Title – Mystic (2017)

Director – Victor Franko

Cast – Rachael Perry, Stephen Martin, Mitchell Cardone, Victor Franko

Plot – This murder mystery takes place in Mystic, Connecticut and tells the story of an Irish-American family that has been living in this sleepy New England community for generations with a very dark secret. After the murder of a prominent member of this family, everyone in the town is a suspect to her untimely death.

“Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will also live”

Review by Eddie on 9/06/2017

Feeling like a distant cousin to such TV big hitters as Twin Peaks and to a lesser extent Wayward Pines, the pilot of potential new series Mystic showcases an intriguing setup with a unique setting and a colourful bunch of characters, in what’s likely to be an appealing event for those that can’t get enough of their murder mystery’s doused in a heavy dosage of the strange and mystical.

Set in the ocean clad Connecticut town of Mystic, this short 30 minute pilot is rough around the edges, as is the case with many such pilots looking to show off the possibilities rather than the end result, yet despite the rough nature of the production and the less than stellar acting turns, you do get the feeling that a Mystic with a budget and professional actors could be quite the treat.

As is often the case with TV hits of this nature, the setting itself is as important as its human characters and Mystic feels like the perfect town to hide secrets and ghosts of the past.

We get brief snippets of a town that harbors a haunting figure roaming the port with a lantern, a seemingly crazy lady chanting what seems to be spells, a shady government official and a young church deacon who seems as though he is not out doing the lords work.

They’re just a few of the pilot’s characters that we are introduced to and if Mystic were to take off in its intended longer form season formats, it wouldn’t struggle to fill out its time with such a large portion of various figures both good, bad and in-between, inhabiting this anything but normal destination.

Final Say –

This passion project of producer Frank Durant deserves to be done on a larger scale and while this pilot is rough and raw, there’s enough at the heart of this murder mystery to suggest its worthy of a proper go in the ever increasingly competitive TV marketplace.

3 crying painters out of 5