“The Outsider” begins with a seemingly straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a young boy. But when an insidious supernatural force edges its way into the case, it leads a seasoned cop and an unorthodox investigator to question everything they believe in.
Stephen King has had many of his books adapted into big and small-screen iterations. Some have been successful; “Misery,” “The Dead Zone,” “Christine,” “The Stand,” “Carrie,” and “IT,” to name but a few, while others have been, let’s just say, not so well received; “Pet Sematary,” “Graveyard Shift,” “The Lawnmower Man,” “Thinner,” and the less we say about “The Mangler,” the better. With “The Outsider” being adapted into a miniseries for HBO, it meant that the producers could use language and violence without fear of being censored, something many Stephen King stories invariably need for successful translations.
In Cherokee City, Georgia, the remains of a mutilated young boy, Frank Peterson, are found by a man out walking his dog one afternoon. When several eyewitnesses place little league coach Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) at the scene of the crime, local detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) wastes no time in arresting him, even though Maitland claims he was at a teacher conference out of town at the time of the murder. With video footage placing him at a local strip club immediately after the crime, Anderson feels his case is ironclad. But when news footage from the hotel where Maitland claims he was staying surfaces, showing him speaking at the conference at the time of the murder, and hotel surveillance showing him squarely in the hotel, the case begins to fall apart.
Terry and his wife Glory (Julianne Nicholson) hire local defense attorney Howard Salomon (Bill Camp) to help them with their case and he hires Alec Pelley (Jeremy Bobb), a private investigator, to follow up on Terry’s claims. When Terry has to go to court for his arraignment, he is shot and killed by the brother of Frank Peterson, who in turn, is killed with return fire from Ralph. Terry’s dying words to his wife and Ralph is that he is innocent. Howard and Alec hire eccentric investigator Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo), who has Savant syndrome, to help with the case and as she begins to dig further, she discovers a disturbing chain of coincidences from similar cases. She brings this to the attention of Howard, Alec, and Ralph, stating that these other cases involved people being accused of murder while eyewitness testimonies and video footage clearly put them in alternate locations.
Ralph is a man who cannot accept anything other than the proof right in front of him, as he says himself, “I have no tolerance for the unexplainable,” but when his wife Jeannie (Mare Winningham) tells him that a hooded figure appeared in their house, warning her that if Ralph continued working on this case, they would both die, he immediately checks the house for signs of a break-in but cannot find any, leading him to believe that she had a nightmare. Jeannie draws an image of a man wearing a hood with a deformed face while one of the daughters of Terry Maitland claims to have seen a strange man in her home. When Ralph asks her if she can draw him, he is shocked when her sketch is almost identical to that of Jeannie’s. The investigation leads Holly to New York, where she uncovers another case of a woman being accused of murder who had several alibies at the time of the murder she was accused of. She meets Andy (Derek Cecil), a retired detective, and they fall for each other. She slowly gives him access to her investigation and when she has to go back to Cherokee City, he goes with her.
As the case progresses, spanning several states, Holly’s research determines that the cause of these gruesome murders is not the acts of human beings but that of a supernatural entity that can assimilate and then imitate any person it wants, simply by scratching them, thereby infecting them with its cells. Each case has led to the next case and in the end, brings everything back home to Cherokee City and that of Terry Maitland. While some of the team is initially hesitant to believe her, especially Ralph, a few of the men are more than willing to go along with her because of strange circumstances that happened to them when they were younger, including that of Ralph’s partner Yunis (Yul Vazquez). As Ralph looks back at the footage of Terry Maitland’s doppelganger at the strip club the day of Frank Peterson’s murder, he notices him scratching the arm of the club owner, Claude Bolton (Paddy Considine). When he goes to the club to interview Claude, he is told that he quit and moved back to his hometown of Cecil, Tennessee.
The team quickly surmises that Claude could be the next victim accused of murder and they all head out to Tennessee where their intent is to stay with him as staunch alibies as Holly feels that the entity is close to imitating Claude’s likeness and once that is complete, it will want to feed. Once there, they inform Claude what is going on but he has no trouble believing them as he has been feeling very paranoid lately, stating that he feels like someone is inside his head. A series of clues leads the team to a group of closed-off underground caves where Holly believes the entity is dwelling so they head out to the caves with the intent of trapping the creature but with no true understanding of the entity and its existence, they must proceed with extreme caution.
“The Outsider” is incredibly moody and exceptionally atmospheric, complete with stunning cinematography and top-notch performances by the entire cast. It is slow-burning and that, in and of itself, lends an air of unbelievable apprehension to the show. While everything takes place very much in the real world, the gradual establishment of the supernatural entity is believable and never once feels contrived or implausible. We have all experienced, at some point in our lives, strange phenomenon, in some form or another, and the story intentionally intertwines this element so that we can relate to the characters herein, whether it is the appearance of a loved one who has passed or a nightmare that felt very real, even after the fact. By the end, it appears that the entity has been eliminated but a mid-credits scene possibly suggests otherwise, leaving the door open for both Ralph Anderson and Holly Gibney to return, the latter appearing in Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy of novels ‘Mr. Mercedes,’ ‘Finders Keepers’ and “End of Watch.’ After all, this is the supernatural we are dealing with. “The Outsider” proves how an adaptation from book to screen is done correctly, and when it is Stephen King, just remember that everything is not always what it seems.
Now available on Digital and on Blu-ray and DVD July 28th
