When I saw this pop up on my home screen I was pretty excited. The description and the trailer looked to be something really interesting about a small community in Ohio that has a group involved in the occult nearby who are basically self-governing and want to be left alone. It is eluded to that they are Satanists and it is established in the first episode that this group of people are meant to be feared, even though we don't get to see any of them.
The occult is something that I think interests most people in a dark sort of way and for the most part the trope isn't over-used so hell, I thought this looked like it was going to be at least decent by Netflix standards.
The first 20 minutes of episode one are done magnificently well and after watching 3 more episodes and kind of suffering through 1.5 of them, I can say that the main reason why those first 20 minutes were kept engaging is because there was almost no dialogue. Once the words start in this limited series, all that allure and hope that this is going to be a great show goes right out the window.
Without spoiling anything here is what happens during the first and only really interesting part of the series: An unnamed girl is running through a cornfield and looking over her shoulder, she comes to a road eventually and flags down a truck that takes her to the hospital. She is injured and scarred but of course isn't talking to anyone. A middle-aged doctoris looking after her and the girl is now determined to be an orphan. One of the doctors that is obviously going to be a major character decides to let the girl come and live in her house with her family, because of course that is totally legal and something that would definitely happen. They kind of glance over the fact that if your parents are alive, you are not deemed a ward of the state right away like it is presented in the series.
None of this is a spoiler, it is extremely clear that this is where the story is going even before it happens. It is also presented in the trailer.
unfortunately, the introduction to Dr. Suzanne Mathis' family is where the show becomes almost unbearably corny. The writing of the characters as well as their dialogue is just insufferable. They have all the boxes ticked as far as a nuclear family is concerned in fiction-land. We've got the super dedicated older sister who is too cool for her family, the 2nd daughter who doesn't have any friends and is an outcast of sorts but at the same time does something really artsy and unrealistic - in this case she takes photographs... with film.... and develops the prints herself, then we have the clearly adopted youngest daughter who is into singing and dancing and bothering Mom and Dad constantly with her songs that they don't have time to listen to and therefore young baby sister feels as though she is less important in the family paradigm.
Then we have the doting Dad, whose every single line of dialogue isn't just cringe AF, but it is delivered in a wooden way that suggests he has never done any acting before and was chosen because he is related to a producer.... Sam Jaeger is the actor's name and he doesn't have much of a background other than saying he is an actor and screenwriter.
"Mae" is basically the only bearable character in the main cast and fortunately for us she is the main focus of the story. She actually CAN act but it is just unfortunate that almost everyone else around her is incapable of doing so. To be fair to the actors and actresses it may not be entirely their fault. The script is remarkably bad even by Netflix standards. With corny lines that are meant to sound "small townish" such as everyone always saying "Go Browns!" or "oh we have a big game this weekend" (in reference to the Cleveland Browns football team) it is clear very early on that I don't think they really thought the dialogue through very much or perhaps once again, they didn't have enough of a story to fill up all 8 episodes and had to fill it up with something. It's really bad either way.
Mae is shy and really reluctant to talk about her past yet psychiatrist mama Dr. Suzanne really wants to drag some information out of her. So here is how almost every scene goes as they search for new places for Mae and Suzanne to sit down.
Suzanne: Mae, talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk (you are no longer listening as a viewer at this point) talk talk talk talk talk talk talk
Mae: Sighs
Suzanne: Because if you talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk your past...talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk
Mae: Cries
Suzanne: Ok, we'll talk about it when you are ready honey.
Seriously. It's infuriating how many times this happens.
We start the series out with a teaser about some house in the cornfield that Mae escaped from and it is hinted about this house being the place where a bunch of Satanic stuff takes place, but then we don't even get a peek at said house for something like 3 hours. Instead we are taken on totally irrelevant side-quests such as one daughter's struggles to get into college or another's issues she is facing in getting her photos published. These things have ZERO impact on the story and serve only as a way to waste time. Nobody cares!
Another thing that annoys me about this is something that bothers me about a lot of series that are trying to save money by filming in Canada: This is meant to take place in Ohio but the actors, especially the minor ones are clearly Canadian and you can hear it in their voices. Maybe some people don't realize this but outside of certain areas along the border of USA and Canada, Canadians sound distinctly different than people in Ohio, especially people from small towns in Ohio sound. The producers probably know this as well but were too lazy to do anything about it.
Should I watch it?
Even though there is still a serious lack of decent options for things to watch, especially series, on Netflix right now, I still believe that most people are going to find this is something they throw away halfway through the 2nd episode. It starts strong and if they had been able to keep that pace up I think this could have been a good series. However, since they were so dedicated to making it as many 40-minute episodes long as they possibly could, they filled up every episode with 25-30 minutes of irrelevant nonsense riddled with some of the worst dialogue I have seen in a series in quite some time.
I would say there is almost zero chance that I am going to finish this series and it actually kind of makes me angry how poorly this is made. The material, which is based on a best-selling book, actually has a lot of potential but this was squandered by making the series too long and having a truly awful script.
Go ahead and have a go at it if you really want to, but for me this one is very easy to leave behind.
