Screener Review On The Girl in the Woods
A serious monster show, where the stakes are everything, gives birth to a new trio of heroes. The seriousness makes the show a little unbalanced, but the overall series is entertaining and a good way to binge a couple hours.
The official longline is deceptively quirky:
In supernatural drama THE GIRL IN THE WOODS, monsters are real, kept at bay behind a mysterious door in a cult-like colony. Teenage runaway Carrie’s job is to guard that door, but when strange occurrences begin to shake the sleepy mining town to its core, she must enlist the help of new friends Nolan and Tasha. The group becomes an unlikely trio of monster slayers, determined to save their loved ones. As they fight back, Nolan and Tasha can’t help but wonder…can they really trust Carrie? Small towns sure can be Hell.
In reality, it’s a little hard to pinhole the genre of The Girl in the Woods.
The series starts out with a somewhat Buffy vibe about people protecting the world from the forces of evil. But right away it turns into a slightly cultish turn, reminiscent of the Maze Runner or Divergent series, with a dash of small town Twilight. If you made me pick the most similar modern series, I’d say that it’s kind of capitalizing on Motherland: Fort Salem, but ends up being more like a less funny The Order.
This uniqueness is added to by the fact that its only half-hour episodes! You get a quick minute to get into the episode, and are left unsettled and unsure of what the heck just happened. But in a good way. Having limited time means the plot per episode (and overall) have to be kept tight. It also means that exposition is quick and to the point.
No matter what, while The Girl in the Woods has funny moments, it’s not a comedy. The series takes itself seriously, though not to the point of absurdity or camp. It’s just very much not a laughing matter situation. And that, alas, is to its detriment. The show needs a step back with just a little more humorous. More than Tiktok videos at least. About halfway through the first episode, they start to find the right groove, but it makes the show feel like it’s a trying too hard to relax and be ‘funny’ in the right way.
In the first episode, we’re dropped in to Carrie, a one-armed protector, on the run from her cult and her job. Meanwhile, in the nearby town BFFs Nolan and Tasha struggle with their own identity in their small town. His mom opposes the mine (which is polluting) while her family works there. These threads, of course, cross right away, and a new Scooby gang is born.
Overall, the show is a pretty fun ride, as long as you take it with a grain of salt, like The Order or Siren.
Where to Watch?
You can watch The Girl in the Woods just in time for Halloween. It drops on Peacock on October 21.
