A TV series about 1980s thrash metal and the Satanic-panic madness it spawned should, by definition, be a fast, furious, and fun affair. Already Hysteria! it’s so slow and bloated that it’s an insult to the genre of music he claims to love.
Set in a small Michigan town that’s been gripped by fervent religious paranoia thanks to the headbanging trio’s efforts to promote their garage band, Matthew Scott Kane’s eight-episode show, which premieres Oct. 18, continues, though it treats itself too seriously and devoid of amusingly roaring current Killer, The Iron MaidenDio and the rest are fascinated by Beelzebub. So inappropriately serious that it catches the eye Bruce Campbell as a police chief and then denies him the opportunity to flex his action-comedy muscles, it’s a misguided nostalgia trip that never comes close to a devil’s horn salute.
More than one of Hysteria!The hero’s dilemmas result from the fact that the characters are not honest with others – because it turns out that if they talked openly to each other, the series would be a 90-minute film, which should be its purpose.
Kane’s story centers on teenager Dylan (Emjay Anthony) and his best buddies Jordy (Chiara Aurelia) and Spud (Kezii Curtis), who together form Dethkrunch, a heavy metal band that wants to play to more than just an audience of cutouts from cardboard stars. Despite being a goofy suburban kid, Dylan dreams of fortune and fame as the high priest of the wicked, and he especially wants to be noticed by Judith (Jessica Treska), a beautiful blonde who is seemingly out of his league. Just the sight of Judith sends Dylan into a tizzy (think White Lion’s “Wait”), and luckily for him, a development soon forces her to turn her attention to him and his Lucifer-loving band.
Anna Camp as Tracy Whitehead Daniel Delgado/Paw
Catalyst for Hysteria!the story follows the disappearance of high school quarterback Ryan (Brandon Butler), who in the premiere’s prologue is kidnapped along with Faith (Nikki Hahn) from her bedroom by two men in black coats and white bird-like masks. Local media attribute responsibility for this kidnapping – and eventual death after the discovery of Ryan’s body – to Satanism.
Conversations about such vulgar misdeeds run rampant throughout the community, whether in the living room where Dylan’s mother, Linda, lives (Julia Bowen) works, or at the church where Faith’s mother, Tracy, lives (Anna Camp) hosts meetings about the insidious threats parents face today. “We’re moms in the age of Satan,” Tracy announces to Judith’s mom, the bartender, Cassie (Jessica Luza) and anyone who will listen, and when she sees a flyer at school promoting Dethkrunch, she becomes the target of her ire, even as the group’s standing skyrockets grows, and Judith – desperate to be a bad girl – begins to take an active interest in her, and especially Dylan.
The devil and heavy metal are the perfect combination of the macabre and the terrifying, and fans have always known that songs about the Dark Lord are not to be taken literally; rather, they are hilariously over-the-top celebrations of anti-conformity. Therefore, the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s was mainly distinguished by its stupidity, with parents panicking over blasphemous material they did not like or understand.
Hysteria! understands this dynamic, trying to create intrigue around Ryan’s murder and other strange events, including an inexplicable earthquake that shook everyone’s nerves one evening. Unfortunately, the series does not praise metal for its extreme majesty, nor does it allude to the ridiculousness of Tipper Gore-inspired fights with it. On the contrary, it’s just a simple mystery about whether demonic forces are at play in this village, which seems like a fundamentally ill-conceived take on a savage era saga.
Slow and tame when it should be loud and crazy Hysteria! starts with a bit of verve – mostly courtesy of executive producer and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island), who directs the opening and closing episodes – and quickly settles into a slow rhythm. Given that Faith reappears after being gone for several days and learns that no one knew she was missing (and that her broken bedroom door was repaired without a word from Tracy’s mom), it’s not hard to discern the identity of the true villain of the proceedings. Tracy is immediately cast as an unlikely fanatic, and discoveries about her history and relationship with a mysterious reverend (Garret Dillahunt) emphasize that she is a hopeless job with a savior complex. But even before these bombshells, it’s painfully easy to figure out that the show is out to turn things upside down and that Christianity is considered a truly dangerous sect.
This is the most boring idea imaginable Hysteria!but the show is just unimaginative. Determined to rely on Dethkrunch’s fame to charm Judith, Dylan carves a pentagram into his hand and creates a false “cult” that includes all outcasts (e.g. HereditaryMilly Shapiro as a goat-loving weirdo) to athletes (Elijah Richardson’s football star Cliff). In doing so, he makes himself, Jordy, and Spud pariahs, as well as the prime suspects in Ryan’s murder.
Unfortunately, despite this touchy turn of events, nothing particularly comic or exciting happens. What happens is both stretched to unreasonable lengths and often unbelievable; For example, Judith’s transformation from an American good girl into a leather-jacketed rebel with a penchant for ritual bloodshed doesn’t make much sense, especially given her own explanation for why she’s drawn to the Dark Side.
(l-r) Emjay Anthony as Dylan, Kezii Curtis as Spud and Chiara Aurelia as Jordy. PAW/Daniel Delgado/Paw
Hysteria! randomly drops more than one subplot (perhaps it will be touched upon in the anticipated second season?), and eventually veers into stereotypical territory – some of which are modeled after Exorcist– this even contradicts the twisted logic of the series. It is unclear what led Bowen to her thankless role as a mother haunted by the idea that she is haunted by an evil spirit, and this is even more true of Campbell, whose Chief Dandridge is a hollow figure who allows Evil dead the actor had zero chance to show the wit and charm that made him an icon of the genre.
The soundtrack does not contain any classic metal songs (except for a little bit Bon Jovi, Alice Cooperand Def Leppard), and its narrative is full of suspenseless shenanigans, it’s a drawn-out slog that’s less Metallica than Yes, which aims to inspire viewers not to raise their fists, but to roll their eyes and nod off.