'Monsterland': The Scares Are Inconsistent In Hulu's Horror Anthology [Review]

Kicking off a month of streaming horror offerings that includes “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” “Welcome to the Blumhouse,” and “Books of Blood,” Hulu’s “Monsterland” enters the horror anthology world via an acclaimed collection of short stories, “North America Lake Monsters,” by author Nathan Ballingrud. Created by Mary Laws, who also wrote all of the best episodes, “Monsterland” is deeply melancholic, philosophical horror, the kind that imagines a world of creatures in closets and under beds, but posits that humans may be the greatest monsters of all. It’s not an anthology series built on twists like “Tales from the Crypt” or “The Twilight Zone,” as much as a vision of a world drowning in tragedy and dread. It is about how people can turn into monsters when pushed to their extremes, but it also doesn’t forget to have a few actual supernatural creations up its sleeve to keep things interesting (and symbolic). Like most anthology shows, it’s inconsistent to a frustrating degree, but at least half of the episodes stand out, and there are major talents involved in all eight. Horror fans will definitely want to take a look. Just be warned that pretty much every peak has a valley in this rollercoaster of a season.

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It starts so promisingly with Anne Sewitsky’s “Port Fourchon, LA,” starring the phenomenal Kaitlyn Dever (“Unbelievable”) as a bayou waitress with a horrible child. Barely surviving on the edge of poverty, Dever’s protagonist feels even more tied down by a kid who is constantly in a state of either need or violence, lashing out at everyone around her to a degree where no one will take care of her. Sewitsky does a remarkable job of adding depth and nuance to the non-horror elements of her episode, so when Jonathan Tucker shows up as someone with a trunk full of slimy secrets, the supernatural elements feel naturally embedded in the initial narrative. Some episodes of “Monsterland” struggle with blending their human and horror elements, but not the premiere. Sadly, it’s the best episode of the series.

What’s most interesting is that the best four episodes of the eight-episode season are all credited to Laws herself. The writer of “The Neon Demon” seems to understand how to translate Ballingrud’s vision to the screen better than her counterparts, intertwining the mythological elements with the relatable ones in a way that’s more seamless. The two standouts of the seasons are two of only three direct adaptations of the source material—the premiere and the finale, which stars Mike Colter as a man torn apart by the disappearance of his child, who also happens to live in a world in which angels have literally fallen from the sky. In fact, the two chapters make perfect bookends in that they’re about a woman who can’t stand her kid and a man who can’t imagine feeling the pain of losing his every day for the rest of his life. Directed by Babak Anvari, the finale gets surreal and crazy in ways that one should expect from the director of “Wounds” and that the whole series should have tried a bit more of to be more memorable.

In between the bookends, there’s the back and forth that can be expected from anthology television. The other two Laws-scripted episodes are also special. In “New Orleans, LA,” Nicole Beharie plays a woman who discovers that her husband may be the worst kind of monster of them all. In “Palacios, TX,” Nick Pesce (“Eyes of My Mother”) directs a classic story of a fisherman who finds a mermaid, but he does so with that imposing sense of dread that he does so well.

The lesser episodes of “Monsterland” suffer largely due to thin writing that seems to have not progressed far enough past the conceptual stage. For example, in “Eugene, OR,” Charlie Tahan plays a loner who sees a literal shadow in his room and, upon investigating it online, gets sucked into a hate group to escape his miserable life. The idea that isolated people are being encouraged to shoot at shadows by the world in 2020 is powerful, but the episode has no idea where to land. Worse is “Plainfield, IL,” which features great work from Roberta Colindrez, which relies on a plot that uses mental illness as its “monster,” something that gives the whole narrative an exploitative sheen. As if that’s not enough, it also uses suicide as a plot device, and thankfully comes with a trigger warning at the beginning that should be heeded for a lot of people. Bill Camp does his best to save “New York, NY,” but playing a corporate suit who is also maybe a real monster has a dated feel and the strange ending clunks. Finally, Desiree Akhavan’s “Iron River, MI” is a near-miss, a piece about a woman (Kelly Marie Tran) who basically takes the life of her missing high school friend that has an incredible first half but struggles from about the midpoint on.

Clearly, there is a lot of talent and ambition behind “Monsterland,” and it comes to the surface in the show’s best chapters. The first and last episodes alone justify a look, and there are strong elements in the middle, particularly the performances from Nicole Beharie, Roberta Colindrez, and Kelly Marie Tran. And yet it really embodies the theory that anthology shows are inherently inconsistent. Maybe it’s the difficulty of maintaining quality control across so many scripts, casts, and crews that lead to this inevitability, but it feels like “Monsterland” really just needed a couple more rewrites to the lesser episodes. All of the performers and craftsmen were up to the challenge. There’s really not a weak performance in the series, which can’t be said for all anthologies out there. If there’s another trip to “Monsterland” in store for Hulu subscribers, maybe next season will find a better balance. History tells us otherwise. [C+]

“Monsterland” debuts on Hulu on October 2.