Fede Álvarez subverts expectations and form with his unnerving apocalyptic audio drama TV series that mixes psychedelia with the supernatural.
“We’re getting a lot of strange calls. The kind that makes no sense.”
Fede Álvarez has been a genre force to be reckoned with ever since his short film about a robot rampage in Montevideo, Panic Attack!, got him the gig for 2013’s Evil Dead. Álvarez is constantly pushing boundaries as a filmmaker and horror storyteller and he’s become someone who the film industry trusts to breathe new life into beloved classics, whether it’s Evil Dead, Alien, or even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus has already become one of 2024’s most talked about movies – horror or otherwise. However, one of Álvarez’s most impressive genre accomplishments is Calls, an experimental streaming horror series from 2021 that reinvents the audio drama with ambition and ingenuity. Anyone who has enjoyed Álvarez’s filmography needs to check out his minimalist deconstruction of an uncanny apocalypse that’s as beautiful as it is bewildering.
There is no shortage of horror series that explore an in-progress apocalypse, but what’s so distinct about Calls is that it’s a series that’s told entirely through short phone calls; like some macabre, avant-garde audio drama or horror podcast. Calls takes advantage of its limited trappings and strips down the standard storytelling tools so all that’s left are the surreal, synesthesia qualities of the phone calls’ audio waveforms. Episodes range between 13 and 20 minutes and the whole series clocks in at two-and-a-half hours. It’s a feature film that’s condensed down to 15-minute snapshots of doom.
Calls could be binged through as one long, intense apocalyptic audio drama by those who get hypnotized by its horror. Calls fearlessly explores the bold audacity of a TV show that technically has no actors on screen – or even conventional visuals – in order to remind the audience that there’s nothing that’s more powerful and terrifying than the limitless nature of the imagination. Calls makes the viewer become a voyeuristic fly on the wall during the end of the world, which is such a special experience.
Without any actors on the screen, Calls instead tries to lose its audience in shapeshifting visualizations as the characters’ palpable fear and anxiety scatter and fill the frame. It’s like a haunted Winamp or a screensaver from hell. These stories are full of frightening aberrations, but rather than depict these creatures or their atrocities, the audience is left to get lost in their emotions, which metastasize and become horrors of their own. Calls also takes advantage of its lack of visuals to create unreliable narrators and cast doubt on the viewer – just like the recipient of the phone call – over whether these things are actually happening. This would be impossible if these stories were being shot like conventional horror films. Calls cultivates a presentation style that specifically plays with perception and finds new ways to disturb and get under the audience’s skin, which has become increasingly rare in the genre. It’s a rather brilliant device in a horror series that’s ultimately about trust, empathy, and connection.
Calls is deeply in dialogue with the rest of Álvarez’s filmography, but this isn’t the case where a filmmaker attaches themselves to a series as executive producer, but uses it to help shepherd in other talent. Álvarez directs all nine episodes of Calls and either writes or co-writes every installment (including one episode that’s co-scripted by Álvarez’s primary writing partner and fellow Alien: Romulus co-scribe, Rodo Sayagues). His DNA courses through every episode and this is very much Álvarez’s version of the end of times. Fede Álvarez is credited as Calls’ creator, and his personal stamp is all over the series. However, it’s actually an adaptation of a French series of the same name by Timothée Hochet. Álvarez completely nails the assignment and makes Calls his own, but it’s unfortunate that the original French version of Calls isn’t also available on Apple TV+ as a companion piece that reflects more of this inventive concept.
Calls premiered a year into the COVID-19 pandemic during a time when it was very easy for content to get lost in the abyss. Calls actually feels like the perfect type of series to be born out of the pandemic due to the fact that it’s made entirely out of phone calls where the performers don’t have to be present together in the same room. Calls was in production before the pandemic or any lockdown was in effect, but these global restrictions only further strengthened the series’ verisimilitude and poignancy. The talented cast in Calls – which is absolutely stacked and includes Pedro Pascal, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Lang, Karen Gillan, Jennifer Tilly, Nick Jonas and more – weren’t allowed to work through the episodes together on stage and rehearse in person. These actors were physically unable to be together, which perfectly reflects Calls’ isolating, apocalyptic nature. This unconventional production model makes the series feel more real in the sense that all these actors were genuinely talking to each other, on the phone, in different parts of the world. They’re literally struggling to make connections as their communication breaks up and crumbles. This extra element of hyperreality is felt in each episode.
Calls succeeds through experimentation and being in a class of its own. Álvarez has cited Twilight Zone and trippy time travel tales like Primer and 12 Monkeys as inspiration. There are definitely shades of those projects here, as well as a healthy dose of cosmic horror. It feels like phone calls that would turn up in The X-Files or Fringe or if a podcast was being recorded from out of Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge. Calls, in essence, is a science fiction and horror series. That being said, each episode tells a deeply human story. These episodes function as emotionally driven character studies first and gonzo sci-fi horror stories second, just like the very best Twilight Zone episodes. The terror is just set dressing for human catharsis.
Calls engages in disturbing ideas and heartbreaking stories that make sure that there’s a real sense of horror that permeates through the series. This sense of unease is powerfully amplified through surreal sound waves that are almost hypnotic in nature. Kaleidoscopic visuals collapse into themselves as words bombard the viewer and shrink away. It all feeds into Calls’ central themes and how the universe’s grim abstractions and reality fissures consume, overwhelm, and control the characters. Calls is set in the present, but these visuals feel intentionally lost in time and reminiscent of a retro Macintosh computer. These lo-fi aesthetics are still deeply troubling and contribute to the series’ mounting tension. The episodes’ graphics begin in a very simplistic place. The first episode starts with a single grey line that bisects a black-and-white wasteland and aurally connects its central players, Sara (Lily Collins) and Tim (Nicholas Braun). Each episode gradually layers on more elements that transform and evolve over the course of the series and culminate in a deafening display. There’s a unique flavor and pattern to each episode that’s emblematic of their respective story. It helps each episode surprise the audience through its unpredictable designs.
Calls is full of doppelgängers, death, monsters, and the untethering of the universe. However, this series boils down to a healing relationship between a father and daughter. This could come across as glib in the wrong context, but in Calls it’s an essential reminder that family, love, and connection are the glue that holds everything in existence together. It turns into a meditation on the act of communication itself and how we can feel so detached from one another, even when we’re making contact with someone and can hear them on the other line. Sometimes this isn’t enough and the weight of the cosmos intervenes.
This feeling can be crushing, but Calls reinforces that personal connection is all that we have in life and the only real salve for the universe’s existential and inexplicable whims. It may not necessarily solve the problem, but it at least helps us feel whole and grounded – even when gravity itself gives way – by being the only universal constant that exists and how it’s reassuring to find comfort in this realization. Calls is about learning how to accept reality, even when it’s haunted and broken. It’s a beautiful, character-driven series that pushes Álvarez to abandon many of his typical blood-drenched tools for a narrative that’s viscerally human.
Calls is an interconnected anthology series and its chaotic structure means that these episodes can be watched in any order. Each Calls episode largely works on its own, but they still contribute to this greater whole and compose a more complete story when they’re all put together and these tiny Easter Eggs hatch along the way. Calls succeeds as episodic storytelling, but the way in which the two-part finale ties everything together is nothing short of incredible. It’s the sort of great ending that makes the viewer want to immediately start the series over and re-experience these stories through a new context. The final episode culminates in a cacophony of supernatural trauma that’s genuinely overwhelming, yet the series manages to go out on an uplifting note that’s truly touching. It makes me cry every time I watch it.
Calls didn’t get its due upon its initial release, but Alien: Romulus’ arrival makes it the perfect time to experience Fede Álvarez’s apocalyptic auditory assault to see what he’s truly capable of a storyteller and horror innovator.
‘Calls’ is available to stream on Apple TV+
