I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

I Saw the TV Glow works in a slow and dreamy David Lynch key, heavy on the soundtrack and with music videos shoved in all part of the package. There are sinister horror undercurrents aplenty in this story of two fans of a ‘90s TV show called The Pink Opaque. We see scenes and hear plot points about the show, which is a little bit X-Files and a little bit Pete and Pete, with jolts of aimless meaninglessness for effect. The setup seems to be two girls on psychic adventures with monsters. In 1996, two youngsters, 7th-grader Owen (Ian Foreman and then Justice Smith) and 9th-grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) bond over the show, which runs on a USA Network-like cable channel on Saturday nights at 10:30 p.m. Owen has a home situation that makes it hard for him to look at it—there is a sad arc to his family over the years but we never get very much information, especially about his strict stepfather. Owen sneaks over to Maddy’s when he can to look at the show with Maddy and Maddy’s friend Amanda. Later Maddy makes videotapes of the show for Owen. It’s their favorite TV show ever. When both are in high school, Maddy wants to run away and she wants Owen to come with her, but he hangs back. Then Maddy disappears—police investigation, presumed dead. We don’t get much information about this either, but it sounds serious. When Maddy shows up eight years later Owen can’t believe it and begs her to tell him what happened, where she has been. She appears reluctant to say but finally admits it has something to do with the show. She has been living inside it or something. It seems unlikely but ever more unhinged plot developments suggest otherwise. It’s also possible she’s insane. I’m not sure it all adds up but I’m not sure that matters. I was interested in the first place because I’d found an earlier movie intriguing by director and writer Jane Schoenbrun, 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. It’s fully steeped in the self-proclaimed dark corners of the internet such as “analog horror,” the topic of numerous youtube channels, and plays to them well. I Saw the TV Glow is attempting something similar with ‘90s cable entertainment shows and VHS swap-abouts, but with much more ambition than mere parody or mimicry. I’m not sure it’s such a fruitful direction, but I found at least this one to be engaging, mysterious, even cosmic and awe-inspiring in a way that is only slightly ironic.