# Archive 81

The cutting edge topical reviews keep coming strong here, with my review of the 2022 Netflix show Archive 81!

Adapted from a horror podcast of the same name, it tells the story of Dan (Mamoudou Athie) an analogue media restorer who is hired to digitise some VHS tapes that were damaged in a fire. The tapes were made by Melody (Dina Shihabi) a documentarian who filmed interviews with the residents in her building in 1994. Given that this is a horror show, you can guess that there's some creepy stuff on the tapes.

It is a slow burn show, that could have veered into boring territory were it not for the excellent lead actors and supporting cast. They're really fantastic and drew me into the story completely.

This might sound odd, but I really enjoyed watching the stuff related to restoring tapes and older technology. There was something calming about watching Dan meticulously prepare the tapes. (It became less calming as the horror elements came to the fore, but still good!)

I particularly enjoyed learning about the Fisher-Price PLX2000, a toy video camera produced in the 80's that wrote to audio cassette tapes. There's something weirdly satisfying about the idea of grainy black and white video on a standard cassette (11 minutes of video, with a resolution of 120 × 90 pixels).

=> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PXL2000 Fisher-Price PLX2000

Maybe it's just nostalgia for the technology of that time, it is weirdly satisfying to me that a little chunk of plastic filled with a roll of magnetic tape could store a album, or a short film, or a video game. There is a homespun tactile appeal to the cassette that I don't feel with a 256 Gb SD card that has vastly more potential. Odd.

Anyway, Archive 81 is intense and creepy and compelling. The music and pacing build tension really well. As I said before, the cast are all great. There's stuff about mould in it. Who doesn't want mould in their TV shows?

I'm not sure what else to say. I enjoyed it. 
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