John Griffin has one idea so far and it is a good one: a town no road leaves, and neighbours who only look like neighbours. FROM is frightening after dark and slack by day, and he says the answers are coming.
Fi1m perspective
A family drives into a town they have never heard of, drives out again, and finds the same main street waiting for them. That is the whole of John Griffin's premise for FROM (2022), and he is right not to dress it up. The diner, the white church and the big house on the hill are furniture Stephen King left behind; what Griffin adds is the night. When the sun goes down, things that look like people come out of the trees and knock. The nights frightened us in the plain, childish way, and what does it is that the things look like people. Griffin's habit, here and in what he has said about his work, is to put the threat in a human form and watch what ordinary people do when the everyday stops working.
The career is thin and the show is most of it. Griffin came up through spec scripts and fellowships in the late 2000s, wrote an episode of the 2019 Twilight Zone revival, and sold a science fiction spec called Crater, which reached the screen in 2023 as a coming-of-age film with him as sole credited writer. We have not reviewed it and will not pretend to judge it. FROM was developed from 2018 and premiered in 2022, with Jeff Pinkner running the show and Jack Bender directing much of it, and it has been renewed through a fifth and final season. One long story, told slowly, with a promised end: that is the shape of the work.
What works is the arithmetic our review set out. FROM is frightening for about a quarter of every hour and ordinary for the rest, and for anyone who likes being frightened that trade is fair. Harold Perrineau carries the town, and the nights are properly built. What does not work is the days, which are spent having the same argument twice, and this is a writing problem rather than a directing one. Griffin has said the makers have always known exactly where the show is going and what the answers are, and we believe him. Knowing the answers is a comfort to the writer. The viewer only has the days.
He talks about a long-form mystery as a contract with the audience, answers in exchange for patience, and it is the right way to think about the form. It also means the show will be marked, in the end, on whether it kept its side. The end date has been set. We would rather see it kept than see the town grow another street.
Biography
John Griffin is an American writer and television creator. He created the science fiction horror series FROM (2022–), on which he also serves as writer, teleplay writer, story writer and executive producer.
His earlier credits include writing an episode of the 2019 revival of The Twilight Zone and the Disney+ film Crater (2023). FROM was developed under an overall deal with production companies Midnight Radio and AGBO, and has been renewed through a planned fifth and final season.
Griffin attended Marymount Manhattan College. The concept for FROM originated from reflections following the September 11 attacks.
