Here's Why We Trust True Detective: Night Country To Go Full Supernatural
This post contains spoilers for "True Detective: Night Country."
"True Detective: Night Country" is starting to look more and more like a horror show. Two episodes into the season's six-part run, things in Ennis, Alaska just keep getting stranger. The severed tongue of Indigenous activist Anne appeared on a research facility's floor six years after she died. The scientists at said research facility (who remind us a lot of horror classic "The Thing") ended up dead in the snow, naked and frozen with ruptured eardrums and scratched-out eyes. At least two characters have heard a voice whisper "She's awake" in their minds, and a little girl is drawing pictures of a local folk figure — a woman in the snow with bloody, dripping hands. On top of all that, the ghost of Rust Cohle's dad may or may not be out in the wilderness, possibly worshipping the sky.
At the risk of stating the obvious, none of this feels like your typical prestige murder mystery fare. There's a clear supernatural undercurrent pulsating in and around Ennis, and whether it comes from human causes (months of darkness and vile anti-Indigenous violence are enough to mess with anyone's heads) or something closer to magical realism is anyone's guess. As overtly supernatural as the series seems so far, it's worth noting that "True Detective" season 1 planted similar seeds, introducing mysterious spirals, Satanic Panic-style cults, a mysterious King in Yellow, and even a "green-eared spaghetti monster" before coming up with logical explanations for almost all of those things. With that being said, if "True Detective: Night Country" does go full supernatural, we have at least one good reason to trust the vision: Issa López.
An indie gem shows off López's horror chops
López takes over the series from original creator Nic Pizzolatto this year, serving as writer, director, and showrunner of "Night Country." The filmmaker may be new to the franchise, but she's no stranger to horror; her acclaimed fantasy-horror film "Tigers Are Not Afraid" was one of the best festival releases of 2017, regardless of genre. The movie follows Estrella (Paola Lara), a girl who's forced to live on the streets of Mexico, avoiding cartel violence and befriending a local group of orphans, after her mother goes missing.
"Tigers Are Not Afraid," which is currently available to stream on Shudder, AMC+, and Hoopla, is a confident genre-blender. On one hand, it addresses the realities of grief and loss and the harsh world of cartel violence, while on the other, it tells the found family story of a ragtag group of survivors coming-of-age in a scary situation. The film is often rightfully classified as horror: a trail of blood follows Estrella around, hands claw at her from a storm drain and a legion of murdered spirits demand her help. Yet the movie also has more innocent fantastical elements that wouldn't be out of place in the filmography of Guillermo del Toro, including magical pieces of chalk and a cute stuffed animal tiger that comes to life to keep Estrella company. The film combines its elements so artfully that at no point are audiences left wondering what's real and what's a part of Estrella's attempts to cope with the loss of her mother. It's an easy movie to love, and an easy (albeit brutal) world to embrace.
Bring on the spooky stuff
The movie may evade easy categorization, but it's undeniably great. At Fantasia Fest in 2018, /Film's Matt Donato wrote that "Tigers Are Not Afraid" "is a movie that demands to be seen, heard, and discussed as often as possible," and gave the film a 9 of 10 rating. "Issa López creates on multiple levels of artistic complexity and the entire production will leave you moved in a most wondrous – completely destabilizing – kind of way," Donato continued, calling the film "provocative, poignantly impassioned and so very wired to the fragile fibers of human storytelling." If that's what the filmmaker can do with a small budget and 83 minutes, how hard is she going to rock our world with six hours and HBO money?
The answer, so far, seems to be pretty hard. Even if "True Detective: Night Country" somehow doesn't go full uncanny, and it turns out every weird thing we've seen so far has an explanation (ancient microorganisms, anyone?), the series has already leaned further into the horror space than ever before. The horror of the unreal sits juxtaposed against the horror of the all-to-real, as frosty scientists killed in a Dyatlov Pass-like paradox grab law enforcement attention while a murdered Indigenous woman's case remains unsolved. If you need reassurance that "True Detective: Night Country" can pull off a supernatural plotline while remaining the gritty, artistic, surprisingly humane show you know and love, look to "Tigers Are Not Afraid." If you want proof that the ever-evolving anthology can successfully spin full-tilt into horror — well, I think we've already got it.
"True Detective: Night Country" airs on HBO and streams on Max Sundays at 9 pm PT/ET.