While TV may be flooded with crime shows, it’s not every day that a great supernatural-themed thriller makes an appearance. Centered around a digital archivist who restores damaged tapes, Netflix’s new reality-bending show Archive 81 has some amazing nostalgia on offer alongside its solid storytelling, characters, and direction.
While there are lots of great things about Archive 81, many of the elements of what makes it such an engaging watch have been done before, chiefly the Blair Witch-style found footage scenes. It’s for that reason that audiences may want to check out some of the other great thriller series that laid the foundations for Archive 81 years earlier.
10 The X-Files
Perhaps no TV show revolutionized the thriller genre so much as The X-Files. FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) know that “the truth is out there” in this classic tale of government coverups, conspiracies, and alien abduction.
The show ran for so long that an incredible array of topics were covered — from the aliens and secret agents who are found throughout the series, to more obscure “monsters of the week” like the Jersey Devil, witchcraft, and even the touchy subject of domestic terrorism.
The X-Files uses many of the same film techniques that Archive 81 uses, too — specifically, the use of shadow and darkness to build suspense, something that loads of games have done successfully as well.
9 The Outsider
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Outsider is a horror-thriller featuring many occult themes similar to those found in Archive 81. The mini-series follows a police detective named Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) investigating the brutal murder of a child in a small town.
While it at first appears that they have their perp, a series of unexplainable events and discoveries leads the investigators to understand that something supernatural is afoot. With great performances from the cast and an intense finale, The Outsider is one King adaptation audiences won’t want to miss. There may be some differences between the book and TV series, but the show can easily stand on its own.
8 American Horror Story: Roanoke
Found footage makes up a big part of Archive 81’s story, so AHS: Roanoke is a shoo-in for what to watch next. Couple Shelby and Matt move from LA to an old, decrepit home in North Carolina, near the 16th century “Lost Colony” of Roanoke. But the peace is soon shattered when they realize the area is rife with angry spirits and monsters.
While the first half of the anthology series’ Roanoke season is told through a documentary-style format, the second half is shown as found footage shot during Shelby and Matt’s return to the house. Spooky throughout, this monster-filled series is sure to give audiences the creeps.
7 Midnight Mass
Another great Netflix horror, Midnight Mass shares many of Archive 81’s themes of family and belonging. When a recovered alcoholic named Riley returns to the remote island he grew up on, he sets up a local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter with the town’s new Catholic priest, Father Paul.
The thing is, Father Paul has a secret, one which will make viewers question who is in the right, and who is in the wrong. Suspenseful and full of characters audiences can root for, Midnight Mass explores some intense religious themes. Who exactly is the monster in Midnight Mass? Watch and find out.
6 Twin Peaks
This vintage David Lynch TV show might seem a bit dated at first glance, but the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer is too exciting to miss. When a young girl is found murdered, FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) joins forces with Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean).
The show is full of Lynch’s trademarked surrealism, which influences everything from the set design to the plot itself. The town of Twin Peaks is full of dark secrets just waiting to be uncovered, its every inhabitant linked somehow to the death of Laura Palmer. Fans of the series can even explore Lynch’s world in a VR game, too.
5 Stranger Things
A modern classic, Stranger Things is a heart-warming but also chilling show about what happens when a group of kids finds themselves in the middle of a sci-fi small-town mystery. Millie Bobby Brown’s breakout role as Eleven, an escaped child experiment from a government lab, is a performance audiences won’t want to miss.
The character dynamics in this show are fantastic, and the world that the showrunners have created feels hauntingly real, despite some occasionally over-the-top nostalgia invading what is otherwise a great story about friendship, love, and monsters.
4 Utopia (British version, 2013)
While Amazon’s recent American remake of Utopia proved to be woefully lacking in what made the original so great, the 2013 British series that started it all is still worth a watch today.
Utopia is full of conspiracies and shadow organizations, much like the events in Archive 81. A diverse group of people, ranging from a Welsh post-grad student named Becky (Alexandra Roach) to the enigmatic Wilson Wilson (Adeel Akhtar) and the literal child Grant (Oliver Woollford), are brought together by their interest in an obscure graphic novel called The Utopia Experiments.
But it turns out the comic holds the key to a terrible plot by the mysterious Mr. Rabbit, whose chilling hitmen are out to find the comic’s manuscript, at any cost. With a great color palette and soundtrack, the original Utopia certainly deserves the third season it never got.
3 Devs
Alex Garland, the award-winning author turned director, returns to the screen with his miniseries Devs. The Ex Machina and Annihilation writer-director has a fascinating style of filmmaking, and the show’s eerie soundtrack adds so much tension at key points. A beautifully shot and directed show with an equally stunning plot, Devs contains so much of the mystery and religious symbolism also found in Archive 81.
Software engineer Lily Chan’s (Sonoya Mizuno) world is turned upside down when her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman) vanishes after being promoted to the secretive Devs team. Lily is willing to go to great lengths to uncover the truth, even when it involves an international spy ring and an all-powerful tech CEO with an ulterior motive.
2 Dark
The German TV show Dark is a chilling adventure into the unknown. When a young boy Mikkel (Daan Lennard Liebrenz) goes missing in the woods outside the small town of Winden, the search centers on a mysterious cave and an old nuclear power plant.
A chilling mystery that spans several decades and generations, Dark is a time-traveling marvel. Its cast move between the present day, the 1980s, and even earlier as they desperately try to make things right. Dark’s story of murder, revenge, and absolution is steeped in religious overtones, as a strange Christian cult attempts to do the unthinkable.
Do yourself a favor though, and watch it in the original German, as the English dub leaves much to be desired.
1 Black Mirror
Every episode in Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is different. While not all episodes are thrillers, the ones that are hit hard and leave an impression long after the show has ended. Fans of Archive 81 may be interested in the episode “Playtest” (a horror-themed episode where a VR game test goes terribly wrong) or “Shut Up And Dance” (where a blackmailing hacker acts as puppet-master for a young boy).
Of course, there are loads of other quality episodes out there. Check out the renowned episodes “The Entire History of You” and “White Christmas,” or even the choose-your-own-adventure movie special, Bandersnatch, in which a young game developer loses his mind. Be warned: Black Mirror is not for the faint of heart.