In 1845, two British ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, set sail for Antarctica in order to discover an until then only suspected, hidden trade route. This large-scale expedition failed catastrophically and ended in the years 1845 - 1848 with the death of all of the over a hundred crew members of both ships. It was only in 2014 that the Erebus wreck was found, and in 2016 the terror one. In 2007 already, however, author Dan Simmons took up the historical material in his novel 'The Terror' and expanded it with supernatural horror elements. In 2018, Amazon produced a show of ten episodes of the same name based on this book - The Terror. A show that came out of nowhere for many, not least because of the fact that Amazon is not necessarily known for its big hits alongside big calibers like Netflix and HBO. A big hit, however, was The Terror. That and more. I for my part usually don’t like stories like these too much, but what I love is to see the pre-modern/victorian time period in films and shows, so it was only a small youtube-recommendation that led me to see this production which was not overly famous at the time. I saw episode 1. I saw episode 3. And before I knew it, I had watched the entire show in two days - I couldn't stop. The Terror hit me like a wrecking ball - I was completely unexpectedly captivated by it. There is now a second season that focuses on a completely different setting and will not necessarily be the last one - but before I start that one, I have to write down why Season 1 of The Terror is one of my favorite shows of all time and, would I include shows in my movie top list, The terror would probably be quite high in the top ten. Read here why The Terror is a fantastic and hypnotic viewing experience that, despite its immense pull, takes place so far away from the usual uniformity of our entertainment landscape.
One thing is definitely not found in The Terror, and that is positivity. There is no hope here. No silver lining at the horizon, no belief that everything might turn out for the best - you don't have to know how the real expedition went to understand that very, very quickly. This show lives the term 'desolation' - everything is gray, bitter, cold, hopeless and at times unbearably oppressive. Both of the ships freeze already in episode 1, as predicted by the protagonist Captain Croizure, stuck in the North Sea and we see a skip of one year to episode 2. Over a hundred men are trapped on two ships in the Arctic, hang on top of each other, and become more desperate as the show progresses. We feel it all, the cold is literally touchable - due to the excellent camera work, we are constantly part of the isolation, the depressing hopelessness of the situation, the thick atmosphere of desolation and the longing for a hot, british tea. And there is of course the question which inevitably confronts us as viewers too: What do you want to do if you are frozen in the middle of nowhere with 100 men and two ships, thousands of kilometers away from every civilization, without any form of life or nature?
And as if this situation wasn't bad enough, the Terror and Erebus will soon be confronted with a kind of supernatural hunter, who doesn't appear to be quite animal or human-like and which thins out the ranks of the english seaman with terrifying brutality.
If you can identify yourself with such a show or have become curious, I warmly recommend (and you need warmth here, ideally snuggled up with hot tea) to dare to take a look at The Terror - this series has no lengths, hardly any weaknesses and is with straight ten episodes not too long either. You just have to know that it is told very calmly and slowly - it is not any kind of action cinema. Everyone else reads further when I (spoiler-free) go into detail about the strengths of THE TERROR.
This place wants our death.
It's an atmosphere show. Everything works here via atmosphere, the authentic setting, the tangible Arctic, the gray, bleak feeling that you get involved with. An action-packed plot or dramatic composition take second place, although the tension in The Terror barely subsides from the first to the last minute - there are no lengths in the ten episodes, no boring moments, the pacing is perfect and many episodes end in a way that makes it very difficult not to look straight ahead. The production value feels incredibly high - although it is such a minimalistic, dreary series, everything ALWAYS looks good - every shot is a painting, everything looks high-quality, the animation of certain entities is also successful.
The strengths of the setting are divided into pre-modernism, which for my terms is presented very authentically and successfully, so that the costumes and designs of all characters as well as their speech seems to have been taken directly from the nineteenth century. Memorable peculiarities of this time, such as the consistent mutual addressing with 'Mister' and 'Sir', which all people follow without exception, make the whole setting so much more approachable than it was the case with more superficial productions in Hollywood set in this time, when people simply spoke to each other with their last or even first name (!!). If you like this time period you will really enjoy The Terror for that alone.
Then there is the aforementioned nefarious Arctic, which reaches you even in front of the screen with its coldness, its hostility to life and its gray-blue color palette. This also includes the (subtle) horror and mystery elements, which are by no means rich or exciting, but like the rest of the show are more of an atmospheric nature - In example the terrifying and creep-dominated dive into the sinister Arctic Ocean in episode 1, which is really hair-raising to watch. Especially the wideshots are used more frequently at the beginning of the series - PERFECTLY capturing the incredible isolation and vastness of the surroundings - when the two huge ships Terror and Erebus are suddenly only two small, black dots in a sea of white, one can understand all too well why the crew stuck in the ships doesn’t just go out to get help.
This is also supported by the extraordinary soundtrack, which, just like the plot, only appears very subtle in the background, if at all, but fills the more important and disturbing scenes with strange, unpleasant sounds and makes the whole thing even more kafkaesque. As an example there’s the theme Tenebrous, which is used to an effectively-terrible and disturbing effect in The Terror. There isn't much of artificial drama in this series, but now and then the soundtrack manages to dominate the whole scene with haunting tones. Unobtrusive, yet unmistakable, that's the concept of music in The Terror.
The The intro the show actually represents it very well: Not only is the music as depressing and memorable as the plot itself, the opening credits also achieve a perfect balance between length and content. Show-intros are always a difficult matter, sometimes they are too long so they get skipped after the first time, or they are too full of spoilers. The terror-intro runs for thirty seconds and is animated in an exciting way that DOES the right amount of foreshadowing. In addition, the captains' pictures are always cut off right when they might be reveal too much, so that every time you try to recognize more - and so you may notice that the intro changes with each episode too.
I wont tolerate any hysteria here
Regarding the plot, it should be said above all that in the ten episodes we can notice what we already know after episode one: Everything is simply hopeless and it is getting worse and worse by the minute. Not in an exaggerated way, we only see how the inveterate british seafarers in the Arctic have been losing more and more means of hope over the course of three long years, their numbers further decimated and their situation whenever they think it can’t get worse, becomes even darker. So we can observe with morbid consternation - mild spoiler, but not really because you know how the expedition ended - how in episode 1 over 100 trained, well-rehearsed seafarers form an unit and in episode 10 it has shrunk to a dozen scattered half-dead until after all, nobody lives anymore. The Terror does not only gain a rewatch-value because it is quite exciting to go back and see how it came to this tragic outcome.
Not least because the crew has an even for shows exorbitant large number of identification characters for the viewer - over a dozen (!!) of the seamen, be it the captains, the sergeants, the doctors or the sailors are fleshed-out and characterized so well and coherently that one wants to cheer for every single one of them, following their fates as closely as those of the main characters and getting depressed at almost every one of their deaths. From the main character Captain Croizure to the early brag and later Good Guy Captain Fitzgerald to the numerous sergeants and corporals or the kind-hearted doctor Goodsir to smaller characters like a doctor who maintains a romantic relationship with a younger sailor. And of course there are also a few clear antagonistic gentleman in The Terror which will probably make most viewers feel less warm in the stomach - especially Hikki, about which I don't want to reveal too much here. Also characters like the deeply religious Sir John or the less empathetic ship doctor Dr. Stanley. But even these negatively charged people are never one-dimensional.
Many of these characters also get a lot of development within the ten episodes, so that people which we found extremely unpleasant in Episode 1 might be appreciated by us in Episode 10 - and vice versa.
The end of the series finally is devastating and thought-provoking, but it is consistent and the only possible conclusion of such a fatalistic historical event.
The foreshadowing within the series is fantastic and a great pleasure, especially when you do a second run of the show, many details and scenes show in retrospect how well thought out this story is. Here, of course, every example is a spoiler, which is why you will simply have to believe me - the foreshadowing is brilliant, especially because you do not understand a lot of things at the first time or cannot really assign them.
As I said, the tension pervades all episodes and so there are also some very effectively implemented such as twists that come more or less unexpectedly, but are always staged greatly - the death of an important character in episode 3.
What more experienced viewers, which already saw countless shows and movies(with supernatural elements), will especially appreciate is how the being of Tuunbaq is dealt with - the animal-like, highly aggressive and intelligent creature is obviously not a simpler polar bear, no, not even an animal - There are no endless doubts about its existence, the man don’t question their common sense or dismiss it as nonsense, they accept this fact and prepare themselves for their supernatural enemy and try to confront it ( unfortunately largely unsuccessfully). A refreshing approach and also completely understandable - because what would be the point of dealing with questions of logic in the situation of the men, while a murderous beast tears them apart one by one?
Tuunbaq does just that extremely brutally and messy - In The Terror there is without a question a lot of explicit violence, body parts get thrown around, disturbing deaths are staged and innards are shown. However, violence is never used as a splatter-element or as a glorification, but only where it makes sense and where it’s needed in this realistic, grim setting. Just how grim and unsophisticated things were during this time-period is shown by an excruciatingly long lashing- sequence that doesn't do you the favor of cutting away at some point - it stays on the action until the end.
All of these are points that really speak for the show and make it a high-quality production that I think has received far, far too little attention - but what really captivated me and my deep fascination for The Terror to this day is something else - In the face of despair, hopelessness, hunger and certain death, maintaining civilized, strict discipline.
Discipline is everything
Lord of the flies. The Divide. Climax. The experiment. The Mist. The Descent. High-Rise. Event horizon. REC.
These are just a few films that - sometimes more, sometimes less - deal with how people break up in isolated extreme situations with feverish speed, fall back into their animalistic instincts, lose all common sense and go completely insane. For some, this is understandable and only realistic - Again and again events and eventually movies like ‘Das Experiment’ or ‘The Mist’ have shown us how incredibly little it takes for people to lose their composure and submit to the survival of the fittest.
This trope is something that annoys me more often than seldom - because it tends to be exaggerated and highly dramatized in order to show the abysses of the human mind. Most of the time I think to myself and criticize accordingly - people are not so fragile. It takes more than an extreme situation, two weeks in isolation and a little hunger to kill each other, impale our heads on chairs and dance hysterically around a fire. This is unrealistic!
Not so in The Terror - Of course, we don't know with certainty that the actual crew did not suffer a similar fate at the time when they became more and more aware of their hopeless situation, but little to none of that is seen in the book or in the show. No rapidly disintegrating order, blind anarchy or violent people who kill each other and establish a blood cult. And why? Because we are dealing with a well-coordinated, disciplined and well-organized ship crew from the United Kingdom. The three captains and their numerous sergeants, cadets and corporals know how to lead the Terror and Erebus with a strict, experienced hand and to keep the men motivated, instead of losing control after a few episodes. You can tell that this is not a random group of civilians or a half-baked Hollywood sailor team: Each of these men is trained, obedient and blessed with english reason. Well, lets say most of them.
And that doesn't change through absolute isolation at the end of the world lasting for more than three years - discipline is everything.
Other shows and movies would have started after episode one to describe the mental and civilized decline of the crew in a few months in exaggerated and exuberant scenes, but here we jump a year and nothing has changed. The episodes pass, the situation gets worse, more hopeless, men die, but order is maintained. When a mob of angry men threatens to attack the eskimo woman housed on board of the Erebus, Captain Croizure orders the marine soldiers to shoot into the air, commands everyone to the ground and imposes clear sentences.
'I WON’T TOLERATE ANY HYSTERIA HERE' - That’s how it is. Hysteria is not tolerated on english pioneer ships. There are no huge mutinies, the captains are never refused to obey, instead the series tries with many scenes and details to emphasize that discipline and order prevail here. And that is maintained for almost ten episodes - For us as a viewer, this constancy, this perseverance of the crew is a constant and a reason why we particularly sympathize with the officers of the captains - they enforce all of this. One scene was unforgettable for me when - little spoiler - the entire remaining crew finally decided to leave the ships behind and go south. This scene could be chaotic, you could show a lot of broken, overgrown men in desperate desperation for straws after these almost three years in the ice desert, but instead everything is ordered calmly, everyone is there with full concentration and in clear formation and the command to start is a fervent 'FORWARD, MEN !!' of one of the generals which leaves no room for doubt, hesitation or regrets - we are an elite crew of Her Majesty the Queen and we always make the best of the situation. That is what we experience in this show.
Even in one of the last episodes, when some kind of trial is held, with the few remaining men in the worst possible situation and a moment of greatest need, a gallow was made for it, official speeches and hearings are held and the officers took over the positions of folders. Only when the last remnant of the troops is actually blown up by an escalation and antagonists set in motion will the struggle for survival among people become clear, but then it has come to this point in a comprehensible manner and even then it still runs with a certain, morbid type of civilization.
Perhaps it is difficult to understand why I love this characteristic of The Terror so much - but once you have seen a number of tragic thrillers in extreme situations, you simply appreciate an incredibly, thoroughly competent, well-structured cast in all areas which will not let its british discipline fade away from adversity, hunger, disease, monstrositys or certain death.
For me, this concept is the strongest point in the show and a big plus for the victorian setting, which also makes this overarching discipline believable - Back then were different from today, after all. To these people, obedience to their captains and officers meant everything. That was not questioned.
Discipline is everything.
But there is actually one major weakness that I have to blame the show for - only one. As mentioned briefly, a lonely eskimo woman, who contacts the english ship crew in the course of the series, plays an important role. As a result, the language of the Inuit is spoken in numerous scenes - mostly without subtitles. Yes. So we watch characters for minutes how they - I found that out later on platforms like Reddit - have incredibly plot-relevant and interesting dialogues and exchange information and we cannot understand them. What initially appears to be an intended staging, in which one should understand the context through observation, quickly turns out to be exhausting and simply superfluous. That doesn't break the series now and actually no story-deciding things are told - but it's annoying, no question. Fortunately there is the TheTerror-Reddit and other network sources for fan translations.
But otherwise? Nothing wrong with the show on my part. Nothing. In its ten episodes, it is an almost perfect binge-experience that hardly affords any blunders. You just have to want a so-called slow burner - a calm, psychological thriller series that only gradually builds up its menace and horror in undertones. If you really can't live with a calm mood and little action, you run the risk of being bored.
Fazit - We are gone
What can I say about a show that I already have said so much about - The Terror is small. The Terror is humble. The chance that you have never seen or heard of this production is considerable. This historical horror drama creates such an unique aesthetic, atmosphere and dramaturgy that you are guaranteed not to forget it for a long time, or will it hard to compare it to something that already exists. Accompany a thoroughly trained and disciplined team of 100+ English sailors as they face the Arctic and the supernatural without going nuts. No teenagers loaded with testosterone. No incompetent soldiers who could also be recruited from local walmart temporary work. No stressful civilians.
British sailors. Obviously the epitome of integrity.
Do not expect hopeful moments or a happy ending for anyone, even if The Terror is by no means free from positive moments - on the contrary, the rare sun rays between characters appear all the brighter in the dreary gray of the Arctic. And these characters are wealthy, almost every single one of the dozen.
Just prepare for a depressing viewing experience. A depressing, hopeless, great, inspiring, memorable, disturbing, exciting viewing experience.
Give The Terror a Chance. Even if it's not your first choice. Or your second. Or not even your third.
Thank you very much, Ladies and Gentleman.
10/10 tongues for The Terror
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