This story contains spoilers for Black Mirror.
Black Mirror is back this week after a four year hiatus, and while the dystopic Netflix hit delivers some of the same existential sci-fi it’s always been known for, it also gives fans something totally new: supernatural horror. Black Mirror has always been scary – past episodes like “White Bear” and “Playtest” have couched freaky horror elements in a science fiction framework – but two episodes of the latest season dive headfirst into the genre with no sci-fi safety net in sight. Though both chapters still incorporate cursory nods to technology, their biggest surprise is that they’re actually supernatural stories, pushing Charlie Brookers’ series from the realm of speculative fiction into something unreal and making the show feel new again in the process. The horror outings also share a sneaky connection that might hint at more genre detours in Black Mirror’s future.
The changeover happens in Episode 4 of the new season, after three solid, standard sci-fi entries. “Mazey Day,” follows a paparazzi photographer named Bo, played by Zazie Beetz. The majority of the episode hinges around her pursuit of a celebrity in the midst of what seems like a public breakdown, whose photos are worth a small fortune. “Mazey Day” spends most of its run-time keeping us in suspense about the true state of the titular character, and it’s a build that works well thanks to its completely out of left field payoff. When Bo does track down Mazey (Clara Rugaard), she’s chained to the ground in what seems to be a cult-like rehab facility. Except, nope, it turns out she’s actually a werewolf.
While Black Mirror die-hards may be skeptical about the show’s shift to supernatural horror, it’s a brilliantly surprising move from a series that’s best-known for its unguessable twists. That the shift comes 25 episodes (plus a holiday special and a film) into the long-running series makes it all the more mind-boggling and exhilarating; with Season 6, Black Mirror is shifting things up in a big way, and it doesn’t stop with werewolves. The season finale, “Demon 79,” also goes full horror with a story about a shoe shop clerk named Nida (Anjana Vasan) who begins committing murders at the behest of a super-stylish demon (Paapa Essiedu). This episode even comes with a special subtitle: “a Red Mirror film.”
The Red Mirror moniker first appeared in the trailer for the season, which hyped “Demon 79” with a similar intertitle, “Red Mirror Presents.” It sounds like a fake production company, but now that we’ve seen these episodes, the Red Mirror label actually seems more like an introduction to a whole new variation of this show, timed after the shocking werewolf reveal. The Black Mirror title has always referred to a darkened screen, the kind in which a viewer can see their own reflection when a phone or television turns off. Red Mirror, then, seems to hint at a different common theme – blood. It’s a motif the two pure horror episodes have in common, down to a small but significant shared detail.
Just as several episodes of Black Mirror include ominous shots of screens, cameras, and other technology that calls to mind the series’ title, this season’s two horror episodes both feature similar shots of blood. More specifically, both characters who are impacted by the supernatural twists of fate, werewolf Mazey and demon-haunted shop girl Nida, both prick their fingers just moments before their seemingly normal lives are taken over. In Mazey’s case, a drunken night leads her to cut her hand on some glass, and she’s mesmerized by her own bloody finger when she runs over the figure that turns out to be a werewolf. In Nida’s case, she pricks her finger while sitting at an abandoned desk, and her drop of blood activates a demonic relic she finds tucked away there.
These recurring shots might seem like an accident if this series were made by anyone but Brooker, but Black Mirror’s creator has a long history of incorporating details into the show that serve to connect episodes within, as he once told IGN, “a shared Black Mirror multiverse.” Mysterious logos show up across multiple stories, props from past storylines appear in Season 4’s Black Museum, and even the crime documentary from the latest season pops up an episode before we watch it, on Joan’s (Annie Murphy) Streamberry home page.
With Brooker’s well-documented knack for weaving Easter eggs into the fabric of the series in mind, it seems likely that the bloody fingers that serve to usher two different characters into a whole new horror world are no accident. It’s an image that calls to mind Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “By the pricking of my thumbs/Something wicked this way comes.”
Hopefully, the show’s foray into horror means more wicked things are coming our way. The season’s transition from sci-fi to supernatural scares is expertly executed, and though it strays from the series’ foundational premise, it also allows Black Mirror to rise to the level of great horror anthologies that came before it. It seems unlikely that Black Mirror will stray from its central conceit for good, but with the new Red Mirror designation and a neat, genre-transitioning visual shorthand to match, there’s no limit to the scares this series could dream up in the future.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/black-mirror-just-opened-the-door-to-a-new-world-of-horror