There have been a slew of horror thrillers centred on writers. Misery, The Shining, 1408, Secret Window Only men, it appears, are capable of being tormented by spirits and ghosts while facing their demons. Courtney Cox is a natural fit for Shining Vale. It tackles depression and marital difficulties with a wonderful blend of a rough, humorous edge and a creepy ghost narrative.
Pat Phelps, played by Cox, is a novelist who had an affair with a hot handyman in Brooklyn, so she and her husband, Terry (Greg Kinnear), decide to relocate their family to Connecticut for a fresh start. The characters are yearning for a new beginning or a different perspective, as they are in most unsettling stories. For the sake of the audience, here’s a pro tip. Don’t buy a frightening house if you’re trying to save your marriage. Try your hand at pottery or enrol in a dance class. It can’t end well in a massive mansion with cobwebs and creaking stairs.
Pat made a name for herself by penning Cressida, a sex-filled, female empowerment narrative that has been compared to smut. While Pat waits for her follow-up, her editor becomes frustrated and tells her to embrace her style of corset-ripping and sex. Pat battled to get words on the paper with two astonishingly unpleasant youngsters (played by Dickinson’s Gus Birney and PEN15’s Dylan Gage), and it didn’t help that she was seeing images of children in period attire or Mira Sorvino as a 1950’s housewife named Rosemary.
Shining Vale is an entertaining and hilarious viewing thanks to three women. Pat is troubled by despair and fears that her mother’s madness is setting in, so Cox is permitted to lean into a more sardonic, dry style. Her strong façade does a good job of concealing her uneasiness and concerns, but her tender side shows out now and again. In recent years, Sorvino has made a comeback to our screens (check out her work in Impeachment: The People vs. the People: The People vs. the People: The People vs. the People: American Crime Story and Hollywood), but Vale allows her to work in a more comedic, period setting. Vale was co-created by Sharon Horgan and Jeff Astrof, co-creator of one of the best comedy you didn’t see, Catastrophe, and you can hear the emotional raunch that she infuses all of her characters with. Cox, Sorvino, and Horgan are a dream team of screenwriters and actors. This is the show for you if you enjoy the presence of Sherilyn Fenn (who portrays Pat and Terry’s real estate agent) as much as I do.
Shining Vale is very aware that it is a comedy, and it plays with its own tone deftly. It doesn’t forego the chuckles in favour of the jump scares, and vice versa–the two work well together. “This move is going to be fantastic!” or “I discovered a hatchet in the shed,” said the characters. With a wink, “Or maybe it’s an axe?” With its stained glass, kitschy kitchen décor, and broad, wooden staircase, the house looks quite at home in a horror film like The Conjuring.
Shining Vale is witty, crisp, and well-written. Even with the writer’s block, Cox manages to make the series a terrifyingly funny storey.
On March 6, Starz will premiere the first two episodes of Shining Vale. The first two episodes were the basis for this evaluation.