Plot summary: Dan Turner is tasked with restoring videotapes made by a woman called Melody Pendras in the 90s. What he learns from them shocks him as he also discovers his connection to Melody.
Does anything good come out of looking into the past? One thing is for sure, the past cannot be ignored because sometimes the answers we are looking for to fix our present can be found after looking into our past memories.
We are all products of the past, at the end of the day, aren’t we?
ARCHIVE 81 Plot
Dan Turner works as an archivist and restores video and audiotapes. He’s just returned from rehab after suffering a breakdown following his split from his girlfriend.
He is friends with Mark who runs a podcast on horror stories. Dan often restores old horror movies for his friend to talk about on his podcast. Mark was also the one who financed Dan’s stint at the rehab centre.
One day Dan is called to Virgil Davenport’s office for a job offer. He wants Dan to restore some videotapes. He however doesn’t mention what is on the tapes and what his company does. He knows Dan has suffered mental issues and that puts Dan off because that wasn’t public knowledge and he wonders how Virgil would have learned about it. He declines the offer, especially after learning he would have to work in a remote location as the tapes cannot be moved.
Dan walks away but that evening he’s working on a video made by Melody Pendras who is talking to her friend Annabelle about working on the Visser building for her dissertation. She seems excited and her smile is infectious, making Dan also smile. It is when he notices a photo in the background of Melody with a dog that he pauses.
The dog and the dog Dan had as a kid look the same, along with the collar he had used his pocket money to buy. He thinks it’s a sign that he must accept Davenport’s offer who wanted him to work on Melody’s tapes. Mark is against the idea but Dan is insistent.
Dan reaches the facility and begins work on Melody’s tapes. Melody has an effervescent personality that draws Dan in. She enters the Visser Building and tries knocking on doors but no one seems willing to talk to her or open the door.
She sees a girl walking past for whom the neighbours open the door. Melody approaches her and the girl introduces herself as Jess. She also tells Melody she does odd jobs for the residents in the building which is why everyone knows her. Melody enlists Jess’ help to meet the residents and convince them to be interviewed by Melody for her paper.
Melody is actually looking for a woman named Julia Bennett who she claims is the idol she looks up to. Jess introduces her to the residents of the building starting with Tamara who writes operas. She is working on a tune that makes Melody sick.
Samuel’s name is mentioned and Melody decides to meet him next after she recovers from her sudden fainting spell.
Dan is still working on the tapes when he comes across a scene where Melody is looking for Jess all over the building. Even though the janitor had told her not to visit the sixth floor, in the beginning, that is exactly where Melody is searching for Jess. She then looks at the camera and asks for whoever is watching to find her.
Two guards appear and take Melody away, and right behind him is Dr Steven Turner who seems to know her. Dan is shocked to find his father in the video. Unknown to him, Dan is being watched by Virgil Davenport.
Dan’s curiosity is aroused and he tries to speak to Mark about it. At first, he can’t get a signal, but after walking in the woods for some time, he manages to get a signal. Dan is now more determined than ever to find out his father’s connection with Melody.
He climbs up a building and sees he’s being spied on by someone in a red hoodie. He gives chase but loses that person. He returns to the tapes and finds Jess introducing Melody to more residents, including Cassandra Wall who has a locked cabinet in her living room. She states her sister was the one who would find strange artefacts and study them but now she has taken over that work after her sister’s passing.
Melody enquires about Julia but Cassandra claims she doesn’t know even though she pauses as she hears the name.
Melody digs further into finding more about Julia and goes to check the post. She finds envelops bursting through a box for an apartment number no one supposedly lives in at the moment. Melody, suspecting it may belong to Julia, tries to pull an envelope only to be caught by another resident, Samuel.
They make a joke about stealing mail after which Samuel invites her to his friend’s opera, who is none other than Tamara. He tells her not many are willing to attend her experimental opera and so he is gathering people who might accept his invitation. Melody is charmed by Samuel and so she agrees.
At the opera, the same music plays which begins to make Melody sick. Samuel notices this and takes her away to a secluded spot and hands her a drink. They connect and Melody develops a crush on him. They are planning a date when Melody’s friend, Annabelle, shows up unannounced. She spoils Melody’s and Samuel’s plans to spend the night.
On the other side, Dan is told that his father may be responsible for burning down the family home. Dan is shocked and wonders how much he really knew about his father. Considering his father is no more, Dan has no way of finding the truth except tracking down Melody’s story.
Another video shows Melody stopping an exorcism by Father Russo. Apparently, whenever Jess sees something odd, she suffers a seizure. Samuel assists in taking Jess as well. Later, Melody wanders about the building and comes across some residents of the building performing a ritual using a statue. She also hears the same music being used to worship the idol, the one that makes Melody sick.
Afterwards, she sees Samuel and Tamara making out and leaves, disturbed considering she was falling for Samuel.
The next day, Melody is continuing her interviews along with Annabelle and meets with Cassandra who is taken by her. Basically, Cassandra sniffs everyone she meets and likes the way Annabelle smells. When she learns she’s an artist, she gives her some black paint to use for her artwork.
Cassandra doesn’t seem too fond of Melody and considers her nosy. Yet, she is invited to a dinner party where she can find out about Julia from the other neighbours.
Meanwhile, Dan realizes he’s able to see Melody and talk to her. He first sees her in the community room at the Visser and then in the woods. He thinks he’s seeing her ghost.
His friend Mark informs him that Melody may be still alive and he’s tracked her down. When he goes to meet her, she mentions how the tapes were all fake. Mark plays the eerie music for her and she doesn’t respond. His suspicions are confirmed. The woman is pretending to be Melody and has stolen her identity. He relays this information to Dan and then tells him that a person steals another’s identity only if the other person is dead.
At the dinner party. Cassandra introduces Melody to Beatriz who performs seances. She first does it for Evie Crest whose father made an infamous horror movie that has been lost, and one that Dan is also trying to find and work on. Beatriz makes contact with Evie’s father who claims he sought inspiration from a snuff film he saw at his brother’s bachelor party.
After the seance, Beatriz encourages Melody to try and look for her mother. Melody doesn’t think her mother is dead but she is convinced to try anyway. Of course, her mother isn’t there but Beatriz suddenly narrates the exact conversation that took place between her and Dan. Dan had been trying to convince Melody to move on as she’s dead but Melody screams at him that she isn’t dead.
Beatriz then sees something horrific and scratches her face enough to be sent to the hospital. Melody shamelessly follows her and keeps pestering her about what she saw.
Dan meets a woman in the red hood who tells him she’s the caretaker. She opens up the chapel for him and helps him get other things. Mark comes to see Dan after Davenport lands at his workplace and insinuates that Dan is having a manic episode. Mark too believes his friend may be regressing considering he talks about seeing Melody.
Dan turns his friend away and tells him to leave him alone as he becomes obsessed with the tapes.
In the 90s, Melody goes to Steven Turner’s house and tells him that his son has been contacting her from the future. Steven doesn’t believe her and Melody sees younger Dan who smiles at her.
She later heads out to the sixth floor to look for Annabelle and finds a locked room where people who take drugs are standing in a circle and humming the same eerie tune. The janitor takes her away.
She finally finds Annabelle who tells her Cassandra has been helping her and that she has an art show in the evening. Annabelle refuses to show her the paintings.
Jess too becomes a little antagonistic towards Melody as Cassandra tries to turn everyone against Melody and her intrusive ways.
One of the drug abusers comes to see Melody and asks for help as Annabelle had told him she could. He will tell her about Julia if she manages to get a reference letter from Father Russo that will help him get into rehab. Melody agrees.
When she visits the Father, she finds out he died the night before after someone pushed him in front of a train. She suspects Samuel after she breaks into the Father’s office and sees different identification papers for Samuel. She also finds a book that has information about the cult called the Baldung Coven and the statue Melody had seen called Kaelego.
She later goes to Annabelle’s show and sees the paintings that have a woman in the centre of each. Melody senses something evil about them and when she talks to Annabelle after a customer tries to buy a painting and she gets offended, Annabelle pushes Melody and tells her to stop interfering in her life.
Melody touches the painting and realizes it is made out of mould. She suspects Cassandra has literally poisoned Annabelle with the sparkly mould. She leaves and meets Samuel and accuses him of getting rid of Father Russo. Suddenly, a man falls right in front of them. It is the same junkie who Melody had met. She is shocked and faints.
Dan, who is watching the footage, discovers something astounding. He sees Virgil Davenport walk over to Samuel, and exchanging looks. Clearly, he knows Samuel. Dan wonders if Davenport knew what was in the tapes all along.
He confronts Davenport who reveals Samuel was his brother and that he suspects Melody killed him and set the fire to Dan’s childhood home. He insists he was trying to find proof of what happened to his brother.
Dan later finds Melody in another room which leads him to notebooks written by the archivist before him, Thomas. Dan finds out the code to enter the room where there are more tapes Thomas digitized. He sends this information to Mark who researches him and finds from his girlfriend that Thomas was killed in a car accident shortly after he left the facility and finished his work with Davenport.
Mark grows concerned for his friend’s safety.
Dan gets fed up with being watched all the time. He had already mapped out all the cameras aimed at him and breaks them all. After he finds Thomas’ tapes, he watches them and sees that he was seeing a face in the video. Dan too sees the face that appears to belong to Kaelego. He goes on a rampage and pushes away shelves and tries to break the tapes especially after he notices black mould on the tape and player. He finds a secret entrance under a bookshelf and it leads to the room where the ritual to summon Kaelego takes place. He is suddenly knocked out.
In the 90s, Melody realizes Annabelle attacked people at the art show and has been admitted to the psych ward. She knows Cassandra is behind all this. She tries to find Jess which isn’t easy considering Jess’ mother has turned hostile. She goes to the sixth floor and the scene shown in the previous episodes takes place. She is taken away by the guards thanks to Dr Turner.
Turns out Dr Turner was trying to save her from the cult. He tells her this was the only way to keep her safe because she is being targeted by Samuel who suspects Melody may be the Baldung Witch that is tasked with stopping rituals that can summon Kaelego.
A flashback reveals that in the 1920s, as a comet is about to pass by, the Vos family is hosting a party to celebrate it. Iris Vos is the one is host and she hires a young maid, Rose to help her out as she is pregnant. Shortly after, Iris miscarries and grows even closer to Rose.
Her brothers Jonah and Lukas are initially on it too. At the party, a Baldung witch tries to steal the book from which Iris was going to perform the ritual. Jonah shoots her and Iris is angry because she intended to use her for the ritual. Lukas backs out because he doesn’t think summoning Kaelego is a good idea. But Iris wants to because she thinks he can help her have a baby of her own.
The ritual goes on and Iris asks Rose if she is ready to hold the whole world inside her, a dialogue that Jess was told too. Rose is mesmerised and in awe of Iris and so agrees to partake. However, her throat is slit and her blood is used to bathe the statue. Wavy lights descend upon everyone and the next instant Iris disappears.
It is theorized that Iris has been taken to the Otherworld and is waiting to come out. This is what Annabelle has been painting.
Melody reunites with Annabelle and tells her to destroy the paintings as Iris is evil. Annabelle listens to her friend and does exactly that.
Present-day, Dan awakens to find himself at his home. He is told his work is over and he did well and now must take the money and disappear. Dan and Mark track down Annabelle who is at a home. She asks Dan what took him so long. She then hands over some tapes that Jess made with her camera.
Dan realizes the cassettes that look like audio tapes were actually used to record video with an older model of the camera. He gets one and plays the tapes.
Turns out, Melody had escaped the ward and helped Jess escape after convincing her she was just a sacrificial lamb. Melody stays back to get caught and be taken by Samuel to the hall where the ritual is ready to be performed. The eerie music plays and Melody starts feeling sick. Samuel says he knows she would feel sick as she was the “right one”.
Yes, Melody is a Baldung witch and she is going to be used for the ritual. Since Jess escaped, Tamara volunteers and her throat is slit. Blood is poured over Kaelego. Jess arrives just in time to record it all.
The wavy blue lights appear once more and Melody and Samuel step in. They are transported to the Otherworld. Annabelle has been drawing her friend, telling Dan that she’s been waiting for him to come to rescue her.
ARCHIVE 81 Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Dan goes to Davenport and tells him of what he learned. Davenport is happy his brother is stuck in another world without escape. He declines to help Dan perform the ritual and get Melody back.
Dan decides to do the ritual himself. He enters the ritual hall and finds the woman in the red hoodie with white hair. She reveals herself to be Julia, Melody’s real mother. She assumed that after giving up Melody, she would be saved from her purpose. But Melody was still lured into the whole cult thing.
She agrees to help Dan to help bring her daughter back. The ritual is performed and Dan enters the portal that sends him to where Melody is. There, they are pursued by Kaelego who had lied to Melody about her mother being in the church just to keep her in his world as he is very lonely.
Dan takes her away but at the last minute, just before it is about to close, Samuel pops out of nowhere and drags Melody with him. Melody finds herself on the floor in the present time.
Her mother is happy to see her. Mark wants to know where Dan is. Samuel is nowhere to be seen.
Dan wakes up in the hospital and learns to his shock, that he’s the one stuck in 1994 based on the news reports.
Archive 81 is definitely a binge-worthy show. The suspense and the plot twists keep coming along making you want to watch just one more episode. Before you know it, you will have watched all eight episodes in one go.
The cliffhanger at the end is left for a Season 2. Should there be another season?
Honestly, the show is perfect as it is. Another season would force a story where there is none. Yes, I would like Dan to have his happy ending, but maybe he’s better in an era where his family is still alive. He can begin life anew, away from the problems that made him suffer.
Melody has found her mother at last. Another season would just drag Melody’s story when she has finally found her happy ending.
Nevertheless, if the makers go ahead with another decision, I will definitely be watching with keen interest.
Scare Scale: 4.5/5
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