Movies
Panic Button
“Under the strength of its earlier moments, ‘Panic Button’ carries your attention all the way to its somewhat underwhelming twist ending, but when compared to something like ‘The Killing Room’––a superior film with a similar premise––it simply isn’t up to snuff. The result is a lame cyber-bullying metaphor disguised as a mildly diverting Brit B-flick.”
A locked room mystery for the web generation, the British film Panic Button puts four strangers in an enclosed space and then proceeds to reveal their darkest web-surfing obsessions. Everybody has secrets, sure, but the casual openness of the internet has a way of drawing out the deepest of your closet skeletons. Cause no one’s watching, right? If you’re racist, perverted, or cheating, your browsing history will be the first to know, but as long as you clear the cache and cover your tracks, who’s ever gonna find out?
The four strangers in Panic Button have won a trip to New York courtesy of all2gethr.com, a popular social networking site that serves as a fairly obvious stand-in for Facebook. As they arrive at their posh private jet, the winners are informed that a competition will take place onboard the plane during the 6-hour flight to the States. There are big time prizes to be won, but in order to participate, the group must relinquish their cell phones before boarding. Completely high on Free Vacation Euphoria, they agree and hand ‘em over.
Once on board, they are greeted by a deep male voice coming through the plane’s P.A. system. After welcoming them to the game, the voice proceeds to ask quiz questions based on the information they provided to all2gethr.com. The strangers answer based on the information in their profiles, but the voice calls them out on their internet façade bullshit, revealing the true answers in a condescending British baritone. The balding smooth-talker who gropes all the ladies? He’s got a predilection for freaky-ass porn. The woman who filled out an online sex quiz with kinky responses? She’s actually a virgin. It’s like a demented game of truth-or-dare, with the World Wide fucking Web as your opponent.
During its first 30 minutes, Panic Button is loads of queasy fun, as the game actors squirm their way through several pleasantly uncomfortable scenes. There’s a demented enjoyment to be had in watching characters writhe under the weight of heightened embarrassment, their worst moments exposed for a handful of strangers to see. But as the game in Panic Button begins to grow increasingly threatening, the plot pushes the boundaries of plausibility to their breaking point.
Not only are the four strangers trapped in the private jet by a baritone-voiced madman, but the TV screens in the cabin depict their friends and family members being bound and gagged by ski-masked thugs. If the contestants break the rules or refuse to participate, their loved ones will be punished accordingly. Employing this new level of manipulation (as well as some private time with each character in the plane bathroom), the baritone voice begins to turn the members of the group against each other, and the movie begins to lose traction. It’s hard to believe that four somewhat normal people would be driven to murder within the first 2 hours of a plane ride, no matter what the circumstances. With the openly deceptive nature of hidden camera prank shows and reality TV competitions, who really takes any of this shit seriously? Are you really willing to thunk a hatchet into some stranger’s head after viewing grainy video of your mum tied to a chair? Virtually anything can be faked these days.
Under the strength of its earlier moments, Panic Button carries your attention all the way to its somewhat underwhelming twist ending, but when compared to something like The Killing Room––a superior film with a similar premise––it simply isn’t up to snuff. The result is a lame cyber-bullying metaphor disguised as a mildly diverting Brit B-flick.
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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