Skip to main content

Why ‘Castle Rock’ is the Best Horror Show (Even if You’re Not a Hardcore Stephen King Fan)

castle rock Henry Deaver André Holland)
Henry Deaver (André Holland). Hulu

Hulu’s new show, Castle Rock, takes place in the Stephen King multiverse of, well, Castle Rock — a fictional town in Maine that is, for all purposes, a place you don’t wanna live.

Pulling elements from King’s hometown, Castle Rock has been the setting for over a dozen of King’s novels, including Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body (aka Stand By Me), and Needful Things. Moreover, 24 additional novels and short stories by King reference the creepy town, such as It and Pet Cemetery. It’s also the home of the famous Shawshank Prison.

Related Videos

CASTLE ROCK is really good, each episode better than the last. But put all that Easter egg stuff aside and just enjoy it on its own terms. The cast is incandescent and they support a story worth telling.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 1, 2018

Major fans can lose themselves in a K(ing)-hole during this new psychological horror, but it isn’t necessary to know squat about the writer or his anthology to reap all the delicious suspense and mystery the show delivers.

We were hooked the moment we saw the trailer featuring Bill Skarsgård, the horror genre’s It boy who is quickly becoming the hottest thing since Boris Karloff.

Then, when Hulu dropped not one, not two, but three episodes on the show’s debut on July 25, we binged through the hour-long episodes with a feeling we haven’t felt since forever: true suspense and utter fascination.

In other words, don’t waste your time with season one of The Sinner on Netflix.

Castle Rock: Official Trailer • A Hulu Original

Immediately the viewer is wrapped into the deadly sheath of Castle Rock and all its mysteries (we almost got a Twin Peaks vibe, in all the right ways). You’re pulled along slowly (it does take patience) but with the killer timing you’d expect from both Stephen King and Executive Producer J.J. Abrams (Sarah Lawrence College alma mater shout-out).

By episode two, you’ll be hunting down the Stephen King Easter eggs hidden throughout the show (i.e. actors from Carrie, Rose Red, and It return to play new characters). Or, if you’re a hardcore King fan, you’ll be losing your mind at how brilliantly creators Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason have made use of past characters, places, and crimes.

As of right now, the 10-episode season that will end on September 12 is at its half-way mark and we eagerly await every Wednesday for a new episode.

castle rock Bill Skarsgård The Kid
The Kid (Bill Skarsgård). Hulu

The story starts in 1991 with the disappearance of a boy, Henry Deaver (played by André Holland), and his adopted father. The father turns up dead before Henry is found and the town of Castle Rock believes the kid murdered him. Flash forward to present day, the warden of Shawshank Prison (Terry O’Quinn) kills himself on his last day at work. A new warden (Ann Cusack) assigns people to investigate an unoccupied area of the prison and the guard Dennis Zalewski (Noel Fisher) finds an underground tunnel where “The Kid” (Skarsgård) is being kept in a cage by the old warden. There is no information on The Kid and the only words he says is “Henry Deaver.” Zalewski calls Deaver, now a criminal attorney specializing in death-row inmates in Texas, who returns home to Castle Rock to learn more about the identity of The Kid.

A Fibonacci spider’s web unfolds, revealing old and new secrets, madness, and murder. Based on its current sprinkling of revelations, we believe the show will only get better and better. It doesn’t withhold to a painful degree like a certain second season on HBO (cough Westworld cough).

Rotten Tomatoes currently gives Castle Rock an 85 percent approval rating, while 97 percent of Google users liked the show. We recommend it especially if you get down on Stranger Things, The X-Files, or Twin Peaks.

Editors' Recommendations

The 10 best Amazon Prime original movies to stream today
These incredible Amazon Prime original movies are worth a watch (or two)
best amazon prime original movies report

If you know anything about Amazon (and let's be honest, who doesn't), you probably know it as one of the biggest retailers in the world. As that retail business continues to grow, though, Amazon has also gotten into the streaming game in a major way. There are lots of movies on Amazon Prime movies as well as plenty of shows, but this list is focusing on the streaming films that have been produced by Amazon as a studio. Amazon clearly wants to be a dominant player in Hollywood, in addition to the dominance it already has in the world of retail, and based on this list, it's well on its way.

Because Amazon is such a new studio, all of the movies on this list are quite recent. Hopefully, that means that they feel vibrant and relevant, and will continue to hold up for years to come.

Read more
Easy, Intuitive Cleaning with DEEBOT T10 OMNI: Hey YIKO, Vacuum and Mop My Home
ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI cleaning floors

This content was produced in partnership with ECOVACS.
Picture this, you've just sat down after a hard day's work, barely have a moment of respite, and your phone rings. It's your mother-in-law and she's going to pay an impromptu visit. Before even hanging up you're wracked by a state of panic. The house is a mess. There's clutter everywhere. It will take forever to organize, vacuum, mop, clean, and get everything else done before she arrives. It's not a fun situation but let's rewind here. If you had ECOVACS' newest state-of-the-art smart vacuum and all-in-one cleaning system, the DEEBOT T10 OMNI, the situation would be barely an inconvenience.

The DEEBOT T10 OMNI has an all-in-one station that handles just about everything you'd need it to, like auto-emptying the dustbin, auto-cleaning the mop attachments, and auto-hot-air-drying the mop. It's the most advanced docking station on the market, but AI is baked into this system at nearly every touchpoint. Intuitive AI voice controls allow you to issue voice commands without moving a muscle. It could be as easy as calling out, "Okay YIKO, start cleaning here!" It knows exactly where "here" is thanks to a built-in voice locator. AI is also leveraged to prevent the spread of granular particles while it's vacuuming, so it won't make a bigger mess. Coupled with sophisticated mapping and object detection, plus a large battery, this thing will just keep going as long as it needs to. If all of that sounds like something you might need, keep reading.
Buy Now
 
The Best Features First

Read more
The best horror podcasts (listen to at your own risk)
Want a good chill? Check out the best horror podcasts of 2023
A scary sketched Frankenstein monster.

A good scary story doesn't just come to life. It takes great narrative ability and some out-there content. Fortunately, there's a podcast for just that.

Sure, we love a good music podcast, but sometimes you want that eye-opening rush otherwise known as fear. The best horror podcasts reawaken that sense and remind us that not only are humans strange, but some things are just really, really hard to explain. So as the days get a little longer and the darkness of winter subsides, hang on to a bit of that darkness with a good old-fashioned terrifying tale.

Read more