I Saw the TV Glow film review: Emma Stone produces new drama-horror featuring Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst

Emma Stone and her comedian husband produce a new drama-horror that features a colourful cast including Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and explores the awkwardness of teenage sexuality.

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in I Saw the TV Glow.

Remember when the imagined entertainment universe was created on the small screen? As a teen I waited with impatience for the next episode of the women-behind-bars series Prisoner. That idea – must-watch pre-streaming TV – is the starting point for I Saw the TV Glow, an edgy drama written and directed by American filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun.

The show is called The Pink Opaque. It’s a Buffy-esque thriller about two teens who connect via physic powers to fight the “big bad”, a moonfaced man called Mr Melancholy, who alters time and reality.

The awkward teens who watch it are Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Owen (Justice Smith). They each feel out of place in the world, including with their sexuality.

They live for The Pink Opaque, and what unfolds is an interesting exploration of fandom and the blend of the real and the imagined. “Are you sure that’s all it is?” Maddy asks when Owen says: “It’s just a TV show.”

In a climactic moment in the show the two stars have their hearts cut out and, somehow still alive, are buried in coffins. This goes to the consideration of queer and trans life that underlies the film. Maddy is queer. Asked if he likes girls or boys, Owen replies that he “likes TV shows”. Later, he thinks about the characters being interred alive and wonders if he, too, is “someone beautiful (but) buried and suffocating to death’’. The ending, involving Owen, is the rawest and best part of this ­unconventional movie.