Yellowjackets
2021
Original language: English
- drama
- mystery
The story
This equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama tells the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later.
What it’s like
Cold, desaturated wilderness shot in long, unhurried takes: pale overcast skies, dense conifer forest, snow and mud, with the 1990s flashbacks rendered in warmer, grainier tones of sunlit gyms, cassette-era bedrooms and fluorescent school hallways. Its vibe is bleak and feverish, a slow-building unease that curdles into outright dread, with a score of sparse, droning synth and low strings that often falls silent so the forest sounds carry. The present-day timeline, set in suburban kitchens and glossy adult lives, plays out in cooler, more controlled framing that makes the past feel like it is leaking through. The pacing alternates between languid character stillness and sudden, sharp bursts of brutality. Intensity is high: frequent graphic violence, gore, and bloody survival scenes, plus cruelty, sexual content, and disturbing psychological material; the horror lands as sustained dread punctuated by brutal, visceral moments. Its people are teenagers pushed into moral collapse and the adults they become, tracing guilt, complicity and fractured loyalty over decades. It suits viewers who want a dark, slow-burn survival mystery with a strong female ensemble, not something gentle or light.
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