I expected to really enjoy Hulu’s Monsterland, after all I really like horror and it’s called “Monsterland,” after all.”

And with a name like that it wouldn’t be untoward to expect the presence of plenty of things that go bump in the night (And there’re a few but the main terrors are those of the mind).

Though imagine my surprise when I discovered that I really disliked this series (though to be fair that would imply that I watched it all, which I haven’t).

In fact, I got though just four episodes before I called it a day because I found it very vexing though oddly enough the problem wasn’t the production in and of itself – it’s gorgeously shot, edited and acted in all four of the episodes I watched.

No, the problem with Monsterland goes deeper than that because I’ve enjoyed more than my share of movies with mediocre lighting, camerawork, editing, and acting if I can see what the filmmakers were trying to achieve.

Though what I cannot forgive is bad writing – though to be fair Monsterland isn’t badly written either because to say so would imply failure from a creative standpoint and that’s just not true.

No, Monsterland‘s failure is a meanness of sprit, a cynicism that starts in the writing and spreads throughout the entire production like a rot.

In the world the three episodes portrays cynicism hangs over everything like a caul as a waitress (Kaitlyn Dever) gives her child away to a woman she’s never met because she drove a Cadillac!? Or the story of a young man who kills his mother because of Internet.

Though to fair the who’s and why’s are a bit more nuanced than that though there’s a meanness undergirding the episodes I saw that’s just exhausting.

One day I might complete my trip to Monsterland…though certainly not today.