What marks the devil? Is it a hulking figure with burnt skin and massive horns? Is it a personal enemy or unseen force? What is hell, if not a high school hallway, haunted by inner and outer demons that can only be escaped when you walk out the door? It might be all of that, as it is in Peacock ‘s “Hysteria!” created by Matthew Scott Kane. In the 1980s bliss of suburban Michigan (portrayed with welcome specificity for a show not set in New York, L.A.
, or Chicago), a the high school quarterback has disappeared (a girl too, but no one seems worried — but that’s already tempting spoilers), a bloody pentagram left in his wake. Dylan Campbell (Emjay Anthony) gets mistaken for a Satanist by the popular Judith (Jessica Treska) because he plays in a heavy metal band with friends, so they pose as Satanists to become popular. But as fear of the occult grips the town of Happy Hollow, the innocent teens become prime suspects, and a powerful force takes root that threatens everyone.
For the most part, “Hysteria!” threads multiple genres with tight precision; there’s classic horror in the supernatural elements, pieces of procedural and murder mystery DNA in the ongoing investigation, and a richly imagined teen drama tying it all together. Kane and co-showrunner David A. Goodman’s storytelling is so confident it’s almost conspicuous, from assembling the narrative puzzle to striking, stylish editing, to a cast that feels entirely equipped to handle the assignment, from it.
