By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photo copyright MGM
In my life very few shows have caught and kept my attention from the first episode.
One of those shows was From. It felt like a cross between Stephen King and Lost (handy as the producers also worked on Lost and no, I still feel cheated after all this time by the ending).
The premise is simple, playing on the audience’s primal fears. All across America people encounter a fallen tree in the road laced with crows. Forced to take a detour they end up in a small town, the Township, which they find they cannot leave. All roads lead straight back to it. But at night doors and windows must be locked. If not then find a deep, dark hole and climb into it because creatures with human faces walk the night ready to eat you and these creatures like to play with their food before they consume them. But the Township has secrets and what lies out in the woods?
The opening scene is brutal and horrifying, perfectly setting the scenario while leaving you hanging for answers in repellent terror. Town sheriff Boyd Stevens (Lost and Z Nation star Harold Perrineau) walks through the town ringing a bell as night begins to fall. People hurry inside locking doors and windows as night falls ensuring that the Celtic looking talismans are securely over their front doors. What is the big rush for everyone to get home before dark? Is this a cult town? Is it just a small town with funny traditions? Why does a juke box tun itself on and play ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’?
One woman looks into the dusk for her husband as he is drunk and fails to get home as he should do. His wife and daughter, Megan, secure their home closing curtains and blinds. Something knocking at a window at night is never a good thing in a horror situation especially when she claims to be Megan’s grandmother and needs Megan to let her in. Immediately evil spirits and witches come to mind. Too late, the child opens the window just as the mother runs into the room. The thing at the window launches itself at them.
This hook is followed by a version of Que Sera Sera and works well as it plays over a series of children’s drawings which will become important in future storylines. The tune seems almost out of phase to the ear fitting in perfectly with the episode.
We see the shredded body of the little girl in full gory glory which tells us right from the start this is not going to be a half-arsed show. With its bad language and horror scenes we are not going to be in for an easy ride. Very few horror events have been brave enough to open with the murder of a child and especially like this.
Sheriff Boyd (Harold Perinneau) is furious at the drunken husband for letting his family die. In a way the image of Boyd walking through the cold streets ringing a bell evokes images of plague houses and the toll of doom. What evil follows on the wake of a warning bell. Boyd is so angry he pulls a gun on the grieving father and orders him locked up. You are fourteen minutes in at this point and asking what the hell is going on?
The Matthews family end up in the Township. Jim, a rollercoaster designer, his wife Tabitha and their two kids, Julie and Ethan. They are dealing with a breaking marriage and the death of one of their children. Julie teases her brother Ethan about monsters and death based on his games and action figures. Phrases said here will come back to bite we are sure
“There are no such things as monsters. Once dead you never come come back” are creepily based on what we have seen so far so the Matthews beliefs are about to be shattered. But they arrive in the middle of the funerals of the mother and daughter killed in the opening hook. They are nervous as something doesn’t feel right. But no matter what they do they keep coming back to the town.
The oppressive atmosphere pervades the entire episode and the series as you can feel the fear and stress. God knows how may people have come through here. It is the same every time and the people already there must convince them of this crazy story before night falls. They know what happens to anyone caught outside at night. But we can see the town is divided and tempers are frayed to say the least. Why do some people live in the town and the others in the colony house? Why is Boyd estranged from his son in a place they are trapped in?
This includes Boyd and deputy Kenny’s decision to use a tyre track to stop the Matthews RV. It is getting too close to nightfall so they have to be brutal. But the Matthews get into a crash with another car. When Kenny and the others hear the crash they run towards it. They take the two men out of the car, new comer drugged up Jade and Toby. Ethan’s leg has been speared and he is trapped. Boyd and medic Kristi send the others back to town while they stay with Jim and Ethan.
The tension mounts when Kenny and the others accidentally hit the tyre track and are forced to run for the safety of town before it is too late. We soon learn why; from out of the woods emerge figures that converge on the RV containing Ethan, Body Jim and Kristi.
This is a masterpiece in setting up a premise in a drip drip fashion mixed with visual clues right in front of you that won’t have any meaning for the viewer until the story begins to unfold. Boyd is a man living on the edge seemingly responsible for everyone. His anger at the death of Megan mirrors his own pain as his son does not want to speak or live with him. So many questions that form this strange place which when you watch further becomes even stranger. At the time of writing this, we have just finished season three, stunned by the revelations and cliffhanger they delivered.
In the Time Warriors books, the mantra everything happens for a reason is instrumental to events but here we can see the arrival of the Matthews and the arrogant Jade is not a coincidence but I can’t tell you why. Sorry. But you will have a ball finding out what I mean and just why this prison, if it is a prison, exists.
You feel cold watching it and the sense of looking over your shoulder never leaves. But that simple cliffhanger of the four trapped in the crashed RV works so well because we know that in From, not even the children are safe.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 