Often, trailers for stories with bloodied creatures and jump scares end up giving away all the goods in said trailer. Leaving the audience vaguely satisfied, as the nail-biting horror experience they were expecting falls well short of expectations. It has everything you want in a pilot and doesn't bog things down with long-running commentary to set up all the players and the season-long narrative. Instead, it drops you into the action relatively quickly and then slowly fills in some things along the way. We don't need an eerie voiceover telling us about the horrors that await. Dropping us right into the town and immediately setting the stage for what's to come was a brilliant move. The players come into focus throughout the hour, with Harold Perrineau's embattled Sheriff Boyd Stevens being the first person we get our eyes on. He's dirtied, sweaty, and looks like he's in desperate need of a bath and a razor. He's ringing a bell, with townsfolk milling about just before night settles in. Everything seems "normal" if you ignore that the town is dilapidated, with rundown buildings and junked-out cars with blown tires littering the streets. This isn't a regular town, and these aren't ordinary circumstances. There is something evil in this town, and it's directly tied to nightfall, as we see doors locking, windows covered, and talismans with mysterious writing hanging next to doors. This unnamed town is haunted in a way that leaves a young mother and her daughter dead in a gruesome fashion after the young girl commits the awful sin of opening her window at nighttime. Boyd is very clearly the Rick Grimes of this operation. He's the leader, though we don't know if that is by choice or something he actively wanted. Harold Perrineau brings a quiet confidence to so many of his roles, and Boyd is no exception. He's a man to be respected and somewhat feared, and it would appear this town is in desperate need of that kind of leadership. The creatures, who just look like ghostly figures, of course, come a haunting within seconds of the sun fulling setting, and the scene is eerie but not exactly scary per se. These people don't present upfront grotesquely, with gnarly wounds or sharp fingernails. They don't carry weapons.
But we saw what happens when they get inside.
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