Becoming The Muse

FROM is an American science supernatural horror television series created by John Griffin for Epix now relaunched as MGM+. FROM Season 1 premiered on 20 February 2022. The series was renewed for a second season which premiered on 23 April 2023. In June 2023, the series was renewed for a third season set to premiere in 2024.

The series is set in an unidentified town somewhere in America, that traps travellers so they cant leave and they must survive the nightmarish creatures as well as the town’s secrets.

I watched Season 1 and Season 2 practically back to back so reviewing the show as a whole.

The Good

FROM is a suspenseful and freakishly mysterious series that never fully explains whats going on and like a mystery puzzle box you try to put the pieces together as clueless as the characters, it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

It starts of feeling like one of those wrong turn movies where travellers take a wrong turn and end up hunted by hostile inhabitants of that land… except here the hostile inhabitants arent some cannibalistic inbreds, but things that belong in nightmares.

And that thing about not knowing what, why or how things are the way the are gives the show that mystery box feel where you never know what new surprise will jump out of the box each night…

….it's like opening a book and starting from the middle. Trying to imagine what a jigsaw puzzle looks like when all you have is a few random pieces….#FromEpix

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) June 26, 2023

The show has some solid character building that gets you invested in the characters lives but all the more to turn up the dread when things go bump in the night…. Harold Perrineau as Boyd Stevens, the self-appointed sheriff and de-facto mayor of the Township is like the anchor that keeps the town together as they try to find answers.

Season 1 ended on the sort of cliff-hanger I would not wish on any audience but fortunately the next season was available and I immediately started watching that without having to wait.

Season 2 sheds a bit more light on the situation in the town and addresses the characters’ glaring lack of communication which had greatly impacted the development of the character’s story arcs and move plot along.

The Bad

For every question you get an answer to, several more questions crop up that you understand far less than you thought you did. The show will leave you frustrated in trying to figure out what in the Shroendiger’s cat is going with the resident of Fromville, is it supernatural… is it a science experiment or maybe they are in some purgatory?

Its pacing is all over the place, during the night time it can be an intense thriller that will keep you at the edge of your seat but then during the day the show is more like a drama with the residents of Fromville trying to be normal which feels weird considering their situation.

The nature of the show being set in a closed off community, means that any fatality and injuries happen to a character you having gotten invested in… You are never sure if your favourite character will survive.

Don’t forget it’s a horror show… its generous with blood and gore and has got quite the jump scares that pop up from nowhere. At times it can get a bit disturbing for sensitive viewers.

The Ugly

Getting to the end of Season 2 will have you feeling cheated that you thought you would get answers and while it does resolve a couple of things there is still lots of questions.

They touch
They break
They steal
No one here is free
Here they come
They come for three
Unless you stop the melody #FromEpix

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) June 13, 2023

The show is more intriguing than it is interesting and that’s what the show’s creators are playing on, keeping you in the dark about whats going on, I hope the actual answer to things wont end up as disappointing and confused as what happened to a show which had a similar mystery box premise, Lost.

"It's hard to see the sweater when you are the thread… … Just because we are only a thread doesn't mean we don't matter.."#FromEpix

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) June 26, 2023

An interesting thing that came out during the show is how sometimes monsters arent the things that come out at night but how people can become our worst monsters, a large number of the fatalities in the series can be attributed to someone doing something they should have known better than to do or just plain old self-centred self-preservative behaviour that puts everyone else at risk.

Final Thoughts

The mystery box theme reminded me of the series Lost from back in the day and I wasn’t surprised at all to find that  2 of its producers  Jack Bender and  Jeff Pinkner also worked on Lost.

Fun Fact: The town set was built specifically for the series in North Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia.

Is it something you would watch?… Did you watch LOST?