The "stranger" came out from HBO

The Stevens King series, which wands between the "Real Detective" and "Secret Materials"

In the American HBO and the Russian “Amediak” there is a mini-series “Alien”-a film adaptation of Stephen King’s late novel about a good school teacher from Georgia, bad doubles and a detective with mental problems. The film critic Yegor Moskvitin praises the “stranger” for the casting and the rich picture, but sees in his plot an open secondaryness.

What is the "stranger" about

A lot about what. About the mourning, in which the quiet American hinterland is plunged after the tragedy: in Georgia is killed, raped and almost entirely eaten a 11-year-old boy. About the mysterious kidnapper of the individual: several people saw at once at the scene of the crime of a school teacher - but on the same day he, with hundreds of witnesses and television cameras, performed at the conference in another place. About the grief that will break the members of the boy’s family one by one, like matches - and will remind the viewer of the biblical Job. About the persecution, which the neighbors of the teacher - until recently the most popular person in the city - were subjected to his loved ones and himself. And about an aging detective who, for the first time in his long life, will face a crime that cannot be disclosed, and evil, which cannot be explained. And also about the young detective, who, on the contrary, is used to the oddities - first of all, her own.

What are the novel and the series like

Stephen King wrote “stranger” after Mr. Mercedes, a realistic detective of the detective Bill Hodgee. Following the latter, the new novel leaves far from the usual Maine writer: Mr. Mercedes is a thriller about a maniac from Ohio, a “stranger” is a story about an uninvited guest in Georgia.

Switches of the “stranger”-“ Real Detective ”, “Ozark ” and the good old “ secret materials ”.

With the “Real Detective” it is united by a platform (HBO channel) and the style of the first episodes. The mini-series begins as a very slow and confident psychological drama in its attractiveness: the density of events is low; Heroes value silence; There are so many visual metaphors that the show cannot be watched without proper attention; Each replica falls from the screen like a weight. A kind of super -serious noir.

With the “Ozark” “stranger”, not only the once comedy actor Jason Beitman is related (by the way, a gifted director: the first two episodes of the series is his business), but also the methodology of filming. The screen is constantly immersed in darkness or painted with a dirty yellow color-a palette of madness. In closed spaces, the camera rarely rises higher than by a meter from the ground - it is easier to inspire the viewer that he is weaker than the proposed circumstances. But the heroes should be in the fresh air, as the operator starts the drone and in the spirit of the “radiance” removes helpless men from a height. This technique is called the “gaze of God” - but since the action takes place in the Universe of Stephen King, the viewer does not doubt: the local God is cruel and irrational. You should not expect anything good from him.

What does "secret materials" have to do with it

The very name of the mini-series (and the events of its first episode) make it clear: doppelgangers act in this story. Moreover, this is not about the household theft of personality in the spirit of the “double” of Dostoevsky or the “text” of Glukhovsky, but about the supernatural evil. But the “stranger” does not look like “Portrait of Dorian Gray” or the story of Edgar Allan on “William Wilson”-because this is not a story about secret life, an internal struggle or a meeting with a double-guide. It seems that Stephen King is much more interested in the old squeeze of horror films in which the abductors of the bodies act. And with the help of Spanish folklore and science fiction cliches, he settles in the Georgia of one such stranger-hungry, merciless and does not want to explain his motives.

At the moment when the viewer finally notices the presence of supernatural evil, the drama of the series changes in a bizarre way. From an extremely serious psychological thriller from the elite television channel, he turns into an old-fashioned one-even in his own passage-episode of folk “secret materials”. The company of a real detective played by Ben Mendelsson from the "genealogy", suddenly makes the heroine of the brilliant Cynthia Erivo, the only black star of Hollywood, nominated this year at Oscar. Her Holly Pertini is the pupil of Bill Hodges from Mr. Mercedes, an observant girl, but constrained by her own problems-obsessive-compulsive and other disorders. These features make Holly the “stranger” more susceptible to the mystical part of the events - the girl suddenly becomes an analogue of the romance of Fox Malder. Sedoma pragmatist-detective remains the role of cold and reasonable Dana.

As for Doppelganger himself, he behaves just as it is customary for the “monsters of the week” in “secret materials”: ​​in those six episodes of the “stranger” that has already shown critics, his character does not receive special development - and this disappoints.

But the last of these episodes was shot by Karin Kusama, the director of the provincial horror “The body of Jennifer” with Megan Fox. Thanks to her work, there is no doubt: although the “stranger” ceases to be a psychological thriller over time and turns into a rather predictable horror, but his images and horror stories will be remembered by the viewer. And before the final there are still four episodes - and the series, which turned out to be a werewolf once, may well surprise in the second.

Egor Moskvitin