sound designer Eric Paul, to the strange mind of Panos Cosmatos, who brought this whole new world before our mega-dilated eyes.
Final analysis: BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is a pure 100% pharmaceutical grade trip. Its not for everyone and will either be loved, or hated (no in between). If you haven’t picked up on what I’m putting down, this movie joins that small sub-niche of films like PINK FLOYD’S THE WALL, or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, where the most benefited viewer is the one that is on drugs. You almost need to be sedated to sit through it – otherwise you may sit up out of a hypnotized state and shake your head wondering what the hell it is you’re watching. The psychedelic version of a John Carpenter soundtrack, the retina staining color, the augmented breathing, sticky lips, and heartbeats, the long durations between spoken word, the vibrational psyoincs and overlayed swarming white noise grain that can be ever so slightly noticed (like when you’re on ecstasy or acid and the entire world seems to be outlined in electricity, as if you can see the living cells on the surface of your eyes) – that’s what its like to be on heavy, mind altering substances. I don’t care who says what (nor am I advising anyone to do so), but I’m telling you now, that’s the crowd it was made for.
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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