Scavengers Reign

Edited on 2023-12-01 to add the link to the original animated short.

Content notes

• The show includes body horror and plenty of gore. Those topics are discussed here, without details or graphic descriptions.
• Animals - human and not - die in the show. This is discussed here, again without details or graphic descriptions.
• The first part avoids spoilers, the second will have some light ones notably to discuss the ending somewhat. Watch the headings.
• This is a collection of loose thoughts, not a proper dissertation.

Generalities

Scavengers Reign is a 12-episodes 2023 2D animated series currently airing on HBO Max (meaning it's a pain to access in much of the world). It could be roughly sorted as sci-fi horror, though that would not do it justice. It's also a love letter to nature, keenly aware of said nature's dangers, incredibly beautiful and grueling all at once. It is a deeply human tale, which is a large part of why it brushes close to the horror genre for me. The vibes, as one says, are impeccable - and extremely weird.

The plot is simple enough. A large spaceship ran into a problem. A few escape pods got away. The people inside are now on a strange alien planet, separated, trying to survive and get out. In some ways, it stays that simple. In others, it gets a lot more complex, because neither nature nor people are ever simple. Many of the building blocks were already present in a 2016 animated short: it is titled Scavengers and viewable on Vimeo. The short feels like an early draft in a really interesting way and is in my opinion best viewed after watching the entire series.

I can't embed videos here without Google spilling cookies everywhere, so instead have a good old fashioned link to the official trailer should you want to watch it and get a sense of the vibes: while it is packed with spoilers, they are as always out of context. And here is the needlessly difficult to find info page for the show, should you want information and pictures from the most first-hand of sources. If you plan to watch the show anyway, give this all a pass, and probably stop reading here.

Nature is beautiful and it will fucking kill you

Scavengers Reign reminds me of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It has that same naturalistic touch, that same fascination with ecosystems and how tightly coupled various organisms are, how thin the line between the animal and vegetal truly gets. It understands that when humans tread where they do not belong, things may end poorly for them (us). Life is cheap, death comes fast - none of it is evil, it is simply how nature works. What kind of relationship should you build with it?

Scavengers Reign reminds me of Risk of Rain. It has a similarly unique, toned-down color palette that is still incredibly bright. It has impeccable audio design. Crashed onto a planet, escape as your one goal, hostility ramping up as time goes on. That world will gouge and bleed and maim you if you let it - so don't. And maybe there is more to your crashlanding tale than you expected.

Scavengers Reign reminds me of Returnal, though it is literal where Returnal is metaphorical. As you traverse a world, can you truly make it through unchanged? What marks will you leave on it? What marks will it leave on you, in you? Even as you fight your way out of this ecosystem, don't you become part of it? Were you ever not a part of it? It shares a visceral, gut-churning approach to its body horror and reminders that we are made of meat, though Returnal leans Giger where Scavengers Reign doesn't. Might have some Moebius in it (my dad did mention it hit serious early Métal Hurlant notes), but I'm the wrong kind of nerd to ask.

Every frame in Scavengers Reign is gorgeous. Every creature, every bit of wildlife, every rock is beautifully drawn, everything fitting together whether it moves or not. The characters are stylized just so, with subtle facial expressions and voice delivery that perfectly hit that spot where sci-fi horror audio logs typically live. Professionals at work, in conditions they were definitely not paid enough for.

The editing is razor-sharp. Each episode is a series of scenes, as we follow various survivors through their struggles, always with a cut to black that is timed just off enough to keep you on your toes. This hardly makes for contemplative pacing - and yet, there is something of that. The show gets chattier as it advances but it is almost silent at first, beautifully efficient and restrained in its exposition.

The gore is not self-indulgent. It is plentiful yet matter-of-fact. Nature is beautiful. Nature also has teeth and claws, tendrils and spines, seeds and spores, things that crawl and grow. It lays eggs. It eats those eggs before they mature. It puts something else in those eggs, changes them. Nature wants to live and feed and reproduce, and sometimes the best path to that is death for something else, or change that may as well be death. Sometimes that something else is what we understand as a person.

And now for spoilers

This section will discuss specific characters and their arcs, a major plot twist that occurs halfway into the show's run, and the ending. I will keep things vague but if you want to go in unspoiled, close this tab.

First off: I am not the right person to discuss this in detail, but I do not think it is an accident that the two major problem-causers are coded white while our core final crew is primarily women of color (or at least characters coded as such, despite the script being very light on gendering by way of being mostly dialog).

From Ursula's whole deal, to Azi's character arc notably with Levi, to the oh-so-clever rather than predictable ending, it is clear to me that the show's message is about harmony, about integrating with the ecosystem, working with its grain rather than against it. Ursula's professional curiosity - her notebook makes it clear she is a natural science expert - and Azi's acceptance are what save the day, even as that manifests through a rather literal deus ex machina. Azi starts out resisting the world, growing crops rather than foraging, looking at Levi as contaminated rather than... changed. Eventually, that outlook evolves, and survival becomes easier. The stampede scene is as blatant as it gets.

Tragic as Sam's fate gets, I adore how it manages to pull a classic single-camera-multiple-actions comedy scene tinged with horror. He's clearly having fun, the music is joyful! None of this behavior is normal. Oh no. There is something almost Soma-esque to the last stretch of it, the horrific knowledge that you are still here as a person but your body is... wrong, becoming other, taken over. His care for Ursula once he understands what is happening, his insistance on keeping her safe by divesting from power in multiple ways? As the former expedition leader? As, visually, a white man going through hell with a woman of color? Yeah. There's a lot here. It's very good.

Kamen, by contrast, is a piece of shit. We are shown his pain again and again, we are also shown how much of it is self-inflicted, ego and greed turned literal gluttony turned sadistic destruction by refusing to face what he has done. He's awful. He's interesting. Parasites are everywhere in this world: yet it is made rather clear that he, the outsider, became the parasite rather than the host. The parallel and contrast with Sam is obvious, from their initial workplace conflict to their respective ends.

The portrayal of longterm emotional abuse in Kris' behavior towards Barry, especially towards the end, is gutwrenching. They are outsiders, coming in stark contrast to our core crew who have by then started to understand the planet and cooperate with its many lifeforms. Literally blasting and climbing through obstacles that others seek a gentler way around, they are as uninterested in harmony as they are highly skilled. They are a tight-knit crew, efficient, determined. And the further we go, the more obvious it gets that said crew is held together with manipulation and power plays. The worst thing about Kris is how genuinely loving she can be. Abusers never wear only one face, they are rarely evil for the hell of it. Kris is driven, convinced she is right, conforted by her immense skill. She is, nonetheless, wrong.

And that ending. Oh, how clever that ending is. It would have been simple to write a final confrontation - bring all the survivors to the same place, portray an epic fight over the one way out, have the good guys win and get away. Or have the bad guys win and make it a sad ending. Instead, everything gets more complex, the planet itself gets its way, and curiosity-driven harmony is once more shown as the only true way forward. All plot threads that need to resolve get neatly tied up. The gays don't get burried. The world gets hinted at as being larger, stranger - the door does not close to a season 2. Best of both worlds.

It is something truly special with exquisite production. Here's hoping it makes it to a true worldwide release and into broader public awareness.