Creeped Out

"The Curious" introduces stories of the weird and supernatural in Creeped Out.

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Creeped Out is Netflix's new anthology series for middle schoolers/younger high school students. It is not an original series but a BBC series that Netflix apparently picked up and dropped online under its own brand name. It covers half-hour stories of the weird and supernatural, wrapped into a "framing" device that features a character called The Curious.

The Curious travels the world in search of strange stories to "collect," all while dressed in a gray, paper mache mask that makes him look like an NPC (non-player character) meme on Twitter. This framing device doesn't really work, IMHO, and the mask is just ridiculous.

I haven't finished the whole series, but I think I've watched enough of it to give a fair judgement. This series is a major disappointment. I was hoping for a series of the same quality as Netflix's recent hit The Haunting of Hill House, but unfortunately, Creeped Out hasn't measured up to that standard by any means. The stories, with a few exceptions, are silly and heavy-handed, and the production values are slap-dash. The strongest episode so far is called Slapstick, featuring a middle-school girl who makes a terrible bargain with a creepy marionette at a beachside Punch-and-Judy show. Slapstick is truly creepy while also having a comical side.

I also don't see any tweens or teens getting excited about this series when they can watch a similar series, like R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour (2010-2014), with far superior stories and production values. The one thing that Creeped Out has going for it is the U. K. setting for most of the episodes, which are at least original to American eyes, although some are also set in Canada. My verdict is that this series is skippable unless you're a viewer who really, really likes middle-schooler-directed anthology series.

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