I Saw the TV Glow
2024 · Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Original language: English
- drama
- horror
The story
In late-90s suburbia, a lonely teenager meets a girl at school who introduces him to a mysterious late-night T.V. show — a vision of a supernatural world pulsing beneath their own. As time goes on, however, questions begin to arise about why the show sometimes seems more real than their own lives. In the pale glow of the television, their view of reality begins to crack.
What it’s like
Washed-out VHS colour and the blue-violet flicker of a CRT dominate this film, with nights lit almost entirely by television glow and the dim pink-beige of suburban bedrooms and school hallways. Its camera tends toward still, carefully held frames of ordinary rooms, interrupted by pulsing, uncanny inserts of a fictional late-night show that look like half-remembered public access TV. The score is sparse and synthetic, with low drones and a restrained hum that swells under the silences, and the soundscape often sits in quiet domestic noise: a fridge, a breath, a distant phone. The vibe is nostalgic unease, melancholy and slightly feverish, the feeling of a blurred memory of adolescence that keeps tipping toward something stranger. Pacing is slow and drifting, with long gaps between jolts, and the emotional register stays hushed and interior as a lonely teenager's sense of self loosens and he starts to question which world feels real. Intensity is low on violence and gore but high on dread, with some sexual and identity-related content handled frankly and a few tense, eerie moments rather than shocks. Best suited to people who want a slow, unsettling late-night watch and who enjoy queer coming-of-age stories told through atmosphere.
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