Have you seen Cell: The Web Series?  You need to.

I don’t often get excited about a web series, in fact if the truth be told I rarely watch any web series. I only started watching CELL because a friend did some of the makeup and SFX on the production.  So why, 10 episodes in, am I still watching CELL?

Because it’s good.  It’s damn good.

“Remember, you asked for this.“  CELL starts with these words, as an unconscious man, Brian, is dragged across a basement and placed on a cot in a makeshift jail cell.  The man wakes up with no idea where he is, how he got there, or why any of this is happening.  A cell across the room contains the basement’s only other resident, a young woman who has been here for… she doesn’t know how long she’s been there.  She doesn’t know where they are.  She doesn’t know who “he” is, he being The Man who is keeping them captive in this basement.

“These clothes will begin your cleansing.“  CELL is most definitely a horror project, but it’s not your typical horror project.  Rather than violence, gore, and beasties, CELL relies on good, old-fashioned psychological terror to make you squirm.  Why are these people being kept in the cells?  What are they being cleansed of?  Just how did Brian “ask for this”?  What is “the family”?  And who, or what, is Michael?

“Ask, and Michael shall provide.“  Each episode takes us a little deeper into the mystery.  Every answer reveals new questions.  This, my friends, is serialized horror at it’s most pristine, stripped of the cliches we’ve come to depend on.  It looks like a feature film, albeit a low-budget film, but plays like a true series.  Each episode has a story to tell, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end… an end that leaves the viewer wanting more.

The season finale of CELL: The Web Series is scheduled to go online July 14th.  As Season 1 winds down,  I talked with writer/director Mark Gardner about what’s planned for Season 2.

“The reality is that we can’t do another season of two people sitting in a locked cell.  It has to change in some ways.”  When I asked him if the story line that we’re seeing now would continue, he added “There are definitely some continuing threads that we’ll follow up in Season 2.  There are also several more that we’ll start following”.

I was really hoping for spoilers.  Mark was not cooperating.

What he did tell me is that they are committed to doing a strong second season.  He’s hoping to move beyond the confines of the basement; building a larger world for the story, and making that world more real.  As with any low-budget project, funding is the true challenge.  They can’t do what they hope to do on the same budget they had for season 1.  The team is working on what Mark calls “The holy trinity of indie web financing: merchandising, sponsorships, and crowd funding.”  They’re also working on a tie-in ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, which they hope to launch along with the season finale on July 14th.

A game?  As long as I don’t have to lock myself in a cell and eat gruel from a pie plate, I’m down.  On second thought, maybe I should let Abraxas play the game first.  That’s probably safer… for me.

CELL: The Web Series is streamed on Koldcast.tv, and it can be downloaded from iTunes.  The easiest way to watch it?  Simply click here.