Gentle Readers, it’s time to take a break from my stand alone film reviews and get something we can all sink our Teeth Into (you’ll get the pun later).  It’s the Syfy Channel’s return to their awesomely dramatic roots.   I will begin by writing that they delivered!  If you dig suspense, good writing, and intricate plots, this show is not a bad bet.

Cold Open:  A nightmare.  Mike Painter, America’s Child Psychologist, is being interviewed by an asshole.  The host pries deep into Mike’s private life and how his twin brother disappeared, several children were murdered in 1988, his blood type, and pictures of his colon – ok the last two were false, but the interviewer is a jerk.  The host gives Mike water that has a dying fly in it.  He puts Mike on the spot to talk to a creepy kid on the phone… who says “Why are you afraid to go home?”  Then, the cameraman is a mannequin.  What we got here is an unreliable narrator.  We smash to the first of many odd smash cuts: a scarecrow on fire.

Mike heads home and briefly talks to his mom.  She’s concerned that he is looking into the murders.  He lies and says no.  Mike goes to the Sheriff’s office and it’s a bit of exposition time, but not too bad.  We learn that Mike’s buddy has become Sheriff and that the Sheriff’s son is a bit of a misfit.  Mike wants the files on the murders.  Mike dissembles that he’s writing a book about the murders.  Sheriff wants to makes sure the book will be respectful and mentions that the victims were missing their teeth. YEECH!  Sheriff is worried that his son is a weirdo and offers to trade files for some free psychoanalysis…. as you do.  We also get a clue as to weirdness: there are reports of a person breaking into homes, but not stealing anything.  Yikes!

Dinner Party:  They discuss how the kids are watching too much tv.  Mike checks in on Katie – the Sheriff’s daughter – who is watching a creepy puppet show.  Mike mentions this when he returns to the dinner table.  The show was called Candle Cove.  The same show that they watched as children in 1988. It has a super creepy host called Jawbone – a puppet skeleton.  The adults discuss the show some more and Mike leaves abruptly.

Mike has a flashback to bullies messing with his brother and he does nothing.  They go home and the tv turns on and it’s the creepy puppet show Candle Cove.  This show really ratchets up the creep factor.  Seriously, you will be scared.  We flashback back to Mike’s childhood room.  He wakes and sees Jawbone in his room and Mike approaches him. When he touches Jawbone, he wakes in a field looking out at the woods.  He notices a man in the woods as well.

Diner:  Mike runs into his old English teacher and she quizzes him on grammar.  We cut away to Katie’s room.  She’s vanished.   This show’s creep factor really goes up and up and up.  A search party forms to look for Katie.  Katie’s mom Jessica confronts Mike because she’s learned that he was not home for five hours the previous night.  We learn that he was in psych ward a week ago.  He begins to rave that it’s the show that somehow took Katie away.  She rationally calls for help and he disappears.  Mike is convinced that he can find Katie.

Mike goes to the Sheriff’s house and sees Dane the Sheriff’s son.  Dane says, “She said you would ask”  Taking a moment. This is becoming The Ring, Ju-on, When a Stranger Calls levels of creepy.  Mike is convinced that he knows where Katie is.  He flees into the woods towards a place called “Crow’s Nest”.  We see a number of cutaways of burying bodies and hooks to the chest.  Yep, hooks to the chest.

Mike sees Jawbone and reaches to touch it.  Jawbone flees and leads him to Katie.  Mike rescues Katie and when they leave, we see the MONSTER: a Thing Covered in Teeth.  The Tooth Monster reaches out where Katie was sitting and takes away two bloody teeth.  You wanna be scared, watch this series!

They have thrown Mike in jail because he rescued Katie…come again?  Well, he’s in jail and gets released.  When he gets home, he mentions Candle Cove to his mom.  She responds that show was just static.  We cut to all of the children of the town watching Candle Cove.

This show is absolute gooseflesh inducing.  Where Stranger Things was dripping with nostalgia and gothic horror, Channel Zero taps into sheer Hitchcock suspense and Rod Serling terror.  It’s a great show for October and just a great Thriller!