I Saw the TV Glow-Pure Existential Horror

I Saw the TV Glow is a film abundant with skin-crawling imagery. But the film most effectively captures a more existential horror. The film's first half captures that existential feeling of adolescence as you wander around the suburbs, only knowing half of your identity, filling that gap in yourself with media you can only vaguely understand and friendships that don't last for one reason or another. The first half, in all its heightened awkwardness and indie-punk soundtrack, accurately captured that melancholy of growing up feeling like an outsider that, while not necessarily frightening, felt incredibly captivating to me due to how relatable it all felt.

The film then escalates to pure existential horror in its second half. As jumps forward in time become increasingly larger and larger, the film captures the existential horror of watching time slip away as you wander through life, feeling more and more like a husk of a human being, wondering if life could be better if you were a different person. There's some genuinely chilling imagery by the end, and each image becomes heightened by that sense of existential dread imbued within the story. 

With the film, Jane Schoenbrun shows themselves as an incredibly talented filmmaker, using camera and lighting to heighten the emotions of each half of the film. The long tracking shots and neon lighting of the first half capture that melancholic vibe of childhood. Schoenbrun then weaponizes the neon lighting and long tracking shots in the second half, heightening its sense of existential dread. 

The film did begin to lose me at the start of the second half, with many long-winded monologues that tell way more than they show and only serve to overexplain much of the story. But once the second half leaned less into that and more on conveying a sense of pure existential dread, especially in the film's chilling final few minutes, I became much more on board with everything the film was saying and doing. By the end, I Saw the TV Glow became a film that left a firm impact on me. It's a film that uses every filmmaking and story technique to convey the pure existential horror of searching for identity in childhood and adulthood. There's a clear trans and queer reading within the film, but what makes I Saw the TV Glow such a brilliant film is how well it manages to make its story feel so universal and relatable despite that queer subtext. Its story of identity will undoubtedly hit hard to those who identify in that way, but as someone who doesn't, the film's existential horror still dug deep for me and got under my skin.

Now Showing in Select Theaters in the U.S