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Critic Reviews
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The best scary stories find their frights in real-life fears, and the genre is rich with ones that explore the feminine grotesque—Black Swan and Rosemary’s Baby come to mind. Shining Vale brings humor to that equation, both laughing at and dramatizing the scary aspects of gender norms. The result is a show that’s smart enough to keep viewers guessing as it pokes fun at modern society, its characters, and even its audience.
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“Shining Vale” has a honed sense of humor, usually (and especially) when it’s least expected. ... What’s more surprising about “Shining Vale” is how it ably counterbalances the writing’s comedic throughline with genuinely creepy touches of horror that might feel familiar to fans of the earlier, most effective seasons of “American Horror Story.”
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The plot and dialogue are enjoyable, even in the former’s predictability. ... Shining Vale also comes with solid writing and directing.
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Even when the laughs don't land in Shining Vale, it's a pleasure to watch Cox as this fierce, funny embodiment of misunderstood and maligned female "hysteria."
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A remarkably solid tale, notwithstanding its considerable population of deranged characters and nonhuman conspirators.
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Creators Jeff Astrof (Trial & Error) and Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) front-load Shining Vale‘s least original elements, at the expense of the witty raunch that is Horgan’s trademark. ... Suffice to say that if you can hang on until episode 3, you’ll find a stranger, more amusing haunted-house story lurking behind all the peeling wallpaper.
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Ultimately, Shining Vale wants to be a horror-comedy, but doesn’t go hard enough into either genre. ... Luckily, the characterizations by a talented cast are enough to draw you in and keep you entertained, even if Shining Vale's genre trappings leave a lot more to be desired.
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We get the occasional sharp line of dialogue, and Cox is eminently watchable throughout, but “Shining Vale” never quite realizes its comedic or dramatic potential.
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Shining Vale – which Horgan has co-written with Jeff Astrof – is billed as a comedy-horror but it hovers around in the space between the two because it’s neither screamingly funny nor remotely frightening. ... At least Shining Vale is attempting to tackle it in a light-hearted style, rather than bleak drama.
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Bolstered by a star turn from Cox and some fun throwbacks pitched alongside new takes on horrors past, this messy but fun genre mash-up makes for entertaining viewing.
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Rosemary, Joan, Pat and Gaynor represent unhappy women from four generations facing different kinds of societal pressures, internalizing dissatisfaction in similar ways. That element of the show is thoughtful and maybe even provocative, and in 28-minute episodic doses — critics have been sent seven of eight episodes — the intellectual points land often. The genre points, less frequently.
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The series gets more entertaining, and the characters get more interesting, as people other than Pat begin to spiral into their own crises. ... It's just that the mystery surrounding Rosemary is teased out too slowly, leaving the show to get distracted by basic family drama. Good bones can only take this haunted house so far.
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While the story whips up some acute psychological comedy about women in different generations experiencing and wrestling with the same mental illness, its supernatural attempts are junky. ... “Shining Vale” is the kind of series that just does not warrant its length, especially as its frugal supernatural points just barely nudge Pat to its larger scheme.
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“Shining Vale” is a murder mystery without much mystery, a family comedy with barely either, and a horror story only so far as it cribs from genre classics with a few extra hyperactive cuts.
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Shining Vale may get better during its first season as we find out what’s actually driving this story. But its first episode was a loud mess of a show that seemed to be more satisfied with giving Courteney Cox as many chances to swear as possible than to actually establish its characters.
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All snark and no wit makes this miserable misfire of a horror comedy a chore to even describe. [14 - 27 Mar 2022, p.7]