Jet Wilkinson is a director who tends to do whatever he’s doing as well as it can be done, and in this case he takes the challenge of filming a gloomy horror climax about grief and sets it against a background of hard gray wintry afternoon light. There are shots of Eli alone on the shore stronger and eerier than any of the show’s more explicit horror moments.
Which, I suppose, speaks to Before’s bigger problem: It’s a horror show that was never particularly scary. Surprising, intriguing, occasionally disgusting? Yes. An odd but effective vehicle for Billy Crystal to stretch his legs by playing, basically, a maniac who should never be let near a child again? Definitely. Something that made me afraid, the way Twin Peaks or Channel Zero or Them or the first season of The Terror made me afraid? No. That may matter to you, it may not, but as a Horror Person I feel it bears mentioning.
I reviewed the series finale of Before for Decider.
Tags: before, decider, horror, TV, TV reviews