Plot: In a mysterious town, any one who visits is immediately trapped. When night falls, creatures from the forest threaten all those who live in the town.
There hasn’t been a good horror show in a long time and when FROM released, expectations were low. The show clearly suffers from a weak marketing strategy and since the title is a generic word, it doesn’t yield many results on social media, nor would you find fandom pages for it.
At first glance, the show appears to be sci-fi, and haven’t we already seen a show where people are trapped in one place and must use whatever resources they have to survive?
So what makes FROM different?
For one, the horror scenes.
While the show will inevitably draw comparisons from LOST, there is no doubt that FROM has managed to create a unique identity of its own. The threats are eerie, the characters are well-etched, and the story is gripping.
There’s never a dull moment in this show and every scene has some significance although it isn’t as obvious as first. Clearly, the writing is intelligent and absorbing.
The show isn’t devoid of borrowed themes but it still manages to bring in a fresh dose of horror from the very first episode.
FROM (Season One Plot)
In a quiet little town, Sheriff Boyd is walking down the streets with a bell in hand, warning everyone to get home soon. In the diner, a sweet young woman, Sara, advises everyone that the diner is closing down and so they need to get home.
A little girl, Meagan, is on a swing and wants to play outside just for five more minutes but she is told by her mother Lauren that it is going to be dark soon.
At a bar, a drunkard called Frank falls to the floor and is unable to make it home on time before dark.
At a clinic, Deputy Kenny is playing chess with his father who has dementia, but the deputy too must hurry home. He talks with Kristi, the doctor in town who assures him his father will be well taken care of.
Each of the residents in town, lock their doors once the sun sets and make sure a talisman is hanging by their door.
However, Meagan, who is just getting into bed, hears a voice from the window. She pulls up the shades and sees a sweet old woman. Meagan tells her she doesn’t look like her grandmother but the old woman manages to convince the little girl to open the windows.
Lauren arrives at her daughter’s bedroom and forbids her from opening the window but it is too late. Meagan opens the window, and the old woman enters. Her face changes and she becomes a monstrous entity who attacks.
The scene will remind you somewhat of Salem’s Lot.
We didn’t meet the Matthews family who are travelling in an RV. The family consists of parents Jim and Tabitha, teenager Julie, and younger son, Ethan.
Julie keeps giving Ethan a hard time and their parents try their best to discipline their kids. Just then, the family comes across a fallen tree and the crows surrounding it.
Following that, the family realizes that they keep going around a town in circles and the residents seem to look at them with obvious discomfort.
We then see Boyd and Kenny lay down a stripe of spikes, a trap for the RV so that they could stay in the town.
Things take a chaotic turn when the RV is hit by a car and falls into a ditch. Boyd and Kenny rush to help them and manage to save Julie, Tabitha, and Jim, but Ethan has a spike through his leg that restricts movement.
In the other car is Tobey and Jade, both injured. The residents of this quaint town try to help the injured.
Kristi inspects Ethan and informs everybody that it will be difficult to move little boy immediately. Boyd realizes what Kristi is trying to say is that they cannot leave the RV and must spend the night.
Jim is allowed to stay while Kenny takes charge of Jade, Tabitha, and Julie. In a hurry to get indoors, however, they end up driving over the spikes originally intended for the RV.
In the RV, Jim is dubious about what Boyd has to say about staying put in the RV considering he can hear voices outside who can help. Boyd discourages him and the three must keep their calm as outside the monsters with human faces and voices, advance upon them.
Kenny and the others barely make it to a large house in the dark and the woman who is in charge there, Donna, allows everyone inside but also has a shotgun pointed at them. Tobey is taken to a clinic where Sara visits him.
The sweet young woman hears voices and they tell her to kill him. She kisses Tobey before killing him and then opening the doors to the clinic.
At the house, Julie meets a strange man called Victor who just has to eat canned peaches everyday. Julie is freaked out by him but saved by Fatima who is nice to her. She also acquaints herself with Ellis who is Boyd’s son but clearly has some issues with his father.
Julie and Tabitha are finally allowed to see each other but are freaked out by what they have experienced in this town, and especially when they are told that they can never leave.
In the morning, Kristi manages to help Ethan and bring him back to Tabitha and Julie. The family meets the priest, Father Khatri who shows them around town and how they must accept their new life now.
He tells them they will be given a chance as to whether to live in town or in the Colony House with Donna.
Julie is the only one who chooses the Colony House. The rest of the family is given Frank’s house. Frank is being punished for allowing his family to be killed. He was supposed to protect them and bolt the windows. His failure to do so had made Meagan open the windows to the old woman.
Frank gracefully accepts his punishment in the box where he will be subjected to being terrorized by the creatures of the forest.
Tabitha and Jim are shocked by what they witness inside the house but are determined to make the best of the situation.
Jade is in disbelief over his new situation and is clearly under the influence. He believes his friend has played a prank on him and created an Escape Room for him to solve. When he is showed the grave of his friend, realization finally hits and he accepts Kenny’s invitation to stay at his house.
Later, Jade visits a local bar to drown his sorrows. Tom, the bartender has been making local alcohol that takes some time getting used to. But its all everyone can get and they make the best of what they can do. Jade sees a radio behind him. He used to be a software engineer and believes he can make the radio work. He snatches it and goes off with it.
At the Colony House, Julie is shocked to discover that she must share her clothes. One of the residents, Trudy, is already wearing Julie’s clothes without taking her permission. Fatima rescues Julie from Trudy’s odd behavior by showing her a special space with curtains that she and Ellis prepared for her. Julie is overjoyed to find that she will have some privacy at least. Unknown to all the residents in the house, one of them, Kevin, has been talking to a woman from the outside. He truly believes she isn’t a demon and is in love with her.
Ethan has been seeing a boy in white ever since he came to stay at the house. He finds out that Victor may know about him too and goes with him into the forest. Victor believes that the trees are moving and that is something peculiar about the forest. He shows Ethan the trees that he calls the Faraway Tree. As soon as anything enters the tree, it exits out of someplace else.
At the diner, Sara receives another message from the voices, this time on her skin. Something crawling under her skin spells out a message to kill the boy. Since Sara has been serving Ethan pancakes, she guesses it is him. She gets a seizure.
Kristi takes care of her and the two stay up all night talking. Sara asks Kristi if she would do whatever it takes to get out of here, even if it means she would do something bad. Kristi used to be engaged and implies that she would do whatever it took to get back to her girlfriend.
Sara decides to go ahead with her plan to do away with a boy. Her brother Nathan grows concerned of Sara’s mental health and confides in Father Khatri.
Jade enlists Jim’s help with the radio since Jim used to build rides. Together they take out parts from the cars the others came in before being stranded. They consider building a tower to get a signal from the outside world.
At home, Tabitha and Ethan are worried and to distract them, Jim comes up with an idea to write whatever is going on in their minds, on the walls. Tabitha questions everything, including where the electricity is coming from since it doesn’t seem to be coming from any source. She considers digging through the basement and follow the lines.
Sara comes to visit Ethan and makes up some excuse to lock Tabitha in a barn. She goes to Ethan and prepares to kill him, only for Nathan and Father Khatri to come just in time. In an attempt to restrain his sister, Nathan takes the knife from Sara only for her to accidentally slit his throat.
Nathan dies and Father Khatri hides Sara rather than report her to Boyd. He lies that she ran away. Boyd is still disturbed from Frank being killed in the box. He goes to find Tabitha and assures her and Jim that the family will be safe from now on.
Ethan has run to Julie and she brings him back to the parents. They all have a family moment.
Father Khatri sits with Sara and believes that they are being tested by God. Sara manages to convince Father Khatri about the voices by telling him about the bag he brought with him and buried it. He freaks out as he didn’t want anyone to know about his past.
Realizing he will need Boyd’s help, he tells him that the boy contained a candy wrapper, the one he gave to a boy in his church once. The boy had wanted help but Father Khatri had sent him home. The boy was being abused by his father and Father Khatri arrived to late to save the little boy’s life. He has lived in guilt ever since.
Boyd is stunned to discover Sara is being kept hidden but trusts Father Khatri.
He goes to Kristi and has her check out the tremors in his hands. He apparently has Parkinson’s. He then goes to Kenny and tell him about how he wants to explore the forests and take talismans with him. When Kenny tells him it is a bad idea, Boyd tells him about his disease. Kenny gets to be the acting sheriff in Boyd’s absence.
At the Colony House, Fatima is celebrating her anniversary at this new place. She kisses a girl and Julie is shocked. She later asks Fatima if she can kiss her. Fatima pretty much says no and Julie runs away embarrassed.
Kevin opens the window and the girl enters and hugs him only to turn monstrous. More monsters enter the house and chaos ensues. Donna does her best to protect everyone and gets them into a van. Ellis doesn’t make it out and Fatima stays with him, making sure the talisman is in place.
They are safe. Donna manages to get the van to Boyd and Father Khatri who try their best to defend the residents from the creatures. Unfortunately, Father Khatri is killed.
Later, Jim tells Donna about how they are trying to build a tower and will need to use Colony House as it is the highest point. Having lost so many people, she agrees to let them build a radio tower.
Julie, even though pissed that her parents were going to divorce before they get stranded, reconciles with them. Tabitha is busy digging a hole in the basement to find where the electricity comes from.
Boyd decides to take Sara with him into the forest as she owes this town for everything that she did.
The whole town volunteers to help build the tower. Jade and Kenny’s mother form a friendship and she even gives him ideas about using power from other houses to get the tower running.
Kenny reveals his feelings to Kristi who reminds him that she is engaged but since she sees little chance of getting out of here, she is happy to be able to rely on a friend.
We see Boyd’s past. When he first came with his wife Abby and Ellis, they were rescued by Father Khatri and Donna who hid with them in a cellar at night.
Over time, Boyd who used to be in the army, easily adapts to the town and takes on the role of sheriff.
One day, his son Ellis comes to him, telling him to talk to Abby as she hasn’t been taking things well and keeps staring into the distance. Boyd promises to talk to her at night but he never makes it home in time. He gets lost in the woods, falls into a pit and finds the talismans that deter the creatures from attacking him.
Overjoyed at finding a solution to deterring the creatures, he heads back into the town to find Abby shooting everyone in sight, convinced that she is in a nightmare. When she is about to shoot Ellis, Boyd shoots her immediately, and kills her.
On their trip, Sara tells him she has been hearing a female voice asking her to tell Mr Fish and Loaves that she was wrong. Boyd is stunned since only people in the army and Abby knew that name. He begins to believe Sara especially when she states she is being told by the voices that there are worse things in the forest than the monsters.
The two have creepy adventures in the woods where they see bright lights and spiders and Abby caught in cobwebs. Eventually, they get attacked by unseen forces and Boyd grows paranoid from the spider bites. He wants to give up as night approaches but Sara sees the boy in white who points at the trees. She leads Boyd to it and pushes him inside.
Back at the Colony house, the tower is all set up but a storm approaches and Jim has barely enough time to hear a message that warns him about Tabitha digging under the house and how it wasn’t a good idea. He also addresses the man as Jim.
The voice also sounded like…Jim?
Jim rushes to Tabitha who has fallen into the hole and finds herself in the caverns. However, she finds Victor who helps her but warns her that the monsters may be sleeping here.
Boyd finds himself trapped in a narrow hole with bricks. He screams for help.
The others barely manage to get into the house as the weather worsens. At the diner, a bus arrives and parks.
Season One ends on this mysterious note.
A busload of people means new characters and new stories. Just where did Boyd end up? Will Jim be able to find out what happened to his wife? Where is the electricity coming from? Who are the creatures? Why do they look like human beings.
The idea that this could be purgatory is dismissed in the show. Since the writing is good, surely it wouldn’t go back to it later with the hint that it was purgatory.
FROM is an exciting, horror show that will hold your attention. It is chilling at times, and the intricate storytelling, intertwined with the riveting characters makes this a show you need to watch immediately.
Scare Scale: 4.5/5
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