In a new trailer for Starz’ Shining Vale, Courteney Cox faces the age-old question. What is scarier, a haunted house or writer’s block? And honestly, from the looks of this new show… We’d have to say, writer’s block. At no point in Shining Vale‘s trailer did we feel a greater creep of dread than when Pat Phelps (Courteney Cox) hears the words, “If we don’t get the first chapter next month, I want the advance back.” Chilling. Absolutely chilling.
The official trailer synopsis for Shining Vale reads:
Shining Vale is a horror-comedy about a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house in which terrible atrocities have taken place. But no one seems to notice except for Pat (Courteney Cox), who’s convinced she’s either depressed or possessed – turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same.
In a release, Starz also shares more about the show:
Pat and Terry Phelps (Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear) cash in their life savings and move from a cramped apartment in Brooklyn, to an old Victorian mansion in Shining Vale, Connecticut as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage after Pat’s torrid affair with Frank, their young hot handyman who came over to fix the sink while Terry was at work. To make matters worse for Terry, Frank never fixed the sink, yet still charged him for it!… Buying a 200-year-old house that was on the market for almost three years and sold for more than $250K below asking seemed like a good idea on paper, but Pat senses that the Phelps are not alone; especially when an old-fashioned-looking woman appears hovering outside their family room window.The Phelps quickly learn why the agents were so motivated to sell the house for a fraction of the asking price. Seems a few details were glossed over, including a triple murder-suicide and a host of other atrocities they neglected to mention. But neither Terry nor the kids seem to notice that something is horribly wrong with their new home; only Pat can see things move and hear the bumps in the night. She’s also the only one who sees the spirit of the person who used to live there, Rosemary (Mira Sorvino), a Fifties housewife who may or may not be trying to take over Pat’s body.
An unfixed sink, a triple murder-suicide, a ghostly ’50s housewife, there is a lot going on in this show. And we feel we only glimpsed some of it in Shining Vale‘s trailer. But we definitely already want to know more. We can see references to classic horror movies like The Shining coming through. Plus, a good sense of dark humor exists in our first look. And, of course, we all need more Courteney Cox in horror media after rewatching the entire Scream series to prepare for the recent Scream movie.
We don’t know exactly where this haunted house tale will go. But we do know one thing. We kind of wish someone would possess us and finish our novel. It actually sounds like a pretty good deal. Pat Phelps doesn’t seem like she loves her life. Maybe a little possession can go a long way. Inspiration can change everything. And we do love a built-in writing partner. As long as they don’t land us in too much hot water, anyway. Hopefully, Pat will find just enough trouble in her haunting.
Shining Vale premieres on March 6. It will release its first two episodes at once.
