The new Starz series Shining Vale claims to be a horror-comedy. Yet, it is really neither of those things. So what does that make it?

Patricia Phelps (Courteney Cox) is a writer whose breakthrough smutty novel came out almost 20 years ago. Since then, she quit drinking and has been in a deep depression that has prevented her from writing her follow-up novel. When we meet her, she and her family – husband Terry (Greg Kinnear) and teenagers Jake (Dylan Gage) and Gaynor (Gus Birney) — are moving from Brooklyn to Connecticut. Patricia had previously had an affair with the handyman and the family is moving out to a huge house in the country to put the past behind them, and also, hopefully, allow Pat to finally finish her next novel. But things are weird in their new, grand Connecticut home. Pat thinks she is hearing voices, seeing a 1950s housewife, and, on occasion, even a little girl. The housewife burns her in a dream, but the burn is real and still exists on her body after she's woken up. Thinking the voices are coming from the hall closet, Pat breaks down the wall in the closet and discovers… a tiki bar. Nothing scary or sinister in there. Just a tiki bar.

Over the course of the season, Patricia learns that the 1950s housewife she keeps seeing is named Rosemary (Mira Sorvino), a woman who is unhappy with her lot in life and wishes to live through Patricia instead. She begins writing Pat’s novel for her, and all she wants in exchange is some sex with Terry and to live a life of freedom through Pat. Although Patricia initially agrees, Rosemary starts taking advantage of the situation, and while Pat’s professional life is taking off, her personal life seems destined for the sewer.

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Image via Starz

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Patricia suffers from writer’s block and depression, which seems like an obvious pairing. But an opening title card suggests that demon possession and depression share the same symptoms. Pat isn’t fully possessed by Rosemary, and certainly not in a scary, threatening way, which I think means that we are supposed to think that Pat’s problems are all in her head. It comes across more as vaguely insulting, with the show trying to make you think that maybe she is crazy when at the same time, it is clear that Pat is in fact dealing with ghosts.

The show borrows from The Shining too heavily: a writer, with a drinking problem, in a huge house complete with a bar, being haunted. The curtains in Episode 2 are reminiscent of the carpeting in the Overlook Hotel. The show even uses title cards for different days, along with a sharp audio hit that seems outright poached from The Shining – but to no effect. When Episode 2 opened with a bit that felt like Paranormal Activity, it almost seemed as though the show was going the route of parodying different horror films – but the similarities end after that point.

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Image via Starz

Cox is quite endearing as Patricia. She isn’t a mopey writer; she curses a mean streak and has a sassy, saucy attitude that makes her a far more likable character than most characters in that situation would be. Kinnear, by comparison, is almost annoyingly upbeat as Terry, the long-suffering husband who doesn’t seem to let anything bother him too much. We don’t get to see enough of Sorvino's Rosemary, regrettably. Meanwhile, Birney plays Gaynor as a surprisingly pulled-together teenage girl, with attitude for miles, while Gage's portrayal of autistic younger brother Jake comes paired with a surprising sweetness. Both kids are initially annoying as hell, but quickly become likable in their own, off-beat way.

Ultimately, Shining Vale wants to be a horror-comedy, but doesn’t go hard enough into either genre. The horror could easily be darker and scarier, without actually changing the vibe of the show. It almost feels like creators Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan were afraid to lean too heavily into the promising horror aspects baked into the series' very premise. 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.

Rating: B-

Shining Vale premieres with two episodes on Sunday, March 6 at 10:20 PM on STARZ, and airs new episodes every Sunday.