The town of Happy Hollow is quite happy in Peacock’s new Horror-thriller ‘Hysteria’. But that’s okay since the main attraction is how this period set in the 1980s focuses on its premise of the Satanic panic and how it brings a connection with today’s world. Forty years ago, any hoo-ha about satanic cults and their mass abuse of its members gained headlines like nothing else. This small-town based series is definitely worth watching with its small-town citizens confronting the unthinkable. With Demonic films for a long time entertaining people, it seems audiences have never gotten bored of Devilish vintage memes along with exorcisms. Hysteria! has ample of scary moments and portray high levels of tension across its eight episodes. But we do wonder how this series would fare out of Halloween month.
However, the argument can still be put forth as to why this series should be included in the Peacock universe. From its dark tone and the remarkable cast where Julie Bowen (Modern Family) and Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect) easily shine, till the infused mix of inter-generational grief, Peacock doesn’t need to sacrifice another hit. It has one here with Hysteria!
Showrunner/executive producers Matthew Scott Kane (Stitchers) David A. Goodman (The Orville) take charge in this outing and deliver terror, turns and gasps in the right amounts. Apart from Bowen and Camp, the show is also aided by a performing (and quite full) ensemble cast that is by all accounts, utterly dependable. These talented people have a lot to handle. It’s pleasing to see how Kane is able to skillfully play with the audience’s expectations of who is likely to become the next threat or victim and it is even more pleasing to see Bruce Campbell portraying the prized wearing sheriff the character.
So, back to the plot. The whole town goes into a state of panic when a dearly loved member of the town, high school football captain Ryan Hudson (Brandon Butler), is nowhere to be found. This provides a perfect opportunity for a nefarious menace to further escalate the situation. And as if on cue, the entire town wakes up one morning to a full-fledged Satanic panic. Enter three adolescent misfits — Dylan (Emjay Anthony), Jordy (Chiara Aurelia), and Spud (Kezii Curtis) — and the whole builld up gets the tactical smart group to just not keep being misfits and start a death metal band. Perhaps their notoriety might work in their favor at last. They do, albeit not quite in the manner they envisioned. Not long after, all fingers are turned towards them again after a flurry of spectacular murders, abductions and paranormal phenomena send everybody haywire.
Hysteria! Is filled with entertaining plot points and twists but at times it relies on the horror formula a little too much: Oddity A + Scary Thing B = Big Shock/Cliffhanger C. Undoubtedly this is a self-imposed limitation of the series. But even if this equation is rather repetitive, its outcomes are not bad and Matthew Scott Kane manages to pull off a horror thriller with some meat to it. Scary meat probably. These two women manage to make it all work, although the supporting cast definitely impresses as well.
Julie Bowen and Anna Camp, step this way please. Bowen stars as the ill-fated Linda Campbell, Dylan’s mom, who is going through … erm… events of a little particular nature to say the least. We all know Bowen from Modern Family. Brilliant isn’t it? One might never picture her starring in a horror flick yet her blood-curdling screams echoing throughout the setting make her diehard fans abandon their expectations. Great fun and what a guilty pleasure it is to see her suffer much more than one would expect.
Voice Over: Switching gears, we get Camp’s opinion on another parent, Tracey Whitehead, the conservative who is hopping onto fear mongering while trying to attract a fresh base of followers to support her. In a way, it’s rather spooky how it’s almost the same as how Trump is today, or really like any other cult that seeks out reason for something more irrational. The likeliness of Tracey Whitehead and Martha Carmody in the Mist movie played by Marcia Gail Harden is not surprising. It’s amusing for the showrunners to combine the two opposite characters surrounded by the mysterious circumstances relating both Tracey and Linda.
Voice Over: More so, if Bruce Campbell is the leading star and the one that fights supernatural apparitions, then you need to wait for quite a moment. The actor famed from The Evil Dead franchise but who arguably performed greatest in Bubba Ho-Tep is a more realistic role in the climax. But almost every time there is Campbell on the screen, he delivers a brilliant performance.
The script gives a few other characters to keep an eye on especially the core teen trio as they clearly have much to do and a big riddle they need to crack. Imagine the best elements of investigating in this movie here resemble mildly those of Harry Potter but in this case it’s concerning Losing Stranger Things. These kids should exonerate themselves because everyone, including their neighbours, believes that it’s them behind the strange happenings in the area. Other high school teens filter into the mix as this film is like high-school manic kid capers at times which is groovy. Overall, the character dynamics, particularly those of the teens, are well executed and everyone is connected like lines of a pentagram (which is very many).
Thematically, the series does not let us forget that each generation is plagued with fear. This is the era where the adult children of the atomic boom era who elected Ronald Reagan can grow up way too cautious for ones liking. Also integrating into this one is the idea that just as growing adult can be very scary even more so parenting can be as scary in equal measures. Meanwhile, lovely special effects were complemented by an apathetic soundtrack of fiery rock songs from the 80s. It’s totally entertaining and consistently trippy but all balanced by a perfect cast of characters so prepare and immerse — Hysteria! is all about fun. Hysteria!
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