Horror and mystery giving us all the feels
As much as the horror genre loves to examine the origins of fairytales, the best of it examines something far deeper. It looks inward, to the sources of fear and the experiences that inspire it. Art itself is at its best when it examines the essential aspects of humanity. It soars when audiences see their own struggles and triumphs depicted onscreen, even if just in some small way.
Horror, of course, is rarely about overcoming something. It’s about discovering how terrible the world can be. It’s about being forced to perceive something as it is rather than how it should be. It’s about the inevitability of pain and death. It’s about the inescapable reality of a horrifying end.
There’s no doubt film and television are in a Stephen King renaissance. There has been an abundance of remakes, reboots, and series inspired directly by King’s work. It helps that he’s remarkably prolific—so much so nearly everything he writes is optioned for either the big or small screen. Luckily, he hits more than he misses.
A new series based on a very recent book is nearing its end on HBO. The Outsider looks deeply at the profound human experience of grief.
As with so many of King’s stories, The Outsider begins with a child murder. Frank Peterson is found mutilated and covered in human saliva and bite marks in a small town in Georgia.
Local detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) investigates the scene and discovers terrifying evidence that links the murder to a local little league coach and pillar of the community, Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman).
Maitland is identified by multiple eyewitnesses, all of which have damning evidence of bloody clothes and strange behavior. In addition, the van used to kidnap the child is covered in Maitland’s DNA. It looks like an open and shut case but Maitland claims to have been two hours away at an education conference. His wife confirms this.
In fact, surveillance and news cameras confirm that Maitland was in a completely different city at the time of the murder, even though local cameras say different. How can a man be in two places at once?
Things get worse from there, however. It seems that the murder of the child spreads misery outwards like a web. Death follows death and things continue to spiral as a community reels from a blow from which they’ll never recover.
Of course, when it comes to a Stephen King novel, there’s always a supernatural element involved. As the title indicates, the responsible party is something outside our normal experience. This is where the show shines. It has personified the death and grief as a creature that feeds on negative human emotions.
Good horror does this. It allows the characters to explore their reactions to an intangible, before making it tangible. It allows the audience to compartmentalize their feelings. In some ways, it allows people who have experienced grief to fight against this tangible evil alongside the characters, pulling them into the narrative to help them work through their own thoughts.
The Outsider is a slow, deliberate series; one that ponders, that lingers like the Play-Doh faced man in the shadows of the world. Initially driven by the performance of Ben Mendelsohn, the show later begins to take form through the eyes of Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo), the private detective hired to investigate how a person might be in two places at once. She is a fascinating character, one not often seen in a series like this.
Each episode is a masterclass in suspense and revelation and, while some might find the pacing off-putting, the show is riveting. Hopefully, HBO will treat the series as it should be treated. This is not a multi-season barn burner.
Just like the recent Watchman series, it will be served best by being a single season. There is no reason to drag the story out. If the showrunners allow the series to progress naturally, telling just this story and not others, it will be testament to what television can do as a medium.
Some shows are great across multiple seasons. However, the best ones know where they are going and know how to get there. The Outsider is shaping up to be a good one.