1899 movierulz
1899 Movierulz: A ghost ship sailing on the waves of the dark sea, the terrible fate of its poor crew, who mysteriously disappeared, is unknown. A topos present in much classic horror fiction, from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (the quintessential vampire arrives in England, in Whitby, on the Demetrius ship, after having exterminated the entire crew) to "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft (the vessel Emma, whose only survivor, the Norwegian sailor Johansen, will soon die due to the terrible discovery made on a strange island).
Evil likes to travel by sea, preferably first class; a setting that offers a context of total isolation, perfect for building moments of tension, where the protagonists are trapped together with an unstoppable threat. Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, the creators of the instant cult Dark, were also inspired by this canvas for their new mystery horror TV series with a historical setting: 1899, available on the Netflix streaming platform from 17 November.
The plot of the series – naturally set in the year of the title – follows the voyage of the ocean liner Kerberos to New York. On board, there are passengers from all over the world, from England to China, and from various social backgrounds (the relationships between the different classes of travelers resemble those represented in James Cameron's Titanic), all on the run from something.
During the crossing, the ship receives a telegraphic message with the coordinates where to find the sister ship Prometheus, which mysteriously disappeared a short time before. While a small group of men, led by Captain Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann, here particularly resembling Guy Pearce), goes to explore the ghostly lost ship, a dark figure sneaks onto the Kerberos.
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| 1899/Netflix |
1899: Sense of mystery and unsettling twists
Starting from an incipit that recalls the sci-fi horror film Point of no return (naturally declined in a late nineteenth-century setting), the Germans Friese and Odar set up a work with international ambitions already starting from the cast, a melting pot of different nationalities and languages (German, Spanish, Polish, Cantonese and more are spoken; English is used by various characters, of course, as a lingua franca).
1899 is an ensemble series that stages a journey of the damned, where the protagonists will have to face the faults of their past. Everyone has secrets to hide or traumas to process; personal stories that will be revealed to us, little by little, through nightmares - each episode opens with a dream sequence concerning the past of one of the characters - and ghostly visions, in a slow descent towards madness.
A choral approach that is easier to approach than that of the previous Dark, where it is more immediate to start associating faces and names, thanks also to the greater ethnic-cultural diversity of the characters involved. A way of presenting the large cast of protagonists that resembles, in structure, the cult television series Lost, created by JJ Abrams, from whom 1899 also borrows the perennial sense of mystery and the accumulation of unsettling twists.
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| 1899/Netflix |
A context of fear and isolation that will also give rise to conflicts among the passengers of the Kerberos, leading to internal conflicts similar to those seen in films such as The Mist (here too there is the figure of a religious fanatic who will lead the frightened crowd). All while 1899 continues to add uniquely interesting pieces to its complex puzzle.
To evaluate their general performance, it will be necessary to see how they will fit together at the end when the mystery will be completely or partially revealed (we had the opportunity to preview only six of the eight episodes that make up the first season). For now, the assessment, however partial, can only be positive, given the undeniable charm of this new production by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar.
