Peacock’s Satanic Panic Show ‘Hysteria!’ Serves Up A Serious Metal Playlist

In the new Peacock series Hysteria!, the suburban town of Happy Hollow, Michigan, is like many towns in the late 1980s, except it has a devil problem. Rumors of a Satanic cult prowling the area have some residents on edge, and after a popular jock is found dead in what seems to be a Satanic ritual, a local high school rock trio that exploits the imagery for popularity—they perform Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”—starts getting fingered as the main suspects. Things only go downhill from there—especially because real demonic activity does begin occurring—and the show serves up a great soundtrack to go along with it. Both mainstream and indie artists of the time are heard.

Created by Matthew Scott Kane, Hysteria! is a show devoted to the weird Satanic panic of the 1980s—and reimagines it as a legit thing. A 1994 New York Times story later debunked the 12,000 unproven cases of Satanic abuse and rituals in United States. These irrational demonic obsessions were certainly a contentious and marketable selling point for a lot of metal bands of the day, but there were a number of devout religious fanatics who took the situation very seriously. Hysteria! walks the line between horror and comedy, reveling in the absurdity of it all while mirroring some of the cultural craziness of today. (Let’s face it, Satan’s been making a mainstream comeback lately, from heavy rock to horror movies.)

Devilish Throwback

While attending New York Comic Con this past week, American Songwriter got the scoop from the creator and three of the stars of Hysteria! about the show, whose first season premiered October 18 on Peacock. Kane was born in 1990, but he has a passion for the period—especially ‘80s horror movies like Re-Animator, Evil Dead, and Fright Night—and he and the writers did a lot of research into the time period. Kane originally pitched the show as akin to Freaks and Geeks and Satanists, and music certainly plays an important part of the show and will likely lure in metal fans used to hearing more commercial cuts on television.

“I like King Diamond a good bit,” Kane tells American Songwriter. “I wouldn’t call myself a superfan or anything like that, but of all the bands that I sampled while going through everything in the 1980s metal scene, King Diamond definitely stood out as one of the more progressive and interesting acts. I love the fact that they tell a story with every album. It’s super cool.”

During one scene in the pilot, the character of Jordy (Chiara Aurelia), the bassist and singer for the high school trio Dethkrunch, dons makeup that recalls singer King Diamond in the late ‘80s after the initial breakup of Mercyful Fate.

Kane revealed there was a moment cut from the first episode in which one of Jordy’s bandmates tells her she looks like Gene Simmons from KISS. She replies, “No, it’s King Diamond.” “What’s the difference?” the bandmate asks. “He’s not a p–sy,” she answers.

Serious Metal Chops

Keeping with the spirit of the time, Hysteria! has very legit metal needle drops, including ‘80s indie acts like Cirith Ungol, Bathory, and Mercyful Fate, plus late ‘60s rockers Coven, whose debut album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls emerged the year before Black Sabbath’s did. (They were mentioned by MTV VJ Martha Quinn during a Tony Iommi interview back in the day.) Some of the show’s selections were unexpected for Kane, and he credits Jen Malone, the show’s music supervisor and a four-time Emmy Award nominee, for including them.

“Cirith Ungol was purely Jen Malone,” Kane says. “That was her saying, ‘I think this song would work really well here.’ She knows her stuff better than I will ever for the rest of my life. The way Bathory is used in the show is almost echoing the scene in Election when Reese Witherspoon sees all of these fliers throughout the hallway and we hear this wild tribal music start playing, and she starts ripping things off of the wall. I wanted to find the heavy metal version of that, and that ended up being Bathory.”

Julie Bowen plays the mom to the main teen in the story, and she admits she was freaked out by many hard rock and metal album covers back in the day. “We started this show, and I didn’t know anything about heavy metal at all,” Bowen recalls. “And I said, ‘Do I need to?’ I never did any scenes with the band, and also my character knew nothing about heavy metal. I was just like, ‘I guess I’m just not gonna learn anything,’ although by the end I was listening to some Danzig.”

“That was my song,” chimes in Anna Camp, who portrays an uptight Christian mom on the show. “Every day I would drive to work and listen to ‘Mother.’”

Unlike his sheriff character on the show, Bruce Campbell never saw Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin live. They weren’t his jam. He doesn’t go to many concerts, his most recent being “Sheryl Crow unplugged in an Auckland, New Zealand junior high school auditorium,” he said. “She wanted to have some weird unplugged tours. So she did ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ a cappella. It was really strange. That was the last time I was in any kind of pop culture [event] because they’re too loud and too annoying. The only time I go to mass crowd events is comic cons.”

Looking Back with Amusement

Back in 1985, 20/20 aired a ridiculous look into Satanic cults that was more tabloid journalism than legit reporting. It also implicated numerous metal bands and alleged backward messages. For a seasoned headbanger, it can be viewed as annoyingly stupid and hilarious.

“I’m glad you have that perspective,” Campbell retorts. “They’ve scared a lot of people. Look, if you were a very religious person, even to this day, and you start dancing around saying that A, the demon’s real, B, it’s coming for you—they don’t like that kind of talk. Even in fictional worlds, because you’re challenging someone’s fundamental belief of their entire existence.”

Hence, the title of the show and the way it plays on those unfounded fears.

“I was an adult [in the ‘80s], so [I’m] understanding that this is what every generation goes through,” Hysteria! co-showrunner David A. Goodman says. “That some version of Satanic panic existed for every generation because you have parents scared—‘What are my kids up to?’ We’re gonna blame something.”

The kids didn’t look all right, but they turned out fine.

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“Hysteria!” photo courtesy of NBCU