Black Mirror fans can all attest: it is very hard to find a show that scratches a similar itch.
The Netflix Charlie Brooker dystopian TV series recently released its newest season, with many fans deciding it is the best season of the show in years.
Whether it be Netflix 'gaslighting' viewers by playing different versions of the same scene or the first sequel episode of the show yet – it had fans wowed with its mind-bending concepts and creepy vibe.
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That is not to say, however, that Netflix has nothing similar.
In a recent post on r/NetflixBestOf, one fan asked for ‘mindf**king shows like Black Mirror and Love, Death, and Robots’ and there was one unanimous answer in the comments: Maniac.
The most popular comment suggested this series as the answer – and it’s hard to disagree.
The mini-series released on Netflix in 2018, starring Hollywood superstars Jonah Hill and Emma Stone.
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The ten episode series was met with across the board positive reviews, averaging a score of 7.6/10 on IMDb and 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Hill and Stone star as Owen and Annie, a pair of strangers who are drawn to the final stages of a pharmaceutical trial.
Each has different reasons for being there however are both promised the same thing: that the magical pill that is being tested will repair any issues with their minds.
It, of course, does not go to plan.
Collider called the show ‘trippy’, saying that it was like 'watching someone else’s dream', whilst Troy Patterson of The New Yorker even went as far as to call the show a 'wry metaphysical mind-bender'.
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Jen Chaney of New York Magazine said the show was ‘wild, audacious, addictive, and teeters so precariously between reality and fantasy that the audience will immediately question what's real and what isn't’.
In essence, if you’re after an easy silly watch this maybe isn’t the one for you, but if you want something that will twist your brain in half, then this is for you.
The series is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, an American director who came to prominence for directing True Detective season one, the most highly acclaimed of the show by far.
He went on to direct the most recent James Bond film, No Time to Die, which came off the back of his success for Maniac.
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Based on interviews at the time with Fukunaga, however, it seems a miracle the show is acclaimed as it was with the creative saying the show was a ‘pain in the a**’ to make.
He said in an interview with The New York Post: “[Maniac’] was really fun to conceive and a pain in the ass to shoot because we basically had $12 and no time.”
He went as far as to reveal that the budget for the shoot was so low that at one point he had to make a prop himself.
Speaking about the show, he said: “For me, the exploration of self — the exploration of the multiple versions of yourself inside you — have been part of my process as a writer and as a director to figure out what it is that’s driving me creatively.
“I think this show is the next step in the evolution of my creative process.”
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His next film, Blood on Snow, is set to feature an all-star cast of Aaron Taylor Johnson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eva Green, and Ben Mendelsohn.
Topics: Netflix, TV and Film
Michael Slavin