“You have to find Candle Cove…”
The SyFy Channel has done it again. Channel Zero: Candle Cove is the stuff of nightmares that hooks you in from its very first moments of life, and keeps you captive with an intensity all its own. Leave the lights on when you watch this one; you are about to cross paths with every one of your childhood fears.
Channel Zero: Candle Cove stars Paul Schneider as Mike Painter, a famous child psychologist from the town of Iron Hill, a city best known for the murders of five children, one being Mike’s identical twin brother named Eddie. Mike has a nervous breakdown and begins suffering nightmares from his childhood that revolve around a mysterious children’s puppet show that only aired for two months called Candle Cove. The crude and bizarre puppets were always sailing on the high seas and heading towards a dark mysterious cave that you HAD to go into. The show could only be found on the dead channels at the end of your TV dial, and only aired when the murders started and ended when the murders did. To make matters worse, none of the parents could see the show when it was on, they only saw static. Those children who survived never spoke of the show again, that is, until Mike comes back to town.
In an effort to find the source of his nightmares, Mike travels back to sleepy Iron Hill and meets up with his boyhood friends to try and get some answers. While there he gets wrapped up in a missing children’s case whose events are eerily similar to the previous murders, including the resurgence of the Candle Cove TV show. There is also a rash of break-ins throughout the town, with the thief stealing nothing but old children’s teeth parents had as keepsakes. The child is found safe by Mike, but with two of her teeth missing and only willing to talk to him alone about Candle Cove, which draws sharp suspicion from law enforcement. Eventually Mike has to make the difficult decision of either leaving town for good, or facing his past by traveling back to the scene of the murders. As a side nightmare there is a creature made entirely of human teeth that is lurking in the woods feeding off of teeth that it finds that no one seems to be aware of, except its owner. The madness of it all is absolutely tangible.
With its disturbing yet fresh story line, relateable fears, fantastic dialog, and intense character interaction, Channel Zero: Candle Cove is a fantastic new series that just keeps getting more twisted and more intriguing as it goes on. I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good suspenseful horror series that relies more on the psychological thriller aspect rather than blood and gore.
Channel Zero: Candle Cove
Staring Paul Schneider, Fiona Shaw, Shaun Benson
Created by Nick Antosca
SyFy Original
Trailer can be seen here: