Interview with ‘HYSTERIA!’ Writers Matthew Scott Kane and David A. Goodman

There has always been a generational divide. Parents seem to always feel their kids are ‘going too far’, with the culture being pushed to extremes. Peacock’s new show HYSTERIA! examines the idea that growing up and parenting can be equally as frightening.

The Satanic Panic of the 1980s brings many of us the horror of mob rule connected to metal music and Dungeons & Dragons, with the legacy of it still being felt today. (There was someone in 2013 who was FINALLY exonerated from charges stemming from it.) It was that generation’s McCarthy Trials, as ‘Satan’ took the rap of everything from feminism to LGBT people. In fact, it was such an issue that Saturday Night Live at the time had the ongoing character of the Church Lady, played by Dana Carvey, who was sure everything was caused by SATAN.

Peacock’s new show HYSTERIA! is set during this time. When a popular quarterback disappears, a group of outcasts that have a metal band decide to use the incident to use the new ‘interest’ in the occult and turn themselves into a Satanic metal band. But then more people get murdered, and supernatural activity is reported. And things just go from there.

I had the chance to screen the first five episodes in preparation for an interview with the writers and executive producers Matthew Scott Kane and David A. Goodman. While a full review will be separate, I will say the show goes places I wasn’t expecting, and I’m definitely intrigued as to what happens next. (The scariest thing for me, though, was that Bruce Campbell plays a grandfather. He can’t be THAT old, right? RIGHT?)

In the press information I got, there was a note from Kane and Goodman that talks about how the show is inspired by the generational fear of what ‘those kids’ are getting up to.

So I first asked what made them set it during the Satanic Panic and what about that time period specifically drew them.

“I think there’s a lot of connective tissue from the Satanic Panic to where we are today,” said Kane. “There were a lot of people who were taking the truth and mushing it up and disseminating it to other people and reshaping their realities. So we landed on the Satanic Panic, whereas we could have gone through any number of decades and done something there. But frankly, I have such an affinity for the 1980s horror films, for the heavy metal scene in the 1980s, for John Hughes movies. So almost selfishly, I wanted to put it in the 80s so I could play in those sandboxes.”

The idea of using religion to change policy is obviously linked to what’s going on in today’s political climate. So, I asked whether they hoped to connect the themes to what’s happening now.

“It’s no specific one incident,” Kane continued. “It’s a sort of environment of fear that I think we found ourselves in today that I think we were in in the 1980s as well. This is a show that is about multiple people who are peddling fear and using it to their advantage, just as much as it is about people who are suffering who are taking the consequences of those actions and feeling that fear and having to live a life under fear. We see that today in a lot of different forms, and certainly we saw it in the 1980s when people were demonizing things like the Smurfs or Care Bears or something so ridiculously innocuous that it just kind of feels like we’re where we’re at right now.”

“These are cyclical things,” Goodman added. “It’s not just specific to the ’80s or now. It’s in the ’70s and Manson, and then and the ’60s with hippies, in the ’50s with rock and roll and bikers. There have always been things that our kids have been doing that the parents are certain are connected to true evil, and that’s the universality of the show, too. That fear of parents of ‘what is my teenager doing? Are they getting into trouble?’ And the answer is usually yes. How that fear can be overblown and overtake us is really a big part of what the show’s about.”

Finally, since Kane brought up ’80s horror films as an influence, I asked whether they had any specific favorites that may have influenced the show.

“I think my favorite films, and the way that the story unfolds in the horror space, would be Scream and Re-Animator,” said Kane. “I love the films of Tom Holland: Child’s Play and Fright Night I think are two movies that just move like bullets. And if I could write like that, I would be a happy man.”

“I think for me,” Goodman said, “in the horror genre, I was probably most influenced by Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone when I was growing up. That was a show that was on every day. The episodes were always saying something, and many of them are still quite scary. That’s somebody I’ve always admired.”

All episodes of HYSTERIA! will premiere on Peacock on October 18, 2024. Meanwhile, the USA Network and SYFY will simulcast the first episode on the 18th with USA Network airing episodes each Friday. More information can be found at Peacock’s website. Hail Satan!

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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