Previewing Into the Dark: Pure

Well here we are at the end of the Into the Dark season. What started as an interesting concept of a monthly anthology with a holiday themed episode to go with that month. It had its ups and downs but never seemed to go past the initial belief that I had that these episodes were just concepts summited to Blumhouse Productions that the studio did not think were good enough to get people to theaters. But even without the restrictions of a movie ratings system, all but one of these episodes strived way too hard to be PG-13.

The last installment of the season could have really benefited from less restrictions that a streaming service provides but still remained pretty toned down. But it is a shocking end to Into the Dark. Nope the September episode is not a Labor Day themed episode, nope, it is inspired by a holiday I did not even realized existed: Daughter’s Day. And Pure is exactly the episode you are thinking for such a “holiday.”

Pure is about a Purity Retreat. Shay is a first time attendee on account she just met her father after the death of her mother and it not going to the retreat with her father and half-sister. And no, these religious zealots do not seem that concerned that this dude has to daughters about the same age from two different mothers. It is more about making sure their daughters do not have sex as te boys in the family just seem like a lost cause. Yeah, dudes who whine a lot about #MeToo will want to skip this one.

Naturally most of the girls, some that have been coming to this for ten years, are not much of a fan of the patriarchy and find the ritual as weird as a normal person would (there is a true believer or two). Scott Porter (Jason Street!) show up as the pastor who always just so happens to have a pistol on his sidearm (Chekov: check). As they always do, the girls try to raise Lilith, Adam’s hornier first wife who did not want to be subservient to Adam. Not surprisingly Shay is the key and things start getting weird from there.

But not weird enough and this is another episode of Into the Dark that suffers from the slow burn so by the time blood starts getting spilled you are ready for the episode to be over. And again the episode would have benefited from a little more blood and given the theme, a little R-Rated when the purity pledge gets violated. Watching a girl cry because a boy kissed making her un-pure is not as emotional as if they went a little further. Into the Dark does not go out on a complete dud, but I guess it goes out as a fitting end as it leaves the audience they went a little further into actual horror.

Into the Dark Power Ranking
1. The Body (October)
2. Culture Shock (July)
3. All That We Destroy (May)
4. Down (February)
5. New Year, New You (January)
6. Pure (September)
7. School Spirit (August)
8. Pooka! (December)
9. I’m Just Forking with You (April)
10. They Come Knocking (June)
11. Treehouse (March)
12. Flesh and Bone (November)

Into the Dark: Pure premieres today on Hulu.