The Terror: Devil in Silver

“Horror is hard to do well on TV. With so many hours to fill, jump-scares only go so far and you can’t go all in on the gore the way an 18-rated movie might. But Devil In Silver is satisfyingly unsettling with grotesque imagery that burrows under the skin and an atmosphere of curdled dread that is gut-punchingly effective. Even more impressively, it lives up to its lofty billing as horror that doubles as a critique of healthcare in the United States. The vibe is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets the Resident Evil video games as Stevens’s character, Pepper, is arrested during a scuffle with the violent ex of his girlfriend (Juani Feliz) and banged up in a shady asylum in a forgotten corner of Queens, New York. As Pepper soon discovers, New Hyde is hell with straitjackets, where patients are guinea pigs who have a habit of dying in violent circumstances – and nobody asks any awkward questions.”
Ed Power, Telegraph

“This is a prestige horror: effectively grimy, well directed and not short of emotional heart — Pepper is beset with very real (inner) demons about his long-estranged boy. As a viewing experience it can also feel a bit of a mire. By making the “monster” both literal and metaphorical, the series can rather groan under its ideas on the way to an exhausting finale set at a hysterical pitch. Yet it certainly has its queasy moments. Make it through so much darkness and the very last scene — a simple moment of calm in the sunshine — is the most unsettling of all.”
James Jackson, The Times

“It works best as a straightforward drama. The real-life horrors of old-fashioned treatments (as we see when Dorry’s backstory starts to play out), and of contemporary care standards for the forgotten and marginalised masses, are bleaker than any imaginary beastie prowling through psyches and corridors. The ease with which Pepper gets trapped in the system – drugged on arrival, he sleeps through discharge time – the guilt he wrestles with over his abandonment of his young son and how an essentially good man can find a way to redemption: these are all more terrifying and more mesmerising to contemplate than any bogeyman under the bed.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Everyone who enters the New Hyde hospital ends up trapped, including the officers who dump Pepper there because they can’t be bothered to fill out the paperwork after he assaulted them. This makes no sense, and neither does the show’s pretence that it is exposing the decrepit state of America’s psychiatric hospitals. Far from it: The Terror is stirring up our instinctive fear of mental illness and wallowing in it. Slapstick humour of the grimmest type breaks up the narrative. In a later episode, one medic uses a lobotomy hammer to break up the ice for his whisky on the rocks. Very tasteful.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail