Movie review: 'I Saw the TV Glow'

Two and a Half out of Five Stars

By Abby Cowels
Associate Editor

“I Saw the TV Glow” is a 2024 psychological horror/drama written and directed by Jane Schoenbun. It can be viewed on Hulu and Apple TV, among other platforms.

The film features Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine as two high school outcasts that form a bond over a Buffy-esque teen TV drama called “The Pink Opaque.”

Owen meets Maddy in a gymnasium while she is reading an episode guide to “The Pink Opaque.” She invites him to her house to watch the show on Saturdays after he reveals he is restricted from watching because of his strict father.

Later in their lives, Owen and Maddy begin to question the memories of those Saturday nights and the entire reality in which they are living.

This film will hit too close to home for those who remember spending a great deal of their childhood in front of the TV, or anyone who has been rejected for just wanting to be themselves.

In the last decade I have seen a rise of this type of body horror; not the horror of what is happening to the body, but the horror of the body.

“I Saw the TV Glow” did this well by blurring the lines of everyday complacency, with the fantasy of what could be. Not a spoiler, but the film is heavy with queer/trans allegory. So, it may be triggering to some.

I wanted to have better opinions of this film, but the motif almost seemed a little too obvious, and it often took me out of the film. There was also some interesting narration in the beginning, but seemed to suddenly end, making me question why it was there in the first place.

I felt like I watched two separate films; one was drama, the other horror, but they never quite came together in the way I believe movie makers were trying for. It was a decent story that got its point across, but lacked the existential and introspective horror I was craving.