MOVIE NEWS – In one of the most powerful scenes from 2022’s Severance, a black, tar-like substance pours from the ceiling—and then from Mark S.’s left eye—evoking the iconic black tar of Death Stranding (2019), which emerges together with the spirits of the dead (the BTs or “Beached Things”). The connection between these two worlds is deeper than it first seems: the complex role, meaning, and “behavior” of Death Stranding’s tar all echo in the nightmare imagery of Ben Stiller’s series.

Irving’s vision—in which a thick, black, tar-like substance drips from the ceiling, covers everything, and finally pours from Mark S.’s eye—is not merely a surreal horror motif. Anyone familiar with Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding will instantly recognize the game’s iconic tar. But what exactly does this tar represent in the world of Death Stranding?

According to Death Stranding lore, the tar is an unnatural, extremely dense black liquid that appeared on Earth only after the Death Stranding event. This tar—similar to oil, but even darker, thicker, and deadlier—can engulf objects, people, entire cities, and even continents. It’s not simply “pollution,” but a physical manifestation of the boundary between the afterlife and reality: the tar is intimately tied to the “Beach,” the supernatural zone that is the realm of the dead and the BTs (“Beached Things”). Aggressive BTs frequently appear on the surface of the tar, using it to cross over into our world.

One of the most chilling properties of the tar is its ability to “sink” and completely erase entire cities or people: what sinks into the tar vanishes from existence, transported to the Beach or lost forever. The game also reveals that the tar is linked to “voidouts,” the apocalyptic explosions that occur when a BT contacts a corpse—resulting in a blast that engulfs everything in tar and leaves nothing behind.

The origin of the tar in Death Stranding is tied to the eponymous catastrophe, when the afterlife (the Beach) and reality merged, and the consciousness of “prehistoric hominids” became stranded on the Beach. Thus, the tar is not merely a physical substance: it visually and symbolically embodies death, trauma, the afterlife, memory, and loss. As the official wiki literally states: “Tar is a dense, black liquid that appears all over the world, most often accompanied by aggressive BTs. It can transport living beings and objects to the Beach, and even engulf entire buildings and landmasses. Tar is closely tied to the Death Stranding event and plays a fundamental role in depicting the boundary between life and death.”

Tar, the Subconscious, and Visual References: What Do We See in Severance?

When, in Irving’s dream, the black, tar-like substance covers the keyboard, the room, and then Mark S.’s face, it echoes the meaning of the tar in Death Stranding: a vision of the dissolution and fragmentation of reality, memory, and consciousness. In the series, the tar-like substance becomes both a symbol of fear, suppressed trauma, and psychological “splitting,” but can also be read as a metaphor for otherworldly boundaries—or as the embodiment of the darkest, most abstract fears of pop culture.

This motif is no accident: as we suggested in a previous article, the visual style of Severance borrows as much from Death Stranding as it does from Control, in which, by the way, there is another, similar, central motif: another all-consuming substance: “the Hiss”. While the series creators officially deny such direct inspirations, the scene is a powerful, subconscious homage—obvious to any geek.

Pop Culture, Homage, or a New Trope?

This scene in Severance, with its black, tar-like substance, is more than just a nightmarish visual: it connects the most modern video games (Death Stranding, Control) to the worlds of television and film, and even establishes a new symbol of psychological horror. Just as the tar in Death Stranding engulfs everything and casts it into the afterlife, so does this thick, black mass envelop Irving’s world. This “tar” is no longer unique to a single story, but has become a new, all-pervasive dark code in pop culture.

We may never know how conscious or unconscious this borrowing is—but the impact is undeniable. Severance, Death Stranding, and today’s horror, sci-fi, and fantasy all draw from the same dark, cathartic material, symbolizing the boundlessness of the afterlife, death, fear, and the collective unconscious.

Source: Mashable, Death Stranding Wiki, theGeek.games