By: Phone Min Thant, Arts & Culture Editor
Snow-covered lands, cold winds, frozen seas, no fresh food — least of all any human contact — to be spotted as far as the eye can see. That is the essence of “Arctic Horror,” a film genre that was made mainstream by the blockbuster The Thing (1982) by John Carpenter. But, what if I told you that there is an Arctic horror series set closer to home during the late-Victorian era, without modern technology, and with much less extra-terrestrial beings? Allow me to introduce The Terror (Season 1).
The Terror is based on the real story of the disappearance of the Franklin Expedition in 1845. It follows two Royal Navy arctic exploration ships attempting to navigate the Inuit Nunangat (Canadian Arctic — off the coast of Nunavut) in search of a passageway to the Pacific Ocean, when they got stuck in packed ice, unable to escape, with dwindling supplies . . . and a supernatural being that hunts down the demoralized crew one by one. However, as the commanders of these two ships soon found out, the danger was not only limited to non-human forces and the harsh environment. They also face backstabbings, personal vendettas, and psychological impairments.
The series does a perfect job of capturing the nature of human beings to do whatever it takes to survive as the situation turns from hopeful to pessimistic to outright demoralizing in a few episodes.
By this point, you will have noticed that I have been keeping things vague — you may be wondering, “what is this supernatural being?” “What acts of betrayal did the crew of these two ships do to each other?” Other than the pragmatic reason to avoid spoilers, the show’s horror comes from such vagueness — the uncertainty of who the hunter is (or if it is even real) and whether one can trust their comrades in times of desperation. Some of these dilemmas have more than one answer, and it is up to you to watch the series to find out.
It is also worth mentioning how The Terror paid homage to the Inuit communities whose traditional lands the setting is based on. From casting Inuk actors to exploring (albeit minorly) the cultures of the people that have survived on such harsh environments for thousands of years (and whom, in real life, helped to locate the wreckages of the ships that the series was based on), the show thoughtfully highlights the creeping flow of British imperialism to Indigenous territories and how Indigenous voices tend to go overlooked or misrepresented in mainstream horror and period-dramas. It’s important to note that in the Arctic Horror genre specifically, there have been harmful depictions of Indigenous communities.
Overall, The Terror’s first season was an immersive and haunting watch for me, helped no less by the fact that I chose a snow day to watch it — the imagery of a vast plain of white ice with no chance of going back to warmth and familiarity is indeed a harrowing thing to think about for someone like me. And The Terror did a great job of cinematography to instill that feeling in the audiences.
