Some Scary Horror Stuff for You!

Hailing from Dark creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, 1899 is a suitably creepy and mysterious period thriller about a missing (possibly haunted) ship. The eight-episode Netflix series is a combination of the first season of The Terror and Ghost Ship with a splash of Downton Abbey.

The series opens with a nightmare as Maura Franklin (Emily Beechum), an English doctor, awakens from a dream where she’s threatened by a mysterious man shrouded in shadows. Immediately upon exiting her room it’s clear that she’s already onboard a ship, crossing the ocean to New York like her brother Henry. He and more than a thousand other people have been missing for four months since something happened to the Prometheus, a sister ship to the one Maura is on. Her only hint of what happened is a letter addressed to Henry asking him to come to New York as quickly as possible.

There’s a strange symbol embossed in the wax sealing the letter: an inverted triangle with a line crossing through the bottom part (almost like the reverse of how icebergs in the water are often drawn). This symbol appears regularly throughout the series: on the floor underneath a bed, on the necklace of one character, and as a tattoo on the neck of another. It’s a striking recurring visual, though early in the series its purpose or meaning is unclear.

Fans of Dark will likely find the secrets and mysteries of 1899 a little conventional. Friese and bo Odar’s previous Netflix series was an incredibly convoluted and challenging time-travel serial killer story. 1899 still features plenty of unanswered questions, but, compared to Dark, its approach to narrative should be much easier for casual audiences to follow.

There’s still plenty of atmosphere, however, and the production design is top notch. With the exception of some dodgy FX work when characters stand on the deck, the period costuming is immaculate and the art department has outdone themselves with the expensive, textured look of the ship’s interior. There’s even a clear palette change in the rich vibrant wood of the upper-class levels versus the somber greys of the lower decks where the poor families are crammed in like sardines.

1899 review netflix

The distinction between the classes is thrown into even starker relief in scenes with Olek (Maciej Musial), a frequently shirtless member of the engine crew whose job is to feed the giant engines coal. His story intersects with Jérome (Yann Gael), a Black stowaway posing as a member of the crew whom Olek discovers and befriends just as the central mystery comes to the fore: the coordinates of the missing ship begin transmitting from an unexpected location.

What happened aboard the Prometheus is the show’s driving question, but like all good mysteries, the answer is far from simple. Complicating matters further is that nearly everyone aboard Maura’s ship has a reason to escape Europe and the interlocking backstories of what characters are running away from are nearly as compelling as the ghost ship. Throw in a mute boy hidden in a cupboard (Fflyn Edwards) and a wet stranger (Aneurin Barnard) who sneaks aboard when no one is looking and it’s clear that strange things are very clearly afoot.

Intriguingly, the diversity of stories aboard the ship means that 1899 prominently features multiple languages. The two ships were once owned by a German company, then sold to the British with half of the German employees kept on. This means that the two main characters are a female British doctor and German captain Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann). There’s also a woman posing as a Japanese noblewoman (Isabella Wei) who secretly practices the language in her room with her domineering handler.

One minor element that detracts from the enjoyment of the series is how the score is occasionally used. In one scene a predatory closeted gay man (Miguel Bernardeau) locates his object of affection – a lower-class man (The Rain’s Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) – in a bathroom to force a cigarette case into his pocket. The score that accompanies this scene wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film; while Bernardeau’s character is clearly acting shady, the use of score makes it seem on par with Michael Myers stalking Laurie Strode.

The same musical tactic is used when Jérome sneaks into the cabin of French newlywed Clémence (Mathilde Ollivier) to leave an object on her husband’s desk. Considering Jérome is one of only a pair of non-white characters in the series, it is uncomfortable and unusual that the 1899 creative team uses the score to suggest that marginalized POC and queer characters are threatening or terrifying figures.

Small demerits aside, 1899 is a polished, compelling period mystery. There’s plenty of intrigue wrapped up in the events of the disappearing ship, as well as the diverse cast of characters whose futures become intertwined in its reappearance. There’s nothing else quite like 1899 on TV right now.