Mind-bending, or MindF*ck, is a genre unto itself – a sleight of hand, a dark twist that goes beyond expectation, running the edge of your nightmare while forcing you to keep watching because the intrigue is too intense to look away.
There has been a rash of such mind-bending fare in the past few years, especially as Netflix dubs outstanding new titles from around the world – shows like Dark or If I Hadn’t Met You. In this list, we will look at some of the mind-bending shows that will live with you long after you shut the numinous Pandora’s box, wondering if you had been better off never looking inside.
Archive 81
A horror series created by Dan Schoenbrun and Eli Horowitz that premiered on Hulu in 2020. It follows a filmmaker embroiled in the mystery surrounding a lost documentary film shot in the 90s. As the filmmaker continues his search for the missing footage, he discovers a sinister plot involving the film’s subjects and their connection to a cult. The show combines elements of found footage, documentary filmmaking, and psychological horror to tell its story. There is something really unusual and fresh about the tone of this show. It plays the modern obsession with liminal spaces and hidden doors to the backrooms in a fantastic way while flickering back and forth in time and reality.
Raised by Wolves
Created by Aaron Guzikowski and executive producer Ridley Scott, this pulp science fiction/horror series premiered on HBO Max in 2020. Massive space cruisers filled with refugees ruled by a religious puritanical cult, body horror, and androids that fly through the air in the shape of a cross obliterating their enemies like water balloons, and strange connections to the Alien universe make for an unsettling and unforgettable experience. The show was highly polarizing, but those who got it were obsessive.
Twin Peaks
The seminal neo-noir drama series created by Mark Frost and his television debuting partner auteur David Lynch aired on ABC in the early 90s, transformed the culture, and made stars out of a dozen new faces and artists. Though on the surface, it appears to be about an FBI Special Agent investigating a series of mysterious murders – not the least of which is the homecoming queen of the local high school – the duality of the social veneer and unbearably dark undercurrents that lace the society and something far more nefarious, manifesting through and among them, is an unrepeatable journey of self-reflection, genuine dread, and nightmarish terror, and sublimation.
The battle between light and dark is not so cut and dry here, as seemingly everyone has a cross to bear and a form of madness to contend with, even while on the surface, everything is as still as the surface of a lake in the woods.
The OA
Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s science fiction drama series premiered on Netflix in 2016. Marling plays the titular “The OA” – or that’s what Prairie Johnson calls herself after escaping from a season of being held captive in a glass cage by a dark sociopath. The first season’s endless sequence of false imprisonment and psychological torture eventually veers in a completely different direction, making you rub your eyes and wonder if it happened.
The first season addresses the epidemic of school violence in the most unexpected way. Then season two goes in directions that you’d have to have a certain kind of sensibility to parse on first blush. Essential viewing for fans of the unorthodox.
Black Mirror
The now-legendary near-future science fiction anthology by Charlie Brooker premiered on Channel 4 in 2011 and later on Netflix. It explores the dark and sometimes satirical consequences of society’s reliance on technology. The black mirror is, of course, the surface of your smart device when the screen is off. Each episode is a standalone story that tackles different themes, including social media, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and gamification. The series is so incredibly prescient, forward-thinking, and uncompromisingly bleak that the creator stopped running it when the pandemic struck because it hit too close to home; truth had become stranger than fiction.
It is brilliantly inventive; many episodes became cornerstone watercooler conversation pieces, including Nosedive starring Bryce Dallas Howard, which eventually became a tabletop game. Or 15 Million Merits starring Daniel Kaluuya in a hamster wheel society where escape is impossible but not in the way you might expect.
Lost
The mystery at the center of JJ Abram’s groundbreaking series was made to keep viewers guessing and in suspense. Abrams did a Ted Talk when the show was still trending that described a box he was once given – the idea being that the trick was to keep you guessing what was inside the box for as long as possible without ever (or if ever opening it). Smoke monsters, polar bears in tropical biomes, mysterious caves, and many more oddities and incredible character arcs kept this show on fire week after week. The character Locke is one of the most fascinating ever created for television.
Despite the controversial final episodes, the first three seasons of this groundbreaking epic changed television. They had millions of folks talking, conjecturing, and riveted.
Utopia
We are talking about the original UK version here, not the terrible US remake that came several years later. This conspiracy thriller series created by Gillian Flynn that premiered on Amazon Prime Video in 2013 follows a group of strangers who come together after discovering a graphic novel called “The Utopia Experiments,” which they believe holds the key to unlocking a global conspiracy. As they try to unravel the mystery, they are pursued by a secret organization that will stop at nothing to protect its secrets. The ideas in this show resemble events that came to pass after 2019. One might become paranoid that our world is just a simulation.
This show’s edginess and constant escalating intensity make it a shock to the system, a mind-bending wild ride. Particularly chilling is Neil Maskell as Arby, the bounty hunter. It may be one of the best British TV series ever made.
The Twilight Zone
The essential episodic series created by Rod Serling that aired on CBS from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s presents standalone stories that explore the human condition and society, often with a twist ending. The show’s intellectual and ethical problems laid the groundwork for mindfuck television for decades. Some episodes can haunt you for a lifetime. We speak from experience. Among our favorites are Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?, Living Doll (which some say was the actual inspiration for the myth of the haunted doll Annabelle), and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet which will have you shutting the blinds on every flight you take after watching it.
The Eric Andre Show
A comedy series created by and starring Eric Andre that aired on Adult Swim from 2012 to 2015 spoofed public access talk shows and features sketches, interviews, and pranks. Andre is joined by co-host Hannibal Buress and special guests as they explore various themes and concepts in a humorous and absurdist fashion in what can only be described as an aggressive fever dream related to Natural Born Killers, more than The Tonight Show.
In the same vein as the Tom Green Show or even Gary Shandling Show, it belies ennui with the innocuous and vapid drip of nightly chat shows shilling the last Hollywood press release.
Severance
A TV series that combines dystopia, mystery, psychological thriller, and science fiction elements. In an age where we’re already becoming aware of how our data is being used and how it can be manipulated by our employers, this show is more relevant than ever. Follows a group of office workers whose memories have been surgically split between their work and personal lives. Any cursory study of horror as a genre will tell you that it reflects the zeitgeist, perhaps more than any other genre. Coming out of 2 years of hard lockdown, the shift to remote work justified concern and paranoia about how our data is used, privacy usurped, and emotions manipulated by phantom algorithms.
