Shining Vale season 1 review: Courteney Cox is marvellous in this horror comedy series

If it is a zombie comedy, for instance, there should be enough blood and guts to churn even the hardiest stomachs. This is why movies like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and shows like Sam Raimi’s Ash vs Evil Dead are about the best the genre has to offer. They get it just right.

Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan’s Shining Vale does not quite match up to those, but it is still a fine addition to the genre. The series stars Courteney Cox (Friends’ Monica) and Greg Kinnear as a couple – Patricia, a writer suffering from those perennial diseases among authors called writer’s block, alcoholism and depression, and Terry Phelps, a mild-mannered insurance agent and a pushover, respectively. The Phelps are struggling to keep their marriage alive after Patricia was caught cheating by her husband.

They, along with their children Gaynor (Gus Birney) and Jake (Dylan Cage), move to a small town, the titular Shining Vale, from the city. Because moving to greener pastures ought to help them work out their differences.

Their new abode is big enough to be a mansion, and its holds dark, violent secrets, something Terry does not deign to tell Patricia. And soon enough, things begin to go bump in the night. More precisely, Patricia sees intermittent visions of a mysterious, attractive woman Rosemary Wellingham (Mira Sorvino) who claims she was a housewife from the 50s, and less frequently, a little girl, both of whom presumably are the long-dead inhabitants of the house.

Patricia is so accustomed to mental health issues that she assumes Rosemary is just one of her personalities. And indeed, she behaves like a personality, taking over Patricia and even writing her book for her.

Courteney Cox proves her dramatic chops in Shining Vale.

If it all sounds very familiar, then yes it is, and it is meant to be. Shining Vale revels in references and callbacks from old-timey horror and even Friends. It is derivative, but there is an undercurrent of self-awareness which saves it from feeling hackneyed like, say, the first couple of seasons of Stranger Things (I was not a fan of until the fourth season).

As scares mount, the humour does too, and it is often the laugh-out-loud variety. Cox uses her well-honed comedic chops that served her well in Friends to great effect here. But she also proves her dramatic chops in Shining Vale. Everyone else in the cast is great too, but Cox is the MVP.

There is a nice balance in tone here. And the show can be enjoyed even if you are not well-versed with American pop-culture. While not perfect, Shining Vale offers a lot of entertainment value.

Shining Vale is good scary fun. Watch it on Lionsgate Play in India.