Audiences love supernatural thrillers, both in movies and on TV. While there are many examples, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks are particularly memorable. Both skillfully turned everyday locations into creepy, unsettling places, using supernatural elements to reveal the hidden darkness within normal life. Their impact is still visible today in shows and films that blend the strange and the disturbing seamlessly.
Both The Shining and Twin Peaks are celebrated for their unsettling atmospheres – The Shining for its intense supernatural horror, and Twin Peaks for its surreal and fragmented reality. While both explore hidden, disturbing elements, they feel very different from each other. Now, Prime Video’s The Devil’s Hour successfully blends the chilling fear of The Shining with the mysterious, mind-bending investigation of Twin Peaks, creating something truly original.
Created by Tom Moran, The Devil’s Hour premiered in 2022, with a second season released in 2024. The series follows Lucy Chambers, a social worker played by Jessica Raine, whose unsettling experiences link her to a frightening mystery and a serial killer named Gideon (Peter Capaldi). If you liked shows like The Shining or Twin Peaks, this thriller is a captivating choice, combining supernatural elements with a genuinely creepy atmosphere.
The Devil’s Hour Brings The Shining’s Supernatural Terror To Twin Peaks’ Existential Detective Story
Prime Video’s The Devil’s Hour draws comparisons to classics like The Shining and Twin Peaks. The story kicks off with a creepy premise: the main character, Lucy, keeps waking up at precisely 3:33 a.m., plagued by unsettling visions she can’t understand. As the series progresses, it becomes apparent that there’s much more to Lucy’s life than meets the eye and deserves a closer look.
The show features a chilling child character, Isaac (Benjamin Chivers), who brings to mind the unsettling children in Stanley Kubrick’s films like Danny in The Shining and the iconic twins. Viewers familiar with Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s work will also recognize the use of disturbing visuals and hallucinatory sequences. Like The Shining, The Devil’s Hour excels at creating psychological horror by bringing the supernatural into ordinary life. While Lucy isn’t isolated in a faraway hotel like the Torrance family, she finds herself equally trapped by the growing horror around her.
Beyond its similarities to The Shining, The Devil’s Hour also feels like Twin Peaks – it’s a detective story that explores big questions about existence. The series centers on Lucy’s strange experiences, which connect to a larger mystery surrounding Gideon, a serial killer who seems to foresee the future. Soon, the show dives into complex ideas about broken realities and shifting timelines, much like Twin Peaks. As the investigation unfolds, both Lucy and viewers begin to wonder if what seems real is actually fixed and straightforward.
The unique blend of elements is what truly sets The Devil’s Hour apart. It evokes the chilling supernatural fear found in The Shining, while simultaneously building a mystery that grows increasingly bizarre, creating the same unsettling and thought-provoking feeling as Twin Peaks. Like those two classics, The Devil’s Hour has the potential to become an iconic thriller – and it certainly deserves that recognition when its final season arrives on Prime Video.
Peter Capaldi Gives A Career-Best Performance In The Devil’s Hour
If you enjoy shows like The Shining and Twin Peaks, you’ll likely find a lot to appreciate in The Devil’s Hour. The Prime Video thriller is strong on its own, but a standout feature is Peter Capaldi’s performance as Gideon. While known for playing the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who, Capaldi delivers an incredibly intense performance, making Gideon a truly memorable character – not just another typical TV villain. He’s both terrifying and surprisingly sympathetic, creating a uniquely unsettling effect.
Gideon’s intelligence appears boundless, and a lot of the impact of both Peter Capaldi’s acting and the story of The Devil’s Hour comes from his control of information. He consistently seems to know more than those around him, creating a feeling that the story could shift unexpectedly with anything he says. This gives the series a disturbing energy, especially as his connection to Lucy becomes clearer.
Let me tell you, Peter Capaldi is absolutely brilliant in Prime Video’s The Devil’s Hour, and frankly, he doesn’t get nearly enough praise for it. He completely owns every scene he’s in, delivering a powerhouse performance that truly matches the show’s complex narrative. While fans of shows like The Shining or Twin Peaks will definitely find something to love here, The Devil’s Hour is more than just a nod to those classics – it’s a genuinely smart and captivating thriller. Capaldi grounds even the most bizarre concepts, making them feel real and building towards an unforgettable story.
2026-07-27 02:08