The Horror in Ourselves: What I Saw The TV Glow Tells Us

By Serena Wang

Now, I am in no way qualified to judge a horror movie. I've never been able to stomach blood and gore and horror-typical jumpscares. I could probably even count the number of horror movies I've watched on one hand. But I have never found blood scary, to say the least. It’s not inherently alarming to see wounds and death and such. The thing that has always scared me the most is the idea of the body, broken and misshapen and unrecognisable. The screaming that sounds wrong, and the things that aren't right.

The idea of body horror hasn’t been new. One of the first directors in its genre and credited to be the origin of body horror films, David Cronenberg directed films such as Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), distorting the idea of being human through mutation, aberration and disease. Body horror itself is considered to have themes of psychological horror, exploring the mental and emotional state of characters and distort reality. I consider body horror so intriguing (yet terrifying) because it asks a specific question of its viewers. What do we consider human? When do you know something is wrong? And what if it’s you?

If you have yet to watch ‘I Saw The TV Glow’ (2024), I suggest you stop reading here. I think this film is best enjoyed with no context on what you will see, or any focus on its analysis and plot. Though, if you wanted just a little more before going in, it’s considered a psychological horror film with themes of body horror and identity, set around the 2000s. It’s not long, but it does ask for your patience, and will definitely leave you hanging onto every second. Now would be the time to give it a watch, but if not, let me put my thoughts on it in a (mostly) spoiler-free way.

This movie hit me in every crevice of my heart. It is honest and sincere amongst the shouting, and it is harsh and loud in the silence. I expected to go into it analysing, holding onto plot points and theorising, however the movie is wholeheartedly upfront. It was intended to be interpreted, as Jane Schoenbrun puts it, “The plots of my films are pretty exhaustively planned, but there are a lot of parts that I purposefully don’t overthink,” describing putting too much focus into the plot as turning it into something to be solved. It is somehow a poem, a distant memory and a fantasy all in one.

‘I Saw The TV Glow’ specifically explores its psychological horror aspect with metaphorical death and the uncanny feeling we get. The suspicion that, for your whole life, there has been nothing under your skin, this film masterfully puts into words. Though it is tense and, at times horrifying, it expresses horror in the form of mental and emotional distress. It explores the idea of an alternate self or someone you were supposed to be, and the feeling of not belonging.

The main character whose perspective we follow, Owen, has known this his whole life. Throughout his whole childhood, he sees this show on the television and has always wanted to watch it. The only critique his father gives is that it’s a girl’s TV show. He watches it with the help of the deuteragonist, Maddy, and it is the only place where he feels like he belongs. When Maddy disappears, not only does the movie skip by the years incredibly rapidly, Owen feels it too. And when Maddy comes back, they are completely different. 

The scene that follows their return is one of my favourite of all time. I was terrified, with tension built up like I was going to be jumpscared, but it never happened. It was the kind of horror you freeze up, scared yet glued to the screen. It was nine whole minutes of almost-still frames, where they monologue about burying themselves alive with about as much emotion as a corpse. Where there was an opportunity to give the comfort of music, there was none. You are forced to listen. The complete terror and absurdly simple horror of nothing but you and the silence and the words hanging off their tongue always amazes me. It’s a visceral and graphic monologue on its own, bloody and painful. But it was showing something inhuman, something different. Maddy is unshaken by the words coming out of their mouth, speaking about it as a means to rebirth. They ask Owen to accept the gaping hole in his chest and go back to where they clawed themselves back out of the dirt.

It is hard to accept being different. To come to terms with the horrors no one else needs to taste. Owen doesn’t accept not belonging, and goes back to a familiar life. He goes back to his town, where not even his co-workers respect him, closing shifts and incredible loneliness. He chooses to pretend instead. The years fly by even faster and life remains stagnant. One of the last scenes of the movie has Owen breakdown and cut his chest open, only to find static underneath. It’s not disclosed what he thinks of this by the end of the movie. He is only shown to go back to his shift, and in another shot, we see that the hole Maddy had once dug out for Owen is still here.

There is so much more to the actual plot and progression of this movie that I wish I could get into, but what I truly love most about this film lies with the way it tackles identity. The film emphasises the difference between its two main characters, being that one chose the life he is too scared to leave, and the other chose the life they knew was meant to be theirs. You could let yourself sink back to the things you know, living life just as ‘okay’, or fight tooth and nail at the dirt to set yourself free. To live with never belonging or to be offered belonging. Every moment, I was asking myself, “If who I truly was meant to be was behind that TV screen, would I go in? Am I too scared to be the person on the other side?” When given the chance to change, would I take it?

Somehow, by using body horror to describe the disturbing feeling of being different, ‘I Saw The TV Glow’ perfectly expresses the regret that comes with missing your chance. Owen continued to live with what he was told, wondering if anything Maddy said was true. But the second, more important point it brings out: ‘There is still time.’ There is still time for Owen to literally bury himself in the hole Maddy dug for him so long ago, but more metaphorically, there is still time to change where you are. That who you really are can be scary and downright horrifying, but you can always choose. No matter how long it takes and however many times we choose not to, there is still time.