NETFLIX NIGHTFLYERS REVIEW: A DECENT HORROR SERIES OUT IN SPACE…

Billed as a haunted house story in space, the Nightflyers premiere pulls no punches in the horror category: In the first scene, a bearded man who looks a lot like Stanley Kubrick chases a blonde woman through a spaceship while wielding an axe while doing his best impression of Jack Nicholson’s demented smile. It’s a genuinely scary sequence pulled straight from Kubrick’s The Shining…

Now… you’re hooked!

Right?

Nightflyers takes place in 2093 and the show follows eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer — a ship with a small tightknit crew and a reclusive captain — in the hope of making contact with alien life. But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other – and surviving the journey proves harder than anyone thought.

To communicate with them, astrophysicist and expedition leader Karl D’Branin (Eoin Macken) has enlisted the help of Thale (Sam Strike), an extremely powerful but extremely unstable psychic (referred to as an “L1” for reasons that are never explained), and Thale’s psychiatrist Agatha Matheson (Gretchen Mol), who’s also Karl’s ex-girlfriend.

Further complicating things is Thale (Sam Strike) a powerful and unstable telepath (sound familiar?) who may be the humanity’s best hope for actually communicating with these aliens. But as soon as Thale arrives, the rest of the crew starts hearing voices and seeing visions. Is Thale screwing with their heads, or is there someone (or something) else on the ship too?

But nothing is quite what it seems and everyone has secrets, especially Roy Eris (David Ajala), captain of the Nightflyer.

The closer the ship gets to the aliens the weirder things are going to get, often to the point that the producers had to create their own imagery instead.

There are a couple of things that work for Nightflyers. One is its fast pace and streamlined dialogue. It burns through plot rapidly and twists that weren’t revealed until late in Martin’s book happen in the first few episodes, which is refreshing after watching so many baggy streaming dramas where no plot happens for hours.

The characters may not be particularly interesting, but at least they’re doing stuff. The other thing that works are solid performances by Mol, Fargo‘s Angus Sampson and the very charismatic Jodie Turner-Smith, who plays genetically engineered engineer Melantha Jherl.

But…

An overreliance on horror homages (and a non-linear storytelling approach) does undermine some of the show’s tension, although the strong ensemble cast at least offers the potential for us to connect to these characters as Nightflyers progresses.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Unfortunately, If You Really Want to See a Haunted Spaceship, Go Watch Event Horizon, as that film is far superior and a strangely familiar premise to the Netflix show. When the show focuses on the dynamics between its characters and the impressive scope of its setting, it shines, but future installments need to find the balance between emotion and scares.

3/5 STARS