It’s all fun and games until someone gets accused of being a devil worshipper. Peacock’s new “coming-of-age thriller,” Hysteria!, is set in the 1980s amid the Satanic Panic—but it’s not entirely clear, yet, if maybe there really are some demonic reasons for the characters in this show to freak out. The just-released teaser sees Julie Bowen spotting a scary face in her microwave—after an earthquake, no less—but it could just be her overworked imagination. Right?
Hysteria!, which comes from writers Matthew Scott Kane (Stitchers) and David A. Goodman (The Orville), has an intriguing cast that, along with Bowen, includes Anna Camp (True Blood), Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead), and Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood, The Sarah Connor Chronicles). The synopsis says:
When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the “Satanic Panic” of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported “supernatural activity” triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.
This show has a fine line to walk: It clearly wants to be not-too-serious, but in the real world, there were some pretty terrible consequences for some people who were the targets of these paranoid conspiracy theories. In a statement quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, Kane and Goodman said the show is “about the thrills of being young, rebellious in spirit and aspirational at heart — and the horrors of growing up and realizing that the world you thought you knew has shifted beneath your feet. Our hope is that parents and children (of the appropriate age, of course) can enjoy the chills, the laughs, the music, and the heart of Hysteria! together. Growing up is scary. So is parenting.”
Hysteria! begins streaming on Peacock on October 18th. The series premiere will simulcast on USA and Syfy, and USA will show each new episode on Friday nights.
