The Terror is back to The Terror again. While the first two seasons of this AMC horror anthology were based on real history, six years later, the series returns with an adaptation of author Victor LaVelle’s 2012 novel The Devil in Silver, starring Dan Stevens as an everyday New Yorker confined to a crumbling Queens mental institution against his will. And that would be bad enough. But maybe Beelzebub is in there, too? This new six-episode season of The Terror, written by Lavelle and including Karyn Kusama as a featured director, also stars Michael Aronov, CCH Pounder, Aasif Mandvi, Judith Light, Marin Ireland, and Stephen Root.
Opening Shot: Moody exteriors of the “Behavioral Unit” at New Hyde Hospital in Queens, NY. The building might as well be auditioning to play Arkham Asylum.
The Gist: So things are already feeling creepy as The Terror: Devil in Silver begins, and Pepper (Stevens) hasn’t even been brought there yet. He’s a friendly if somewhat directionless type, growing out a rocker’s mullet, who’s trying to get a gig as a drum teacher off the ground while he does hoarder clean-outs for cash. But when his girlfriend’s abusive ex-husband appears, and Pepper defends her, things escalate once a crew of plainclothes NYPD cops get involved. They don’t book him at a station. They drop him at New Hyde instead.
“You are not a prisoner here,” Dr. Anand (Mandvi) tells Pepper, who grimaces at the cuffs locking him to a chair. Anything rational is quickly snuffed in the medicine-smelling halls and flickering lights of this place, and Pepper is administered a high dose of antipsychotic medication, despite being of sound mind. A nurse named Miss Chris (Pounder), Dorry (Light), a fellow patient, his roommate Coffee (Chinaza Uche), and Moby Dick-reading group leader Dr. Badger (Root) all become characters in Pepper’s new existence, where hallucinations aren’t easily discernible from New Hyde’s general awfulness.
“This hospital profits off our bodies,” Coffee tells Pepper. “Something else feeds on our souls.” There are lots of statements like this in Devil in Silver, portending evil just around a corner, just out of sight. Pepper hears scrabbling in the walls – hallucinations or nah? – and wonders about a locked door, the purpose of which no one will identify. We witness hospital staff covering up the mysterious death of another patient. (“What if he didn’t do it to himself?”) And throughout, an undefined presence seems to observe these proceedings. We look forward to the definition. “You know where you are?” Dorry shouts at Pepper, gleefully imbalanced. “You’re in the jungle, baby.” Everybody knows the rest.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This third installment of The Terror is similarly stacked with talent. It also applies the horror-tinged smarts of the first two seasons, which are well worth a rewatch. And Devil in Silver creator-writer Victor LaVelle also wrote the source material for the terrific 2023 Apple TV series The Changeling.
Our Take: Dan Stevens can do anything! He’s always real as hell, whether playing the doomed Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey, a charismatic psycho in The Guest, or a guy rescuing his sister from a messed up 1900s cult in Apostle. And we were on Pepper’s side immediately with The Terror: Devil in Silver, because Stevens plays him as a guy who knows he’s not crazy, and understands he’s been railroaded into a crazy situation, but also has the capacity to consider whether crazy was in him all along. As what feels like gaslighting grows in Devil, and unexplainable occurrences make reality hallucinatory, we’re hyped for Stevens to be the audience mirror as Pepper tries to manage inside an institution where the walls themselves seem crazy.
Devil in Silver is also having a ball bucking standard convention. In the early going, as Pepper is detained by the cops and admitted to the facility, it feels almost Kafka-esque. Why won’t anyone listen to his protestations? This is great because it makes the scary grow from a place of reality, even as the series teases its supernatural elements. We felt as disoriented as Pepper does, all hopped up on Haloperidol, as we tried to determine what were mind games and what horrible truths are really lurking in New Hyde. It’s one of those places where the inside seems like it couldn’t fit from the outside. As our hero strives for agency and escape, we’re wearing institutional footies right along with him.
Performance Worth Watching: Well, take your pick. The cast of Devil in Silver is deep, and everyone here understands the horror genre assignment. Stevens, of course, and the incomparable CCH Pounder; Stephen Root, blending eccentricity with menace; and Marin Ireland keeping us guessing about her cop’s motivations: this is a Devil you’ll want to know.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Pepper’s a metalhead, but man, the Iron Maiden classic “Run to the Hills” is really doing him dirty in his new life context. If only he could run for his life.
Sleeper Star: We really like Chinaza Uche as Coffee, Pepper’s roomie at the facility. He at least seems like an ally early on, but who knows with this place. When Pepper says he’s gotta get out of there, Coffee just puts a hand on his shoulder. “So say we all, brother.”
Most Pilot-y Line: “Do bad things happen in a place because the place is evil?” Or did bad things happening “invite the evil in?”
Our Call: Stream It! The Terror: Devil in Silver takes a new tack as the latest edition of the horror anthology, but it retains the same sense of fucking with rationality, as the standard-issue evils of our reality merge with what lies beyond. Need a shot of moody anxiety? Look to the crook eyebrow of Dan Stevens.
