SummaryDeath row attorney Henry (Andre Holland) returns to his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine after receiving a call from Shawshank in this psychological horror series from J.J. Abrams and Stephen King.
SummaryDeath row attorney Henry (Andre Holland) returns to his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine after receiving a call from Shawshank in this psychological horror series from J.J. Abrams and Stephen King.
Shaw, Thomason, Abrams & Co. really nail the core concepts of King’s storytelling here. Each character gets a good amount of screen time to focus on introspection. ... Castle Rock is a can’t-miss series for Stephen King fans and a must-watch horror show for fans of dark, thrilling, character-focused mysteries.
Through its first three episodes, Castle Rock builds out its world and character relationships thoughtfully and deliberately. Whether it holds up through the entire 10-episode first season remains to be seen, but Castle Rock gets off to a strong, engrossing start.
It’s probably not the best news to hard-core Stephen King fans that I like what I’ve seen of Castle Rock, the J.J. Abrams-produced Hulu series that’s set in one of the fictional Maine towns King has so creepily populated. Because I’m the kind of viewer who tends to like the TV adaptations of King’s stories right up until the moment the otherworldly horror really gets going.
When Castle Rock is focused on being a damn fine story--a smart one, a playful one--it can be good, even great. When it tries to be a wonderland for King fans, it races past the line of referential, rounds through fan service, and steps into cliché, sometimes even inching toward self-parody. Your response to that particular tendency may range from puzzlement, particularly if you’re not much of a King fan, to downright irritating.
A bit of a mixed bag. As the series unfolds, there are King-like touches aplenty, including spectacular acts of violence, unnerving monologues by folksy keepers of Castle Rock lore, and flashbacks that give you just enough information to chill the blood but not enough to resolve ongoing mysteries.
If it’s meant to frighten, it’s not very good at that. If it’s meant to ruminate on the nature of evil, then that message never gets through. If it’s meant to creep you out, then it barely registers. ... The first three episodes, which premiere in one chunk Wednesday (a new episode will be released each week), spend too much time laying groundwork, meting out clues and references at such a sluggish pace that they’re not worth noting, unless the show considers its mission to act as a Stephen King book club.