REVIEW: ‘Hysteria!’ Hits All The Right Nostalgic Notes

Set during the 1980s “Satanic Panic,” Hysteria! (2024) zooms in on one small town after its beloved varsity quarterback disappears. Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and written by Matthew Scott Kane (Stitchers) and David A. Goodman (The Orville), Hysteria is a time capsule.

The series follows a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts who realize that they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band. Ditching their outcast aesthetic and donning new goth personalities, the band leans as hard as they can into it. That is until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported “supernatural activity” triggers a witch hunt that leads directly back to them, even if their persona is all for show.

Dylan (Emjay Anthony) and his friends have to maneuver their way through assumptions when they get arrested for the murder of their classmate. With the whole town against them, the series doesn’t take long to spiral its mystery even tighter as the evidence around who killed the quarterback gets murkier. Natural disasters, maybe a real demon or two, and the very dedicated and angry church mom (Anna Camp) is there to get an answer.

Expertly, though, Hysteria (2024) doesn’t just exist to make fun of the adults in the situation. It also makes a concerted effort to showcase the fear of the time, or the exacerbation, from the kids involved. Adults’ decisions don’t happen in a vacuum, and when you factor in just trying to be popular, it all gets messier. Plus, then there is the young love, too.

Hysteria (2024) is pure melodrama with enough humor to ground it all. That said, its chaos is finely honed to deconstruct and skewer the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. With incisive humor, metacommentary, and expert use of B-horror icon Bruce Campbell, everything about this series should make it your new obsession.

At just eight episodes, Hysteria (2024), even if many may not have seen it in initial marketing pushes, continues to add to Peacock’s phenomenal television lineup. While the series debuted all eight episodes in time for Halloween, its strength comes from its ability to work within a historical context, making it the perfect viewing at any time.

While the devil of it all is played up as large as it can, the larger satirical representation of the 1980s is more so a mirror of the absurdity of the Satanic Panic than a direct representation of it. The series deals with a serious moment in American pop culture, even with analogies to the real West Memphis Three. But in that, there is also an ample amount of levity. From playing goth to get more fans as a band to the weirdly satanic-obsessed church girl (Nikki Hahn) and the terrified paranoid mom, all those moments of hyper-exaggeration are endearing.

This isn’t to say that Hysteria (2024) offers any social critique beyond its surface-level satire of the 1980s and the parents who pretty much ushered in the age of helicopter parenting out of fear of the devil. Instead of offering an in-depth look, the series points and laughs at it for just how ridiculous it all was. Look elsewhere if you’re looking for a deep analysis of the time period and the ripple effects. But if you want to laugh and gawk at it? Stopping by Hysteria (2024) is the way to go.

Hysteria (2024) is fit to be your next new obsession. Not only that, it makes me want to see more takes on ridiculous pop culture movements in recent memory. Maybe a take on the satanic nature of Pokemon cards per Telemundo’s Primer Impacto? But there are plenty of moments in culture that can take this treatment in stride; Satanic Panic seems like the very tip of the iceberg.

Whether you’re in the mood for A+ nostalgia, the skewering of paranoid church moms, or some dang good Bruce Campbell moments, Hysteria (2024) is precisely what you should watch. Absurd, weird, strikingly dark, and funny all the same, the series just leaves me wanting more.

Hysteria! is streaming now on Peacock.