Do you miss what Stranger Things used to be? Look at hysteria! on Peacock
It’s hard to remember what you saw the first season of Stranger things was like. Years later, with a final season pending (and pending, and pending…), the show has become a cultural juggernaut; the way it brought D&D terms to the forefront of culture seems like just a glimpse of one thoroughly traded sample. But there was a time when Stranger things was just the new Netflix show that people were talking about, something that excited people because of its mix of different horror, sci-fi and 80s influences. It wove together a triumvirate of stories that all came together in a massive battle against evil.
Are That energy in which you feel most strikingly captured Hysteria!Peacock’s new show that dropped all at once this week and is the perfect Halloween marathon for the year.
The scene takes place in the late 1980s; the setting is the fictional sleepy town of Happy Hollow. After a football player goes missing, the city is on alert – or at least most of it is. Dylan (Emjay Anthony) and his bandmates Spud (Kezii Curtis) and Jordy (Chiara Aurelia) are mainly concerned with how they can get their metal band some more attention. A pentagram is painted on the footballer’s house; Dylan is told that a pretty girl at school thinks Satanism is cool; One thing leads to another and suddenly they’re in one Satanic rock band, just in time for the Satanic Panic that occurs on Happy Hollow.
In the larger sense, Hysteria! is about the madness that people engage in to finally feel seen. Dylan’s desire to be liked (en found isn’t that far removed from Bible-thumping mother Tracy (Anna Camp) who stokes fear of a cabal that performs ritual sacrifices in a small Michigan town to allay fears and feel important, or even his mother, Linda (Julie Bowen), in an effort to ensure her son is a good person. Hysteria!Fortunately, these big ideas never overwhelm the story. Instead, it stays focused on the kind of comedy of errors that Dylan sets up, as the frenzy about Satanism hits and the band has to decide how much to double down on the whole thing.
It helps that showrunner Matthew Scott Kane takes advantage of the advantage that an ensemble brings to the show. While Tracy is hard at work stirring up passion, Hysteria! can let Police Chief Dandridge (Bruce Campbell) be a voice of reason. Not every adult is a soldier of God, and the mystery of the story flourishes with the freedom of that choice.
That’s been great, ever since Hysteria! has even more mystery to offer. Because even though the city knows the quarterback is missing, Faith (Nikki Hahn) was taken at the same time. And for some reason no one knows she’s gone anymore. All that And there are actually some weird paranormal shenanigans; people are floating and being dragged around their house and developing strange rashes.
Telling us about that piece of riddle is exactly how Hysteria! it ultimately feels like some really great genre programming. The story can move back and forth between Dylan and his misguided quest to get laid, or the harrowing kidnapping of Faith by people in creepy masks, or Linda’s concern that she has failed her son and the community, or even the relationship of the police chief with the residents of the city – and so on. provides a more robust sense of time, city and terror. There are many mysteries and something There’s a nefarious thing creeping through the night, and no one has the full story. Within the city limits of Happy Hollow, anything feels possible. Everyone is in their own version of the story, and that influences the perspective they have on the overarching whole Hysteria! of all this, in the same way as the three factions of Stranger things season 1 had to come together to save a kidnapped child.
Unlike Stranger thingsKane enjoys the story as much as he enjoys its balance. Hysteria! is a bit of a tonal tightrope, with splashes of thriller and drama becoming fuel for the fire of the horror influences. Through it all, the characters feel like characters, and not just half-remembered Amblin archetypes. The choices they make determine what happens next, both for Happy Hollow and for… Hysteria!and the show is better for it – even as Dylan’s musical ambitions hang in the balance.
Hysteria! is now streaming in full on Peacock.