I can't believe Stephen King likes this TV horror – it's not scary enough
In reality he's done much more than churn out jump scares. The only real horror in The Shawshank Redemption is the (spoilers for a film that's 30 years old) prison escape through a river of excrement.
Yet delving into child abuse by way of scientific experimentation for the new eight-episode MGM+ show The Institute suggests its meant to be at least a little bit scary.
Adapted from King's 2019 book of the same name, the show's director Jack Bender told Metro that the prolific writer liked what the production team were doing so much he opted to come on board with an executive producer credit. You might be left wondering what it was he liked so much.
Bear in mind that this is someone (King) who mounted a lengthy legal battle against New Line Cinema for making such a pig's ear of adapting his short story into the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man that he no longer wanted his name anywhere near it.
Yet this new adaptation hews closely to King's book. Maths prodigy Luke (Joe Freeman, of Martin Freeman progeny) is snatched in the night, along with the entire contents of his childhood bedroom, to be recreated in a windowless room in a government lab.
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This is a top-secret prison place for kids with special powers (telekinesis, telepathy), helmed by a shadowy group of operatives who are led by Mary-Louise Parker's unhinged Ms Sigsby.
Luke has a location tracker stapled onto his ear and is expected to make nice with the other lab rats, all of whom want to escape but have mostly abandoned trying. Instead, they await being sent to the next part of the tortuous facility, ominously referred to as The Back Room.
They've been hand-picked for their psychic powers to predict the future and avert catastrophe. But to achieve this they have to be ruthlessly tortured in scenes that will make you wince. They're told that after they complete the trial by experimentation, they will be released. In reality, this looks ever more unlikely.
Meanwhile in nearby DuPray, Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes) rolls into town and gets a job as the local nightknocker – a King invention that essentially seems to mean night watchman, but also involves a key lock thingamajig which is never entirely explained.
The Institute is concerned with the clash between good, evil and those who are the latter but believe they're pursuing the former. But is it itself any good? So so.
The Stranger Things comparisons might have already been headed off by the show's creatives, but they're still inevitable and unfortunately leaves this feeling derivative.
The resemblance makes it seem this show is aping the Netflix hit, which does feel unfair given that the Duffer brothers have been paying homage to King all along, sampling everything from It's creepy small town Americana to the boyish 80s youth of Stand By Me.
Filmed in Nova Scotia and with MGM (owned by Mr Bezos) money doing the talking, the show looks excellent and has locked in performances. But you can't help feeling it's phoned in. Plot points are seen coming a mile off and not enough work is done to get you to care much for the too-many characters – beyond the human impulse not to want to see children being tortured.
Deputy TV Editor Tom Percival shares the creepiest TV you can stream now… The Haunting of Hill House . A twisty-turny show that follows the Crain family as they deal with the horrors in their new home.
. A twisty-turny show that follows the Crain family as they deal with the horrors in their new home. From . A mystery box show, but one that's full of horrible monsters like the worst jack-in-the-box imaginable.
. A mystery box show, but one that's full of horrible monsters like the worst jack-in-the-box imaginable. The Terror . A dark tale wrapped in the clothes of prestige drama (presumably to keep warm in the Arctic setting).
. A dark tale wrapped in the clothes of prestige drama (presumably to keep warm in the Arctic setting). Teacup . Follows a group of neighbours who find a strange man in a gas mask painting a blue line across their farmland. Yikes.
. Follows a group of neighbours who find a strange man in a gas mask painting a blue line across their farmland. Yikes. The Outsider. The Stephen King entry. A detective investigates the murder and mutilation of a young boy.
It might be another unfairness to lay all of this at the TV show's feet, given that it's an adaptation of a King novel that reviews at the time said felt like a result of his prolific output. It was all too familiar, like he had tossed in a bunch of scraps from previous dishes (Firestarter, Carrie, Needful Things). More Trending
Despite what was said up top about unfair expectations, you can't help feeling a touch disappointed given this has King's seal of approval. Where are the bone-chilling creeps and fearsome embodiments of evil?
It's a noble tale of how we don't do right by kids and so are ourselves the baddies. You just wish it cared a bit more about teasing out the monstrosity rather than the message.
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The Institute will premiere exclusively in the UK on MGM+ on the 13th July.
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