Created by Victor Bonnefoy (aka InThePanda), Unknown Movies is a French Web Video series mixing movie reviews with a webseries-like storyline. In each episode, the host of the show analyses a fairly obscure movie, often packed with gruesome and/or distasteful imagery and subject matters. He gives some insight on its production history, some background on the people involved in it, discusses the general themes and ideas behind it, gives his opinion on it, and brutally murders someone during the review.
Yes, the host is actually a psychopathic killer. He sees his murder spree as a crusade against the general public's awful taste in movies. He wants cinema to be recognized by everyone as the art form it is, and in order to achieve this, will not hesitate to murder any audience member with low standards, any producer contributing to the bastardization of the media, or simply anyone in his way. Of course, it doesn't take long for his actions to be noticed by the outside world, and the authorities start searching for him... They just don't get what he's trying to accomplish.
The series is complete with three seasons, and is available on Panda's YouTube channel
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List of movies reviewed
Season 1
- The Brave
- Meet the Feebles
- Kids
- Escape from Tomorrow
- Catfish
- French Family (obscure French porn movie)
- The Gift
- Compliance
- Dogtooth
- Freaked
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (musical episode)
- The War Zone
- T'Aime
Season 2
Season 3
- Alice
- Korean cinema, particularly the ones of Bong Joon-Ho, Park Chan Wook and Kim Jee-Woon.
- Vampire in Brooklyn
- The Wolfpack
- Fear and Desire
- I (Tamil Indian film)
- Stringer (American film)
- Final Cut (Hungarian film)
The Unknown Movies videos provide examples of the following tropes:
- Cerebus Syndrome : Hit the show once the plot really started to take off. It was already pretty dark, but once the police starts chasing the Killer, things really get serious.
- Comedic Sociopathy : Deconstructed. Many web reviewers play the role of insane people who threatens to hurt people or things that they don't like, or who frequently do horrible things for laughs. The Killer takes that trope and leads it to its logical and horrifying conclusion.
- Depraved Bisexual: The Killer rapes male and female victims.
- Even Evil Has Standards : The Killer may do horrible things, but when discussing the plot of episode 12's movie, even he thinks that forcing a woman who was raped to live with her rapist was messed up, especially as it's supposed to be part of her therapy.
- And then he flat out refuses to kill a child. Unfortunately, the Assistant doesn't have any problem with this.
- Eviler than Thou : The Assistant is more than willing to go further than the Killer, killing people even he is reluctant. He ends up backstabbing the Killer because he thinks he's getting too soft.
- Face–Heel Turn : It's not really clear when it happened, but the Police Chief's assistant became a fan of the Killer's methods at some point and betrayed the police for helping him. When the second season started, he became his full time assistant.
- Fan Disservice : Many victims (male and female) end up shirtless ( including the Police Chief, which made many fangirls squee)... Just before they get killed.
- Freudian Excuse : In the first episodes, the Killer sometimes let it slip that his father was sexually abusing him. Strangely, he doesn't mention this in the episode about Tim Roth's The War Zone, which dealt with incest. Though the last episode of the second season has him talk about his father without saying anything about him being abusive, but that might just have been him not wanting to share the details of it with the person he was talking to.
- It's revealed in Season 3 that the Killer's father was physically abusive towards him, his brother and their mother (and even got away with it) which prompted the Killer to run away from home .
- Hero Antagonist: The Police Chief.
- Hope Spot : Episode 15 goes this way, as the Killer finally meets someone who, despite not being a cinephiliac, actually listens to him, shows interest in the movie he's reviewing, and encourages him to continue spreading the word about good cinematography (granted, he doesn't know the Killer's methods...). The Killer ends up bonding with him. It turns out, however, that said man was actually about to commit suicide, and kills himself right under the Killer's nose.
- Horror Host : The Killer can be considered one, although he doesn't tell horror stories.
- Idiot Ball : Yeah, sure, just let that weird guy who claims to be a neighbour but who evade your questions about where he lives enter your house, miss.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler : People starting with the second season will know right off the bat that the Assistant betrays the police and joins the Killer.
- Mood Whiplash : The reviews themselves contain jokes whenever possible. However, once we reach the plot segments, things go really serious, really dark very fast.
- My God, What Have I Done? : The Killer must surely feel this way about taking the Assistant as his partner when it turns out he is even more insane than him.
- Oh, Crap! : The Police Chief once he realizes how hopeless his situation is.
- Omnicidal Maniac : The Assistant is shaping up to be one. It's becoming clearer and clearer that the Killer's fight is merely an excuse for him to kill people.
- Refuge in Audacity : The Killer, of course, but in universe he's also really impressed by the director of Escape From Tomorrow, regardless of the final quality of the film. We're talking about someone who filmed a horror movie in the Disney theme parks in clandestinity, without authorization from Disney itself, after all.
- Self-Made Orphan : The Killer killed his parents at some point in the past. And as if it was not enough, his brother becomes the victim of the fifth episode. He however states in the last episode of the second season that he's going to see his parents, which leaves some doubt on the matter.
- Villain Protagonist: It's a show focused on a cinema fan who promotes good cinema by torturing and murdering people while lecturing them about a movie.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist : The Killer wants to promote good cinema... Through murder and mayhem.
- Wham Episode : two, back to back.
- First, episode 15 : The Killer finally meets someone he can educate without resorting to violence, but who immediately afterwards commits suicide, throwing the Killer into the Despair Event Horizon. And when he reunites with the Assistant, it's to find out he wants him to kill a child...
- Then, episode 16 : The Killer fails to save the child, who gets killed by the Assistant. Who then shoots the Killer because he thinks he's getting too soft and he's more qualified to continue the fight.
- Would Hit a Girl : As befits a serial killer.
- Would Hurt a Child : Subverted with the Killer, who refuses to kill children. Played horrifyingly straight with the Assistant, who doesn't have such qualms.
