Blumhouse’s film anthology series on Hulu ‘Into the Dark’ serves up a new entry that may seem similar to Happy Death Day on the surface but bears more of it’s DNA from Mary Shelley’s classic horror tale.

Hulu and Blumhouse’s monthly horror anthology series, ‘Into The Dark,’ promises a new entry every month with a horror film based on a holiday or event landing in each month the film premieres. May’s entry, All That We Destroy, directed by Chelsea Stardust, is a loose Mother’s Day horror tale. Samantha Mathis stars as Dr. Victoria Harris, the head of a genetic research company that has pioneered the growth of artificial organs for replacement. However, her focus on the business is split due to the action of her son, Spencer (Happy Death Day’s Israel Broussard). Spencer, as we learn through flashbacks spliced throughout the film, meets up a female grifter named Ashley (Aurora Perrineau), who Spencer finds after a spat with her partner. He takes her home and she tries to seduce him and something snaps in him and he kills her violently. Victoria covers it up and tries to help Spencer in her own way by growing exact duplicates of Ashley in her lab to try and break up Spencer’s sociopathic tendencies and get him to engage with these faux Ashleys like human beings. Unfortunately, Will can’t handle that these copies are not at all like the real Ashley and systematically kills each one as it is presented to him in short order. Victoria struggles to reconcile with the fact that her son may be an unrepentant murderer, even as he strikes up a friendship with neighbor Marissa (Dora Madison) and loses all interest in his mother’s latest Ashley, one whom Victoria has taken to showing a curated past and spending time with to make her seem as human as possible.

On its surface, the repetitive nature of Spencer killing Ashley and how the newest Ashley model seems to remember her past seem to echo Happy Death Day or Westworld. The film is smart as we start to see Spencer rebel against his mother’s experiments which essentially beg him to kill these replicas of a girl he murdered. It seems counterproductive, and Spencer is more taken with Marissa and the promise she offers away from this mess of a life he is in. Meanwhile, the latest Ashley starts to realize she is being fed to something of a monster; one who won’t meet her and who she knows has killed a girl who looks like her as well as animals in his care. The end of the film flips the premise with an interesting twist making us wonder who the true monster is and one which everyone suffers in a Sisyphus like cycle that seems to have no end in sight. One that echoes Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein more than Westworld.

Broussard gives a great performance here and is genuinely chilling, much more than his roles in the Happy Death Day films would let on and he really takes the ball and runs with it. Similarly, Perrineau imbues each of her Ashley roles with enough nuance to show you she is playing different variations off of the curve of a prime Ashley. She has a lot of charisma and really grabs you. If you’re interested in checking out a gateway entry into Hulu’s Into the Dark, this is a solid primer.