Spread the love

Now, for those of you that don’t know, I don’t have very high opinions of original SYFY channel shows. Hence, when I sat down to watch “Channel Zero Candle Cove” I had zero expectations. Like, none.

And boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

They’ve managed to tap into the creepypasta aesthetic and add more to the lore of Candle Cove- in a good way.

The show is about Mike Painter, who lost his identical twin in the early 80s, during the original airing of the Candle Cove puppet show. Right away we can see that there’s something off about him. He seems…a bit disturbed. We’re shown glimpses of memories, of things that happened to him as a kid, and some things that occurred right before the show started.

Needless to say, he’s got issues, and all of them revolve around the death of his twin brother AND the events that took place when Candle Cove appeared in the static on Channel Zero on their awesomely radical 1980s cathode ray TV set.

You know, the one with the dials, and no buttons, or remote control? Yeah. That kind. Good times, good times.

Throw into the mix a bully that his twin brother wants to stand up to, but just can’t seem to overpower (his bro gets hurt, repeatedly), and a horrible tragedy that resulted in several local children being found murdered. They had their teeth pulled out, and their corpses were hanging in a tree. Yikes!

Mike saw all of this happen. He’s a child psychologist now, but he’s still suffering from the trauma of the events. He returns to his home town, to the house he grew up in, and doesn’t seem comfortable at all. His mother is clearly very worried about him. As the episode unfolds, we find out why.

It appears the Mike is being haunted by a life-sized version of the skeleton puppet, and by the things he experienced back when he was a kid.

Uh…dude? Don’t look behind you.

Now he’s met back up with childhood friends, and learns that their own kids are being sucked in by the Candle Cove TV show.

The people he runs into aren’t quite what they seem. At all. This is a solid, first episode of a horror show that presents a lot of questions and a mystery to be solved.

There are things hidden in just about every scene in the show.

For instance, when Mike talks to his friend’s daughter about the TV show she’s been watching, someone shows up in the mirror…Look closely, and you’ll see the skeleton’s tri-corner hat on the far left mirror pane.

Such as, why are children being abducted by a sick version of the Tooth Fairy?

Tooth fairy wants to eat your teeth! Om nom nom!

What happened at the Crow’s Nest (it’s a big tree next to the TV station broadcasting tower) and why did Mike carve a sentence into his own arm?

We’ll see how they handle it, but this first episode is solid, and scary. Between the acting, the camera angles, the score and the script, it’s a good watch for creepypasta fans.