Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Into the Dark: Current Occupant’ on Hulu, a Hyper-political Thriller About a Probably Insane President

Into the Dark: Current Occupant might be the most provocative episode of the Hulu/Blumhouse anthology series yet. It’s a politically charged satirical thriller written by Alston Ramsay, a former speechwriter for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and set in, get this, what might just be an insane asylum hidden in a bunker deep below the White House. And the protagonist just might be the President of the United States.

INTO THE DARK: CURRENT OCCUPANT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Imagine the President in a mental institution. No, really. Like, picture Trump in the Cuckoo’s Nest, with padded cells, straitjackets, surly orderlies, patients having violent outbursts, forced administration of antipsychotic drugs, all that. Bliss. Total schadenfreude, very not nice, but bliss.

I digress, somewhat. The man who may or may not be President Henry Cameron (Barry Watson) wakes up, day after day, not knowing who he is. All his doctor (Sonita Henry) will tell him is that he was shot, and now has retrograde amnesia, but I’ve already given away the primary question that he soon faces: Is he indeed President Henry Cameron? There are more questions, too: Is he being kept in an asylum buried beneath the White House? Is this an insanely complex conspiracy coordinated to gaslight the President? Is that fellow inmate (Lilli Birdsell) whispering succulent bits of information to him the actual Secretary of State? And can we do all this to our current President, which I say even though I hesitate to diagnose anyone’s illness without the proper doctorate and from afar, and knowing full well it’s morally questionable, but can’t help but harbor the fantasy?

Anyway. Let’s just call the guy Henry, for lack of not knowing any better. Henry, before these questions arise, knows that his doctor knows who he is, but she isn’t saying, and he’s so desperate to know, he agrees to some “experimental treatments.” These treatments involve being strapped to a chair with a nest of wires on his head as a series of provocative images flash in front of him and he’s asked a series of provocative questions — e.g., WHAT IS THE GOVERNING PRINCIPLE OF LIFE — in a stern voice by the doc as his goonish orderly (Marvin Jones III) stands nearby.

Meanwhile, he sneaks a peek at his highly redacted file, which has the word “assassination” on it. A kind nurse (Kate Cobb) believes his story, and helps him a little. He sits down for group therapy and boldly introduces himself as the President of the United States, and another patient (Joshua Burge) says he believes him and probably voted for him, and nobody believes him when he says he’s the Emperor of some Zarbulon outer-space bullshit. So has Henry gone mad because he thinks he’s the President of the United States, or is the fact that he’s the President of the United States driving him mad?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A Clockwork Orange. The President’s Analyst. (Have you seen The President’s Analyst? GO WATCH THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST.)

Performance Worth Watching: Watson keenly shifts from outright bewilderment to resolute I AM NAPOLEON declarations, convincing us of the character’s lack of sanity without ever indulging goggle-eyed overstatement.

Memorable Dialogue: “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” bellows Henry from inside a padded cell.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: WHAT IS THE GOVERNING PRINCIPLE OF LIFE, she said, and I pondered how so many recent Into the Dark episodes merely prompted us to ask ourselves if we had laughed enough and/or been scared enough while watching them. Crisply directed by Ramsay’s brother Julius Ramsay, Current Occupant is a tightly wound, hypertextual thriller hot-buttoning our fatigued political zones, for better or worse — but I think for the better, because it it prompts our weary brains to wonder if running a nation of millions is a job only for the incurably delusional. (It brings to mind the Obama-era headline in The Onion, “Black man given nation’s worst job.”)

The movie certainly is a chewy slab of brain-stimulant, stirring up a heady stew with pungent tasting notes: Wackjob conspiracy theories, civil unrest, gaslighting, a leader of the free world who might be a lunatic, White House bunkers, etc. Tiny snippets of sinister comedy only serve to further blacken its tone — this might be the darkest Into the Dark yet — and you may find yourself firmly gripped by its grim vibes. Of course, this is-he-or-isn’t-he plot finds Alston Ramsay potentially writing checks he can’t cash at the climax; let’s just say he gets about 70 cents on the dollar for what’s surely an intentionally vague ending. So he aims for suggestiveness, and a ratcheting-up of tension, and even though it doesn’t really hone in an a concise thematic statement, it mostly works because it kind of mirrors our hectic 2020 experiences with current events, which rat-a-tat at us blindly, offering no real firm solutions or answers to anything. Is it any wonder that we’d sympathize with a crazy person?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Current Occupant is pretty bleak. It offers very little in the way of hopeful pep. But it’s a relatively strong outing for Into the Dark, and it stands out among much unmemorable fodder in the series’ current season.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Into the Dark: The Current Occupant on Hulu