The Latest Into the Dark Is About an Amnesiac President

Happy Fourth of July?

Into the Dark, Blumhouse’s anthology of holiday-based horror shorts, is back on Hulu for its second season with another round of twelve festive (?) episodes, the latest of which is about America’s Independence Day, a day celebrated by fireworks, cookouts (when there’s not a pandemic happening), and, apparently, creepy Manchurian Candidate vibes. Watch the trailer and you’ll see what I mean.

While I have to say I’m really, really over mental institutions as horror backdrops (you know real mentally ill people exist, right? And that they’re not actually horror movie monsters?), the conceit of a dude who might actually be the president undergoing some wild MK Ultra experiment is pretty interesting. Mental illness isn’t a nightmare, but never knowing who you are? That’s scary stuff. Combined with the horror of that one dream where you were signed up for a college class you didn’t know about and almost failed it ‘cause you never went—except it’s the American Presidency. Timely.

Premiering on July 17th, the film stars Barry Watson as the maybe President. It was directed by Julius Ramsey and written by Alstom Ramsay, who previously worked as a Washington, DC speechwriter for political figures like General David Petraeus and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It’ll be on Hulu.

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