The first three seasons of Syfy’s Channel Zero found clever ways to combine fears that veered closer to traditional horror film iconography with those based in the existential and emotional. Indeed, the show’s ability to do just that is certainly a part of why it is arguably the best horror show currently on television. While Channel Zero has cycled through evil puppets, monsters made of teeth, memory clones, cannibals, psychotic dwarves, and meat-men, it has also explored horror present in the everyday: the guilt of losing a loved one, fear of your own mind turning against you, the pain of lingering memories, etc. The emotional depths that Channel Zero so frequently explores are a huge part of what makes the more visceral horror elements work, investing us not only in characters’ safety but often their emotional well-being and ability to live a happy life.
And thus we open the Dream Door, the title of Channel Zero’s fourth season, directed this time by indie horror director EL Katz (Cheap Thrills, Small Crimes). While season one started with a nightmare sequence, and seasons two and three with more traditionally visceral horror sequences, this new season begins with a sex scene. And yet, the sequence feels uneasy: Katz starts with a shot of a conspicuously absent home, slowly and ominously zooming into nothing in particular. Additionally, the first sounds we hear are moans, but without seeing the individuals moaning, it’s tough to tell whether they’re sounds of pleasure or screams of pain. While the opening of Channel Zero: Dream Door departs from more traditional horror, it’s still clear that something is off here, and, to Katz’s credit, this mood never lets up; in fact, it snowballs into even greater tension as we are introduced to our cast of characters.
Check out the trailer for Channel Zero: Dream Door:
From here, we meet our protagonists: Jillian and Tom (Maria Sten and Brandon Scott), a recently married couple who’ve just moved into the house Tom grew up in. Their marriage seems a happy one, with the actors having remarkably palpable chemistry, as we see them go about fixing up the house and rediscovering old pictures in the basement. But the mood of the first scene persists, an uneasy droning filling the soundtrack, courtesy of composer Jeff Russo (Fargo, Legion). Another indication of something strange ahead is that, upon finding the aforementioned old pictures in their basement, a pug appears out of nowhere. This is no exaggeration: while exploring the basement, a puppy runs out, blindsiding the characters and the audience in the process. Jill is quick to accept this strange and impossible visitor as their new family pet, claiming she had a stuffed animal just like it as a kid. While Tom is left more bewildered by the happening, he too eventually shrugs it off.
One of the few demerits that has troubled Channel Zero in its run is the problem of dialogue. The dialogue in the show isn’t necessarily bad, but the six-episode-season lengths mean that a lot of episodes contain dialogue that is expository and on-the-nose. An early scene in Channel Zero: Dream Door involving dinner with the couple’s friend Jason and his Tinder date largely serves as an excuse to introduce an audience surrogate who can have Jill and Tom’s story recounted to them. It’s hard not to see the scene as mostly functional, though Nicholas Tucci’s performance as Jason adds some dose of cringe comedy to the sequence, as he flirts poorly with his uninterested date, who’s more invested in Jill and Tom’s lifelong romance and friendship.
The dinner party: Tom (Brandon Scott) and Jillian (Maria Sten)
In keeping with the tone of earlier scenes, a large source of the horror and even more so, the drama involves a rift forming between our central couple, as a strange encounter in the store between Tom and a mysterious woman leads Jill to think that Tom might be cheating on her. Most of the episode is dedicated to this tension, as Tom stumbles in an effort to deny his actions. And while it’s left uncertain whether or not Tom is telling the truth, it’s clear that something is off here, compounded by the fact that, after an intense argument between the two later in the episode, we see Tom drive off to a totally different woman’s house (played by horror icon Barbara Crampton). This drama is compelling and genuine, although scenes involving Jill and her therapist fall victim again to exposition. This is integrated slightly better than the dinner scene, however, since the therapist helps illuminate Jill’s backstory (involving her parents’ messy marriage, which is clearly weighing on her) in a way that’s noticeably more natural than the dinner scene.
Channel Zero: Dream Door
And then, of course, there’s the door. The door appears as suddenly as the dog did, but, to the extent that it coincides with Jill’s increasing paranoia, it feels like a visualization of the tension that’s informed the drama of the episode. That a door manages to be foreboding and strange while remaining visually mundane shows the significant talent Katz has behind the camera. The more stylized camerawork used in the sequences where the protagonists struggle to open this mysterious door manages to work without veering too much into empty stylistic gestures, partially because the heightened dread and flat-out strangeness of the sequence lends a strange existential drama to the sequence. And, just as the dread starts to reach a fever pitch, we are introduced to the most interesting portion of the episode: Pretzel Jack. This figure is briefly introduced in the dinner scene as an imaginary protector that Jill had in her youth, based on a contortionist she saw at the circus. Upon finally opening the door and finding a staircase leading to another door, Jason and Tom give up their efforts to crack open these incredibly difficult doors. But when Jill, independent of the other characters, finally manages to open the door, she sees Pretzel Jack in the flesh. He then runs at her in a sequence that is jarring, strange, frightening, and funny, in the same way the dancing murderer featured in season three was. There’s a palpable bewilderment when he’s introduced and, to the show’s credit, Pretzel Jack’s design incorporates all the bizarreness that comes with a child’s imagination: his arms are long, his smile has all the roughness of a child’s illustration, and there’s a strange sense of joy permeating each of his movements.
Pretzel Jack (Troy James)
All these elements come together in a final scene that’s one of the creepiest of the series’ run, while also managing to be, well, kinda funny. It’s a hard humor to articulate, but the juxtaposition of Pretzel Jack’s whimsy and eventual intense violence is jarring and amusing all the more for its sense of jarringness. Luckily, this doesn’t prevent the sequence from being scary, and it takes full advantage of the abilities of real-life contortionist Troy James, who plays Pretzel Jack, as he is framed like Michael Myers crossed with an insect. Katz’s ability to first hint at Jack’s presence and then make good on it with an intense horror scene (that shouldn’t be spoiled here) shows that we’re in good hands for this season.
While the premiere is certainly flawed, it’s never anything less than compelling, and points to Dream Door being one of Channel Zero’s most interesting seasons yet, like a strange clash between the marital drama of a film like Kramer Vs. Kramer and John Carpenter’s Halloween, held together by EL Katz’s steady directing and grip on difficult tonal contrasts. The premiere also leaves a lot of lingering questions, especially regarding Jill’s connection to the manifestations in the house, as well as exactly who Barbara Crampton is. Though we have until October 26th to wait, the lingering sting of the premiere is enough to keep a Channel Zero fan excited.
You can find Channel Zero on the Syfy Channel.
Tim Costa is a writer and frontman for Massachusetts post-punk band Vaguely Vogue. When he’s not obsessing over John Carpenter or Swamp Thing, you might find him writing reviews like this.
He has previously written on George A. Romero’s Martin for Horror Homeroom.
