Horror grasp John Carpenter’s pursuits have tilted away from directing for some years now, as he’s most well-liked to concentrate on different pursuits like music and his comics firm. He’s again within the chair for brand spanking new Peacock sequence John Carptenter’s Suburban Screams—and it’s too dangerous the event isn’t a extra memorable one.
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Carpenter helmed one episode of the six-part present; he’s additionally considered one of Suburban Screams’ govt producers, composed the music in his signature model (alongside along with his common collaborators Cody Carpenter, who’s additionally his son, and Daniel Davies), and lent his hallowed title to its title. Carpenter’s affiliation with Suburban Screams is definitely its greatest draw; sadly, the present itself is an uneven mixture of true crime, city legends, ghost tales, and “it occurred to me” private narratives that slide everywhere in the credibility scale, regardless of every episode being prefaced with a solemn reminder that “the next is a real story.” There are already a lot of exhibits on the market that cowl the identical turf—Peacock itself has a strong true-crime part—and Suburban Screams doesn’t do a lot to tell apart itself… past Carpenter’s involvement.
Episode 104, “Bunny Man”Picture: Gabriel Kuchta/Peacock
That mentioned, Carpenter’s entry, “Cellphone Stalker,” might be the season spotlight, just because it’s the one one which brings palpable stress to its narrative. It follows a Lengthy Island girl recounting her years-long ordeal being harassed by an nameless tormenter, an obvious tech whiz whose repertoire included obscene cellphone calls, texts of hideously doctored pictures (plus a minimum of one dick pic), and invasive spy-camera footage.
The opposite extra attention-grabbing episodes embody “A Killer Comes House,” which follows the story of a assassin who terrorized an in any other case peaceable neighborhood in New Brunswick, Canada; after he was captured and convicted, he then escaped jail and returned to the world so as to add to his physique rely. It unfolds from the standpoint of the native newspaper editor, with headlines and classic TV footage that give its America’s Most Needed-style recreations some essential veracity. In a special mode is “Bunny Man,” which investigates an city legend prevalent in a Washington, DC-adjacent space of Virginia that’s based mostly partially on native folklore and partially on a wave of reported sightings of a person, wearing a bunny costume and carrying a hatchet, within the Nineteen Seventies. On this case, the “true story” is extra about how residents reacted to the legend, and never about whether or not or not the Bunny Man really existed.
The remaining three episodes are all first-hand ghost tales—one Ouija board snafu and two haunted homes—which can be not possible to substantiate past whether or not or not you consider the individual telling the story; in a single occasion, the “San Diego County” setting is so clearly not California (Suburban Screams was filmed principally in Prague) that it additional detracts from any phantasm of believability. The takeaway is that Suburban Screams doesn’t actually know what sort of present it desires to be; its official description tags it as a “genre-busting unscripted horror anthology sequence” that goals to faucet into “premium cinematic scene-work, information clips, dwelling pictures, and archival footage, combining the visible language of horror movies with the instruments and strategies of documentaries, making a uniquely scary expertise for viewers.” However it’s so inconsistent from episode to episode it appears like choosing one style—true crime, with documentation to again it up; eerie city legends, with an exploration of native historical past and cultural context; and even private ghost tales advised with a bit extra consideration to that “cinematic scene-work”—would have been simpler. Watch the Carpenter episode when you’re a fan and completist. But when it’s reality-based horror you search, this shouldn’t be the place you flip for a satisfying binge.
All six episodes of John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams at the moment are obtainable on Peacock.
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