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Hysteria!: The Cast and Characters of Peacock's Satanic Panic Series Explained
A religious zealot, a suburban mother, and a heavy metal rocker walk into a Satanic ritual...
Stop us if you've heard this one before: a religious zealot, a suburban mother, and a heavy metal rocker, all walk into a Satanic ritual...
That's not the start of a classic joke, but the core premise behind Peacock's new throwback series, Hysteria! (all eight episodes are now streaming right here), which draws heavy inspiration from the real-world Satanic Panic of the late 1980s when parents across America were genuinely concerned that their children were being influenced by dark forces.
Hailing from the minds of Scott Kane and David A. Goodman, Hysteria! unfolds in Happy Hollow, a sleepy Michigan hamlet suddenly rocked by the disappearance of star high school quarterback, Ryan Hudson (Brandon Butler). The event, which appears to be the ritualistic work of a Satan-worshipping cult, sends the town into a state of spiraling panic with no end in sight.
Seeing this as an opportunity to gain notoriety for their music, a local heavy metal band comprised of three naive teenagers decides to capitalize on the occult mania with rather disastrous results. Given that there are so many players in this story of devilish debauchery, here's a quick rundown of all the Happy Hollow citizens you need to keep track of.
A guide to the cast & characters of Peacock's new Satanic Panic series, Hysteria!
Anna Camp as Tracy Whitehead
A devout Catholic and an expert on the spread of Satanic values and imagery through modern media, Tracy is also a single mother who would do anything to protect her daughter, Faith — even if that means working outside of man’s law to do God’s work.
"I always approach these women [with the mindset that] they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong," Camp tells USA Insider. "They don’t think that they’re crazy, they don’t think that they’re cooky. Tracy’s a little self-effacing, she knows that the town thinks she’s a little nutty. But at the end of the day, she knows that she’s doing God’s work and doing the best that she can to protect her daughter, which is what she wants more than anything in the world. She will go to very great lengths to do so. In Tracy’s mind, she is a very kind, loving, God-fearing woman and everybody should listen to what she has to say because she’s right."
Where you've seen Camp before: Pitch Perfect, Mad Men, True Blood
Emjay Anthony as Dylan Campbell
Dylan's a nerdy high school wallflower who spends his free time playing guitar and listening to music in his basement bedroom. Dylan and his two best friends, Jordy, and Spud, make up Dethkrunch, a heavy metal trio that no one cares about… that is until Dylan spots a chance at being seen, and seizes it. The result of his cockamamie scheme to use the town's newfound phobia of the occult to the band's advantage gives a new meaning to the term "unintended consequences."
"Funnily enough, Julie Bowen was on Modern Family and Sofia Vergara was also my mom in Chef, so I got two Modern Family people as my mom. It came full circle," Anthony says.
Where you've seen Anthony before: Chef, Physical, Replicas
Julie Bowen as Linda Campbell
Dylan's kind and patient mother, the former homecoming queen struggles to fully understand her outcast son. When she becomes suspicious of Dylan’s recent extracurriculars, her nerves begin to fray, and she begins to question her once-firm grip on reality. Is she possessed by something not of this earth, or is she simply caught up in the series' namesake? "I obviously played a mom for awhile and I never want to escape Claire Dunphy, but I also wanted to try to do something different and boy, is this different," stresses Bowen. "[Linda] is a woman who’s sanity is on the line. That wasn’t something I’d done before."
Where you've seen Bowen before: Happy Gilmore, Boston Legal, Modern Family,
Chiara Aurelia as Jordy
The lead vocalist of Dethkrunch and a bass player to boot, Jordy is sharp-tongued goth kid with an even sharper sense of style. But is that unique style her protective armor against the outside world… or is it just a cage, to guard herself against being truly vulnerable?
"I was super-drawn in by Jordy because it was a character that I’d never even thought I could possibly play," Aurelia admits. "And it was actually such a full circle, wonderful experience to have Matthew Scott Kane, our amazing showrunner, look back at me and be like, ‘This role’s perfect for you. What are you talking about?’ Because when I first read it, it felt like a bit of a challenge and a bit out of the scope of what I was used to, [because] I needed to learn the bass and there’s a lot of music and metal, but the show was so exciting and something I really wanted to be a part of.
Where you've seen Aurelia before: Luckiest Girl Alive, Cruel Summer, Tell Me Your Secrets
Kezii Curtis as Spud
The resident drummer of Dethkrunch, Spud is mostly just concerned with pissing off his parents. He is often written off as a conspiracy theorist… but don’t count him out. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. "For me, at least in the first episode, it was really cool just to see the dynamic of how something as crazy as supernatural things happening," Curtis notes. "It was really cool to see how it affected both generations — how it affected the adults, how it affected the teenagers. That was what drew me to it immediately. I was like, ‘This is pretty cool.’"
Where you've seen Curts before: Dolemite is My Name, Secret Headquarters, The Thundermans
Nikki Hahn as Faith Whitehead
Thanks to her mother, Faith is perceived by her peers as another tightly-wound Jesus freak. According to her own mother, however, Faith is a deviant sinner who needs to find the light of the Lord. Meanwhile, Faith is just trying her best to be a normal teenager, with all the hormones, crushes, and high school dances that come with that. "I love doing these complex, dramatic, challenging roles," Hahn says.
Where you've seen Hahn before: Adventures in Babysitting, American Housewife, Magnum P.I.
Bruce Campbell as Chief Dandridge
Chief Dandridge heads up the search for missing quarterback, Ryan Hudson. He's logical, compassionate, and prides himself on employing reason and a slow-to-anger mentality to his job. That level-headedness is suddenly put to the test when widespread panic throughout the town pushes the Chief to question his entire worldview. "He doesn’t believe in all this crap either, so he’s like me," says Campbell. "I don’t believe in all this crap. I’ll believe it when I see it. I believe in UFOs, because I think I saw one, but supernatural/Satanic stuff…I’m not sold yet."
Where you've seen Campbell before: Evil Dead, Burn Notice, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Garret Dillahunt as The Reverend
As cunning as he is hypocritical, The Reverend runs a radical scared straight program meant to "reprogram" kids who have strayed from the path of religion (Tracy is one of its notable graduates). With the help of his two masked cronies, Bob (Eric Tiede) and Gilbert (Kevin Saunders), he forcibly kidnaps youngsters and holds them hostage until they return to God. But as the famous saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." When Bob and Gilbert show up to nab Faith at Tracy's behest, they accidentally cause the death of star quarterback Ryan Hudson (Brandon Butler), kicking off the events of the show.
Where you've seen Dillahunt before: Burn Notice, 12 Years a Slave, Deadwood
Nolan North as Gene Campbell
Gene, Dylan's all-American father, is committed to the humdrum existence of suburbia and all the trappings that come with it. He's comfortable in his little bubble and is understandably skeptical of anything outside the ordinary. Like his wife, he doesn't fully understand his outcast of a son, whom he feels should be out in the world, doing normal teenage stuff.
"Nolan North is one funny dude," proclaims Julie Bowen. "That was just a joy. We’d be doing the heaviest, most dramatic, most psychologically challenging scenes. [Then] they’d say ‘Cut!' I would just laugh and laugh and laugh. That man deserves some sort of honor for making me laugh as much in tough situations."
Where you've seen (and heard) North before: Uncharted games, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Rizzoli & Isles
Elijah Richardson as Cliff
One of the most popular kids at school and a star player player (his dad coaches the team), Cliff seems to have it made. Underneath the surface, though, he craves more beyond his reputation as the high school letterman bully in residence. If that means joining a Satanic cult, then so be it!
Where you've seen Richardson before: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, When They See Us, New Amsterdam
Milly Shapiro as Ingrid
One of the nerdier kids at school, Ingrid is often ridiculed by the other students for being weird, making her the Carrie White figure amongst this particular student body. The good news? Her pet goat, Cheerios, gains her a major boost in popularity when Dylan, Jordy, and Spud decide to form a Satanic cult.
Where you've seen Shapiro before: Hereditary, Splitting Up Together, JJ Villard's Fairy Tales
Allison Scagliotti as Officer Olsen
One of the cops working under Chief Dandridge, Officer Olsen is a dedicated keeper of the peace, who subscribes to the duck test method of law enforcement: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck." In other words, if someone in town appears to be the leader of a dark cult, then they probably are.
Where you've seen Scagliotti before: Drake & Josh, Warehouse 13, Stitchers
Jessica Treska as Judith
As the prettiest and most popular girl at school, Judith wields an inordinate amount of cliquey clout that gets anyone hoping to look "cool" in the eyes of their peers to fall in line with her every whim, and that includes a desire to worship the Prince of Darkness. Given the fact that Dylan has a massive crush on her, well... you can only imagine the lengths he's willing to go in order to win her affections. There's nothing more dangerous than the raging hormones of a teenager's libido, is there?
"She has this weird pull on the people in the town, especially Dylan, and for some reason, she’s able to [convince] people to make some pretty bad decisions," Treska explains. "She’s really a big fish in a small pond and I tried to find the humanity in her. It’s important as an actor to resonate with [your character], so I could definitely resonate with her longing for a life that is grander and bigger than this small town. I tried to focus in on our similarities because I think there are a few."
Where you've seen Treska before: Sharp Objects, Good Girls, Roswell, New Mexico
All eight episodes of Hysteria! are now streaming exclusively on Peacock. Episodes also air weekly, every Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
