School Spirits (2023) - My So-Called Death - Personal Thoughts
Maddie, a teen stuck in the afterlife investigating her own disappearance, goes on a crime-solving journey as she adjusts to high school purgatory.Source
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21057450
Yesterday I saw the first Episode of School Spirits, right from the cover and the name of the series you can tell is a high school drama, they guy on the left probably the best friend and the right the boy friend or the one she likes, not entire true but that's was my firs impression so I decided to pull IMDB link and it has a 7.3/10 score so I decided to give it a try.
This is a story about a girl name Madison Nears who is dead, its the classic spirit move forward to the next life after dead but first she needs to accept she is dead, this scenario is usually presented when someone die and was not ready yet so their spirit needs to understand why is dead and accept it, until then they are usually trap in the limbo between both worlds. It is the case of Madison who die but nobody knows where is her body, I guess at the end will be sad since she is dead, in the meantime Madison is trap inside her school and there are other spirits who will help her and guide her on how to move forward.
Main Cast:
Peyton List - Maddie Nears
Kristian Flores - Simon Elroy
Milo Manheim - Wally Clark
Spencer Macpherson - Xavier Baxter
Kiara Pichardo - Nicole Herrera
Sarah Yarkin - Rhonda
Nick Pugliese - Charley
The first three episodes were release together and after that an episode will be release each week. This is not a tv show for all ages or at least I think is not because there are always old spirits depending on age, my high school days were one of my best days in my life, despite that I know nothing about those who were in high school with me I still enjoy a lot and can related to a teenager series like this, I'm probably a for ever young spirit or maybe its just that I appreciate a good more than average suspense series.
The story starts with Madison sitting at her school gym, she opens her eyes without knowing whats going on, she has no idea why she is there as most of her classmates are there, the director starts to talk about a missing person while the rest of the students discuss where she is or what happen to her, her blood was found in the janitors room but they havent found her body.
I find this scene a bit disturbing as the director puts Madison picture on the projector and then send the cheer leaders squad to perform an act, who are they going to cheer up?? WTF
Appears our second main character Charley, another teenager who is dead too and trap at the school, he has been trap for a long long time since the 90s and Madison still don't know any of the rules for when you are dead and trap between both worlds, she see her friends on the hall and try to talk to them but nothing works.
Charley introduce her to a group of dead people, those who are trap as her but the difference is that most of them know what happen to them and Madison doesn't, that freaks her out and start to figure out things by herself without knowing all the rules of been dead.
On thing I like about the production is how the format and zoom changes when having those talking head scenes, goes from wide to square with a zoom on the actors upper body part, in my opinion that increase the impact of the actor's expressions.
Here an example of that change of format, this is Xavier, Madison's boyfriend, who is into her but also cheating on her, for some reason I think he knows where Madison is, it also gets me thinking its creepy how teenagers could be involve in a classmate murder, during my times in high school I never experience something like that or even occur to me that one of my classmates could go missing or dead.
On the image above is Simon, Madison best friend who was having a fight with Xavier as he thinks he knows something or what happen to Madison, he pulls his back pack and Madison phone comes out flying, supposedly Xavier stole it from her the day she went missing to delete a text he accidentally send to her, a text that was for the cheerleader he was sheeting with.
For the most part of the episode Madison goes wild after she finds out of all the things that were happing at her back, again without known the details and rules of what means been dead and trap at the school.
- You cant leave the school
- You can see and touch others but they cant see you, hear or feel you
- Its hard to remember things
- When try to leave school she return to the scene were she die
During the episode they said that blood was found only but they don't confirm she die on that room, although is she is trap at the school then she die on that room. It had to be a violent murder since her blood was spread across some water pipes.
Toward the end of the episode there was a Vigil and Simon return to the classroom to sit at Madison chair, he really miss her and told Mrs. Fields, their teacher, that she wouldn't go missing without telling him, he knows she is dead, that something bad happen to her, Mrs. Fields leave Simon at the room so he can be alone.
They both, Simon and Madison stand at the window looking at the other students outside with candles waiting for Madison in the dark, Madison looks at Simon and said "Thank you Simon" after she heard everything he said to Mrs. Field and is the only one who is truly sad and grief her.
Its at that point that he looks at her and ask "Maddie?", he didn't listen to her probably he just felt her presence, I can say this from the poster of the show, where Madison is sitting with a bunch of candles and Simon talking to someone probably to her, he is holding a cell phone headset, would be cool if he could talk to her only through her cell phone of something like that, I'm intrigue to what's going to happen next.
This is not a show for everyone, most adults wont get it and will think its boring or childish, I like the story, the only thing that might be boring is the fact that she cant leave the school, but that has it benefits since the director has less scenarios to work with, makes it easy in a way, also characters are limited to the school, this is also why I think this might be a two season series. As teenagers I find that all actors were ok, also love the change of view from wide to square, makes it different and focus more on the actor facial expressions.
I would still give School Spirits a 7/10, good enough to watch any weekday to kill some time.
There are other secondary characters I didnt mention on the review since I wanted to focus on explaining the main story, there will be other small stories of the ones that are dead in the same group as Madison trying to move forward their next life.
