It wouldn’t be summer without an over the top offering from Syfy. The channel has a storied history of airing summer TV movies and series with delightfully over-the-top plots, often leaning hard into absurd, campy, or just downright wild premises that embrace B-movie charm and gonzo storytelling. Who can forget Sharknado? Or Mega Python vs. Gatoroid?
It was therefore with a certain expectation in mind that I dived into an advance screening of Revival, the channel’s new 10-episode zombie drama, kicking off on June 12. As it turns out, Revival was not the unserious summer nonsense I imagined it might be.
Firstly, Revival is actually an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton — and a generally faithful one at that, based on the handful of issues I’ve managed to read online before attempting this review.
In what some dub “Farm Noir” the setting is Wausau, rural Wisconsin, and the focus is the Cypress family. Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano stars as Dana, Romy Weltman as her emo sister Martha “Em” Cypress, and David James Elliott as their Dad, Wayne Cypress.
Wayne is chief of police, where Dana also works as a cop, making him both her father and her boss. Em is a problem child, at least in Wayne and Dana’s eyes. Suffering from a brittle bone disease as a child, she missed out on her adolescence by spending much of it in hospitals. As a young adult she is an addict, struggling with her mental health and memory loss of a key night that shapes the story from episode one.
The action promptly kicks off with the recently deceased suddenly rising from their graves. However, this is no brain-eating collection of night-stalkers. These guys appear and act just as before. Most just want to go home and get back to living. The weeks ahead throw the small Wisconsin town into chaos, as quarantine measures shut Wausau down, and the CDC come to investigate, research and document the bizarre phenomenon.
However as the weeks turn into months, and no further explanation arises as to how these “Revivers” came to be, or whether they’ll suddenly transform into their more familiar TV counterparts (more on that in a moment) Wausau is forced to shrug and get back to business.
Dana finds herself struggling with her daily grind in a town that stepped out of a Covid lockdown and straight into a Zombie lockdown. With a population marinating in fear, confusion, and suspicion she’s left to make it make sense for everyone when there are no answers to be had.
The plot thickens when Dana is unexpectedly thrown into the center of a murder mystery that threatens to envelop her family, and a puzzling connection to a Reviver who goes on a violent rampage after gaining sudden incredible strength.
In a town where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect, Dana must learn to tread carefully. The last thing the town needs to hear now is that they are about to be finally turned on by the nearly departed.
Revival plays with some interesting angles on the undead trope. We see Dana’s son Cooper (Hudson Wurster) attempting to comfort a young girl who is bullied in class for being dead. In another scene, a confused elderly lady, whose husband died just one day before the great revival is convinced he will rise from the dead any day now, and even goes so far as to dig up his corpse and seat him at her kitchen table in readiness. Later episodes show that some Revivers make bloody spectacles of their own bodies’ regenerative properties as a sick form of entertainment, while other even less scrupulous individuals sell Reviver parts on the black market. These insights into the town’s mindset offer a refreshing take on the genre and work to the show’s credit.
Melanie Scrofano anchors the series, bringing the same charisma and grit she honed in Wynonna Earp to her work here. Balancing a blend of toughness and vulnerability on screen, particularly in scenes with Romy Weltman’s Em, Scrofano grounds the show’s more outlandish elements with a sense of realism.
Where the show struggles however is in its pacing. With the plot unfolding in a serialized story arc (and not a case-of-the-week procedural style), Revival has a lot of exposition to get across. As a result, the first episode “Don’t Tell Dad” feels overstuffed and a tad dull at times, with characters standing around reminding the audience who they are and what their relationship to each other is.
The premiere also features a dramatic and audacious opening scene, the momentum of which sadly isn’t quite matched over the remainder of the opening hour or in episodes to follow. Part family drama, part whodunit, part supernatural drama, Revival is a meal of many courses the show’s creators are adamant about serving slowly.
While Revival’s dense setup and genre-blending ambition might not prove a winner for everyone, the show’s characters, faithful to the comic series, its eerie atmosphere, and its refreshing take on a worn out genre (shush don’t tell AMC!) make it a must-watch for both fans of sci-fi horror and character-driven mysteries.
If you’re looking for a supernatural murder mystery with a unique twist, then Revival offers more than a quick bite. Just don’t expect any fast-moving Zombies.
Revival airs Thursday, June 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SYFY, with episodes available on Peacock one week after air.
