Trollheart

Title: “Cinethrax”
Series: Dimension 404
Season: 1
Year: 2017
Writer(s): Will Campos, Dez Dolly, Daniel Johnson and David Welch

Storyline: A cinema buff takes his niece to the new showing of a hip movie which purports to be in something called “Cinethrax”. Nobody knows what it is, and Dusty doesn’t care; in fact, he’s brought what he calls shifters - glasses that turn 3D back into normal 2D. He’s worried that Chloe is getting too tied up in fads and social media, and wants to “keep it real”, but then, he’s a lot older than her. On entry to the cinema, everyone is given special glasses to wear, so they can, as the slogan blares, “embrace the experience”, but Dusty drops his in a bin. He goes to get popcorn while Chloe gets the seats, but when he returns she’s hooked up with friends, and though this is supposed to be their night, it’s clear she wants to spend it with her friends, so he leaves her to it. The movie begins, everyone gasps as the “Cinethrax” explodes on the screen (immersive 4D motion? What the hell is that?) and Dusty sits there, bored.

Until he sees something nobody else does, something pulsing, moving behind the screen, like… something alive? As he watches, something comes out from behind it, a long, slimy, wormlike thing that goes questing along the ground, but nobody else seems to notice. Then it attacks him and he goes crazy. Removed by security, of course nobody believes him, not even Chloe, and she says she wants to stay even if he goes. She tells him she’s outgrown him and he needs to let her go. Security takes him to the projection room, where they try to convince him to put on the Cinethrax glasses, but he refuses, and the three of them turn into some sort of monsters, attacking him. Trapped in the janitor’s closet, he manages to get a message to Chloe to put on the shifter glasses, and when she finally does she sees what he sees.

Huge worms (or the many tentacles of one huge worm) are clamped onto the faces of everyone in the cinema. She screams, but her friends exhort her to join them (like, totally!) and now they’re all after her. Grabbing a replica sword one of the other audience members had brought in (don’t ask: think the kind of people who dress as hobbits and elves to watch Lord of the Rings movies. In public) she fights her way through them but is overpowered and forced to put on the Cinethrax glasses. As the worm reaches for her, she stabs it with the sword. It retreats, howling in pain, and every one of the audience reacts the same, as if they have also been stabbed. She smashes her way into the projection booth, sees Dusty is tied up and is swiftly captured herself.

The cinema guys tell her that Cinethrax (the worm) is a space alien who has come to Earth to, um, unite everyone. Seems it’s some sort of hive mind deal, connecting people and then letting them share each other’s experiences. But is that what it’s doing, or is it enslaving mankind. Answers on a slimy postcard, please… As they force Dusty to wear the glasses Chloe, somewhat forgotten, grabs a piece of the window she shattered when she broke through and jams it into the beast’s eye. They all react in pain. Then the cinema guy grabs Chloe - with a long, disgusting, wormlike tongue! - and drags her towards him, shining the light from his - I guess Cinethrax’s - eyes into hers, and she sees.

When Dusty breaks the connection by the brutal expedient of a fireaxe to the head of the cinema guy, Chloe and he go to escape, but it’s too late. She has seen, and she no longer fears, And outside, the world is burning as everyone sees. There’s nowhere to go now. Cinethrax is everywhere. With no options left, Dusty joins the hive mind.

Comments: Yeah I hated the ending. I could see where it was going and all through the episode I thought how are they going to escape, and then they did. But they didn’t. I guess you have to give it points for avoiding the hero-saves-the-day ending, but still, it’s bleaker than I had expected. Does make it stand out though.

Rating: A

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