In FROM, a community of people live in a town where people enter but can never leave, a place where monsters come out at night and the real world seems a distant memory.
Streaming on Paramount, FROM begins with the sheriff ringing a bell, warning the residents that dark is coming and they need to get inside. Meanwhile, a family discovers a tree blocking the road during a road trip, which forces them to detour to a crumbling town where nothing seems quite right. They soon discover they’re trapped like the residents, who either try to live as best they can in acceptance of their lot, or take a stand to learn more about the mysterious place and how they might escape.
There’s a lot to like here, from the basic TV drama to the themes of resistance/acceptance to the weird horror elements, which include some pretty gory slaughter of people caught outside after dark. There are plenty of riddles and strange elements to keep you engaged in the mystery, very similar to LOST, in fact this show has some of the same producers. Only, because it’s streaming, it’s like watching LOST with bad language and people torn to shreds.
I do have some criticisms. One is the show tips its hand very early on to show what the monsters look like, and they’re far scarier seeing the aftermath than seeing them attack. Another is every breakthrough on a mystery only leads to another mystery, which kept millions hooked on LOST but turned me off during the second season. I feel like shows like that lean so hard on the uncanny (there’s a dog that keeps showing up for some reason, which appears designed to generate internet discussion about what it means) that I start to feel played, and then leans on weird cliffhangers so much it boxes itself into a corner, and you wind up with a finale where it was all some weird plan by God or a collective near-death experience, because nothing else works. That’s a me thing, maybe not a you thing, though, as again, millions loved LOST and watched it to the end, so if you dug that, I think you’d dig this closer-to-R-rated version of it.
Overall, I thought Season 1 was great creepy fun, and I’m already into Season 2, which is rolling at a nice pace. Check it out if you like “Area X” or LOST type stories.
Leave a Reply