Summary
Into The Dark Episode 10: “Culture Shock” is solely dedicated to its political angle regarding border control in the USA and it compassionately works.
This review of Hulu’s Into The Dark Episode 10: “Culture Shock”, contains minor spoilers. In partnership with Blumhouse Television, Hulu Original Into the Dark is a year-round horror event series, with a new instalment released each month inspired by a holiday and will feature Blumhouse’s signature genre/thriller spin on the story.
Hulu’s Into The Dark episode 10: “Culture Shock” is a kick in the face to the broken social environment of America. The feature-length episode opens up with The Purge-like dramatics basking on a mainstream news channel discussing the horrors of immigration and protecting the sanctity of the USA. “Culture Shock” is directed with modern politics in mind that has calls for a wall and tighter border controls with sickening ICE centres leading to the deaths of infants. Mexican director Gigi Saul Guerrero crafts the story with irony, planting metaphorical seeds into the mind of the audience.
We meet character Marisol (Martha Higareda) in episode 10. A Mexican citizen eager to move to the USA for the “land of dreams”, for better opportunities and higher living conditions. A sickly rape skews her story by a man she trusted when trying to cross the border. Marisol dreams of crossing the border again, but with greater intentions – to give her unborn child a better life. A child that is the by-product of her rapist. “Culture Shock” does not create a sweet-ass story. Episode 10 is as real as it gets to the reality of fleeing illegal immigrants.
But the real horror that bestows Marisol in Into The Dark episode 10 is when she finally manages to join a group who are attempting to cross the border. There are a steady 20 minutes which demonstrates the night journey to try to cross the border, masking themselves in the dark to ensure they are not caught by border control. This reenactment of what may entail to illegally enter America is met by a strange Black Mirror type third act.
Episode 10: “Culture Shock” conjures a scenario where immigrants become part of a border program where they become Americanised by virtual reality. The program is oddly enjoyable to watch. If you step out of line in the program, the other acquaintances in the virtual reality become uncomfortable with your un-American ways. Everyone is optimistic, suburban and gluttonous, unaware that they remain in a town that does not register time. Into The Dark played a reality that is currently happening now in parts of the world; brainwashing people to their ways, to be what Americans believe you have to be, and not a fleeing immigrant wishing to enjoy a more prosperous life.
And with rumors surrounding the ICE detention centers deepening, Into The Dark episode 10 is a protest piece to force the audience to understand the inhuman nature of our distilled culture. We are amongst people that demand that an immigrant understands a culture foreign to them. “If the immigrant does not bow down to cultural rules of our living, then why come to the country in the first place”. “Culture Shock” is entirely symbolic of that flawed way of inherently racist thinking. An ideology that far outstretches a reasonable mind. The virtual reality program to Americanise the characters expects the Mexican immigrants to dress, eat, style their hair and talk like an American. A manufactured transition, so society accepts them into the country.
Into The Dark episode 10: “Culture Shock” is a formidable piece of work. It fails to adjust to the thriller-like scenarios where violence is involved because the episode was not made with horror in mind. It was made with politics.
