Chambers B- Show DetailsAbout Chambers type TV Show Genre Teen Drama, Horror Network Netflix You have to watch the first two episodes of the new Netflix series Chambers
And you maybe shouldn’t watch anything after that. The tense horror drama (streaming now) casts an immediate spell
Sasha (Sivan Alyra Rose) is a high schooler going all the way with her boyfriend TJ (Griffin Powell-Arcand)
They’re poor kids in some distressed corner of Nevada, Navajo descendants living a long bus ride down an empty highway from the wealthy-white suburban enclave with the fancy school
But Sasha and TJ are in love, so nothing else matters. The opening sequence of the Chambers pilot draws you into their rapture
They drive through the desert, horizon visible out the window. The song on the radio is “Still Ill” by the Smiths
Rain starts to fall, they don’t care. They make out, and go further. It’s her first time
Sasha’s heart explodes, not in the good way. Cardiac arrest ensues — and a desperate last-minute organ transplant
Months later, Sasha’s got a scar across her torso and a new heart beating bad blood
Down the road a stretch, in wealthy Crystal Valley, a popular rich-kid blonde named Becky Lefevre (Lilliya Reid) died the same night as Sasha’s health crisis
Now Becky’s heart is in Sasha’s body — and Sasha’s experiencing strange Becky-dreams and bloody Becky-visions
Becky’s parents reach out, seeking a connection with the girl who lives because their daughter died
Ben (Tony Goldwyn) and Nancy (Uma Thurman) wear their grief like form-fitted athleisure
They welcome Sasha and her uncle Frank (Marcus LaVoi) into their house, a cubic modernist mansion with a glass-walled wine cellar bigger than your first apartment
The Lefevres have created a scholarship in Becky’s name, and they want Sasha to have it
She’s a fish out of water in Crystal Valley’s high school. On her first day, she meets her life coach
The school’s nap room has Wi-Fi. These first two episodes are directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, a boldface name for anyone who enjoys visual-treat TV
Gomez-Rejon perfected the particular style of FX’s American Horror Story, helming three episodes in the wonderful Asylum season that pushed the anthology’s campy-freaky eccentrics into deepweird theatricality
There’s not a wasted shot in the opening episodes. The most casual scenes are filmed with minor-key horror
Dinner at the Lefevres cuts between extreme close-ups, until the actors are almost staring right at you
There’s an overt early nudge toward Twin Peaks, with a dead-blonde Becky portrait staring at Sasha from the school’s trophy case
But the overall stylistic effect is less David Lynch than Nicolas Roeg — with just a dash of Georgia O’Keeffe
Sivan Alyra Rose is a true newcomer and a real find, bringing a casual air to every line reading and a deep well of humanity to a concept that could induce eyerolls
Yes, there’s something weird about Becky’s heart. But the larger fear for Sasha is the possibility that she’s stepping into Becky’s life…and leaving her own behind
Actually, Chambers represents a minor step forward in the depiction of the supernatural
There are familiar horror archetypes here, a couple Native American characters who proclaim that Sasha’s aura is all off
But the true bad vibes come from the Southwest Annex Foundation, a local spiritual wellness center that looks like a rehab utopia for demi-gods
The Lefevres sent their dirtbag son Elliott (Nicholas Galitzine) to the facility to clean out his heroin addiction
You know something’s off at the Annex immediately. Lili Taylor plays the eerily cheerful boss — and the foundation’s spring equinox party has a Moby soundtrack
Witness contemporary Caucasian woo-woo, spotless and succulent and (maybe?) Satanic
Then Chambers has to become an actual TV show, and it never recovers. Creator Leah Rachel turns the first season into a long stall, a murder mystery box-checking clues while the characters gradually, gradually realize something obviously strange is going on
Chambers is a gorgeous show, shot around Albuquerque in the same evocative landscape that produced the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saulverse
But it turns repetitive, and then just plain boring. Even with ever-looper subject matter — drug trips, nightmare portals, stormy flashbacks — the directors after Gomez-Rejon can’t quite recover the initial all-encompassing feeling of danger and excitement
There’s a sharp tale here about race and class divides, but the show fails to develop the life in Sasha’s two worlds as anything more than a sketch
In a long ten-episode season, she never gets to do anything except freak out about her horror heart
So Chambers is a mixed bag, maybe best experienced in a skip-around weekend binge
Thurman is very good in a part that variously calls for sensitive indie-movie grief and horror-queen freakouts
Teen viewers bored by the recent batch of Freeform/CW fare might get a kick out of the young-and-crazy antics: Airstream parties in a haunted desert, a vast prescription culture medicating any kid with a personality
Sasha and her friend Yvonne (Kyanna Simone Simpson) have an easy best-friend chemistry, a bit of humanity that goes a long way as the show gets tangled in its own obvious plot
When you can’t take anymore, skip to the twist ending, and pray season 2 can follow through
Watch the terrifying trailer for Netflix’s YA horror series Chambers Exclusive first look at Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn’s new Netflix horror series, Chambers Chambers type TV Show seasons 1 Genre Teen Drama, Horror run date 04/26/19 Cast Sivan Alyra Rose, Uma Thurman, Tony Goldwyn Network Netflix Complete Coverage Chambers