HBO Hopes You’ll Check Into Room 104 This Weekend
Debi Moore
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The Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark, have explored the horror genre a bit already with 2008’s Baghead and 2014’s Creep; and as we told you a few weeks ago, their new HBO anthology series, “Room 104,” appears to dip its toes into it as well. With the Television Critics Association 2017 summer press tour now under way (you’d think they’d give us some time to recover from Comic-Con first!), the siblings and the network are revealing more about the show, which kicks off this Friday, July 28th.
Per TV Guide, if you’re a fan of “Black Mirror,” “The Twilight Zone,” and the like, “Room 104” should be up your alley. It tells 12, 30-minute standalone stories set in the same nondescript hotel room located in an undisclosed town during an unspecified time period.
The Guide is pretty forthcoming with praise for “Room 104,” calling the episodes “compelling, deeply engrossing, and in a few cases so haunting that they’ll linger in your psyche long after you’ve ‘checked out,'” adding that “while Room 104 isn’t technically straight-ahead horror, a few of the stories’ subject matter, pacing, and suspenseful direction may have you getting up to turn on another light or ensure your door really is locked.” Music to our ears!
https://youtu.be/OHvgGkXHLYA
They go on to describe two episodes: The first is #1.01, “Ralphie,” in which “a babysitter played by Melonie Diaz is left in charge of a boy who ever so gradually reveals himself to be troubled, to say the least, and by the end either a master manipulator, a demon spawn, both, or neither.” Then they mention #1.03, “The Knockadoo,” in which Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris plays “a woman looking for some spiritual guidance from what appears to be a charismatic cult leader played by Orlando Jones — that meeting once again carefully winding the viewer into a ball of nerves and anxiety as it unfolds.”
So, why did the Duplasses opt to go in such a “weird” direction? Exactly that weirdness… “It’s great for us to be able to get weird and have HBO give us money to be able to do it,” Mark Duplass said.
As for whether viewers need to watch the installments in order, it seems not to matter much since they don’t intersect. “We want ‘Room 104’ to be your casual dating experience,” Jay Duplass told the gathered reporters. “We’re the Tinder of TV.”
“Swipe right or swipe left; we don’t give a shit,” Mark added.
We’ll be swiping for sure come Friday – what about you?
About “Room 104”:
Set in a single room of an average American motel, “Room 104” tells a different story of the assorted characters who pass through it in each episode.
The show will feature performances by Hugo Armstrong, Davie-Blue, Melonie Diaz, Jay Duplass, Veronica Falcon, Adam Foster, Ellen Geer, Keir Gilchrist, Philip Baker Hall, Sarah Hay, Poorna Jagannathan, Orlando Jones, Ethan & Gavin Kent, Amy Landecker, Konstantin Lavysh, Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, Keta Meggett, Natalie Morgan, Ross Partridge, Karan Soni, Dendrie Taylor, Tony Todd, Will Tranfo, James Van Der Beek, Mae Whitman, and Nat Wolff.
Directors for the series include Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, Patrick Brice, Marta Cunningham, Doug Emmett, Megan Griffiths, Dayna Hanson, Chad Hartigan, Ross Partridge, Sarah Adina Smith, and So Yong Kim; and writers include Xan Aranda & Ross Partridge, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, Mark Duplass, Dayna Hanson, Carson Mell, and Ross Partridge.
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