Gather your minions and practice drawing pentagrams because the filmmakers behind the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves are developing a Satanic Panic thriller series for Peacock. Titled Hysteria!, the project hails from writer Matthew Scott Kane (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Dungeons & Dragons filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, and Jake Weiner’s Good Fear.
The team’s Satanic Panic thriller is written and executive produced by Kane, Hysteria! The series explores America’s dark history of mass Hysteria through the shocking story of the teenage Satanic Panic. The concept follows a group of 1980s high school misfits who exploit the growing hysteria around teen occult activity.
Via the logline, in Hysteria!, when a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the “Satanic Panic” of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported “supernatural activity” triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.
Daley and Goldstein will executive produce and direct, with Chris Bender and Weiner executive producing for Good Fear. Scott Stoops is a supervising producer. Good Fear developed the spec pilot and series pitch with Kane and then courted Daley and Goldstein onto the scene.
The Satanic Panic phenomenon was recently explored in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. The concept referred to a period in the 1980s when thousands of unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse gripped conservative corners of the United States of America. Satanic Panic spread across the globe by the late 1990s and still exists today. Accusations of Satanic Panic include ritual-like practices, murder, and sexual crimes tied to occult activity.
“Our upcoming thriller series Hysteria! will explore the complex world of the Satanic Panic, set amidst ’80s nostalgia, mystery, heavy metal, and an all-American setting,” said Lisa Katz, President Scripted Content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re excited to partner on this fresh, coming-of-age story led by writer Matthew Scott Kane, executive producers and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Good Fear, and our partners at UCP, for what is sure to be a compelling original series for Peacock viewers.”
“This nail-biting thriller dives into a mass moral panic and all the fears, desires, anger and dread that led to these dark days,” said Beatrice Springborn, President, UCP. “Matthew’s script is original, intriguing and perfectly captures the frenetic energy of the Satanic Panic. We can’t wait for audiences to experience the show on Peacock.”
Now feels like the perfect time to launch a Satanic Panic thriller series after Stranger Things brought the concept back into the public consciousness. While the project does not feature the beloved Stranger Things character Eddie Munson, it will surely feature teens that would have thought Eddie was pretty badass.
What do you think about Peacock hosting a Satanic Panic thriller series? Will Hysteria! spark another wave of fear among the dim-witted masses? Only time will tell, and I can’t wait to find out.