Hysteria!, new this week on Peacock, takes yellow journalism to the late ‘80s with plenty of humor and fake blood. Demons, mistruths, and U.S. history abound in the platform’s new horror-comedy, which stars Julie Bowen, Bruce Campbell, and Anna Camp. The trio was at New York Comic Con (NYCC) to discuss the show.
Set in the 1980s, the series follows the residents of a small town in the Michigan suburbs. Bowen plays the mother of an unpopular high school student who loves heavy metal. When a popular teen disappears, he takes the opportunity to use the town’s panic over a satanic symbol to boost his image and his band’s, too. The cast hinted plenty to come in the show’s eight episodes, including the possibility of a cult, the supernatural, or folie à deux.
“My kids were born in the Reagan era, and that was very my-way-or-the-highway, right-is-wrong, drug-are-bad, the whole bit. So if you tell someone that this music is Satanic, then there’s going to be some people go, great, I’m going to start writing some Satanic shit just out of spite,” Campbell says. “I think it’s just human nature.”
About the Satanic Panic, Campbell says, “A couple of reporters followed all of these reports over the years, and really followed any kind of court cases of like, ‘Was there a satanic worship?’ They couldn’t find shit that actually stuck with anybody. That lets you know what a crock the whole thing was. There’s always going to be a certain percentage of society that’s twisted and doing weird shit. Nothing spiked during that time. It shows you though: Disinformation is not new. It’s as old as the hills.”
Kane was inspired by the birth of “fake news” when he started the project in 2019. “People are spreading disinformation and there’s not a lot to do to check it,” he says. “That freaks me out so much that you can just lie about one thing and change the way an entire country can think about X, Y, and Z.” He was reminded of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s: “Moms and dads were telling their kids that the Smurfs were going to try to brainwash them to be … Satanists. And the Ninja Turtles were in on it too. It was so silly. It felt like a really fun era to explore something scary that’s been going on recently. So we took it back to the ’80s where you can do John Hughes, you can do heavy metal, you can do horror, you can do all that stuff — and have so much more fun with it than you could talking about it today or even 10 years ago.”
Camp plays a religious zealot, while Campbell portrays the town’s police chief.
“My character is not cool or a rock and roller. She definitely dressed like this little sister wife,” Camp says. “She’s a little sister wifey. Yeah, she’s a little tipper Gore.” While everyone was reluctant to spoil anything, Camp warns, “So there’s nothing scarier than a false profit. And they say that in the show and I think it’s terrifying to see all of these followers blindly following her. And she’s very excited by the power of it, too.”
Campbell was less reluctant than his castmates, but admitted he had little to reveal: “I can’t spoil this show. I don’t know what this show is about because there’s so many twists and turns, which is fantastic.” He was quick to praise the quality of the writing and script, too. “There’s a lot of crappy scripts out there. I’ve made a lot of ’em. I’m grateful to the movies that sucked in my day because it informs you to the stuff that you really want to do. And when something’s well written you go, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good,’” he adds.
Regarding his character, Campbell says, “As an actor, you’re supposed to do what the part demands. So if he’s not cracking jokes, then I’m not cracking jokes. He’s the straight man. I consider myself to be a reasonable man. So you play a reasonable man, you need that in this story, in this small town.”
Bowen, who may be best known for her role as Claire Dunphy in Modern Family, told the panel that the pilot’s end appealed to her. She found that her character was more than just a mother, which made filming away from her kids worth it. As for her burgeoning reputation in horror — Bowen stared in last year’s Totally Killer — Bowen is surprised. She doesn’t like horror.
“I didn’t really think of it that way. I thought Totally Killer was Totally Comedy,” she says. “I don’t like Halloween. I’m scared too easily. I don’t don’t want bones and blood. I don’t like it. But I do like getting to do different roles and characters and something dark.”
Series creator Matthew Scott Kane tells reporters he’ll never confirm the truth of the source of the town’s misery. He promised a hint for eagle-eyed viewers of the finale. “There is a hint in the show, in the finale, that it’s a really blink and you miss it kind of moment. That will give viewers a pretty good idea of who the demon really is.”
All episodes of the series are streaming on Peacock. | Source: Peacock
Bruce Campbell stars in the series. | Source: Peacock
Kane revealed that obtaining rights to 1980s hits — from Belinda Carlisle to Judas Priest — was easy. (He wanted “Beth” by KISS, but couldn’t get it — but made a point of noting that the band’s name stands for Knights of Satan’s Service, which the band has denied.) As a result, the show features plenty of nostalgic needle drops.
While getting the music rights may have been a breeze, getting the show off the ground was not as easy. Hysteria! was sold to another network before it was acquired by Peacock. Production was ready to begin last year in Atlanta before it was put on hold due to the writer’s strike.
“We had a whole summer after we had been building up for so long to finally do this show and then everything just stopped,” Kane says. “To come back to Georgia, finish the job, come back to Los Angeles, edit it, [and] get everything put together was so gratifying for me. But to be here, frankly, is very surreal in a way that I don’t think I’ve processed yet. I’ve been with it for so long that I don’t know what it’s going to be like.”
During the panel, Executive Producer David A. Goodman hinted but did not confirm the series’ renewal for a second season: “I’m very optimistic. I’ve been on a lot of shows. When I read Matthew’s pilot script, it was one of the best scripts I’ve ever read.” He adds, “We made something that I am so proud to be a part of. I know it’s going to connect with a big audience.”
Fans of horror and heavy metal can watch all eight episodes on Peacock.
