As anyone with Reddit knows, you can get lost for hours reading creepy pasta. The NoSleep reddit is a perfect place to fall into a pit of eeriness, and come out the other end ready to sleep with the lights on for a few months. Syfy recognized the allure of these stories, and announced a few months ago that they were going to produce Channel Zero, a series that would take some of the most popular stories and translate them into a series.

Their very first offering takes one of creepy pasta’s most notorious story lines, that of Candle Cove, and made it into a six part series. As a massive fan of creepy pasta overall, and this particular story, I had to check it out. Of course, I approached it with apprehension, not knowing just how Syfy would be able to translate an effective story onto the screen…but by the end of the first hour, I was fully on-board.

The story revolves around Dr. Mike Painter (Paul Schneider), a child psychologist who is haunted by his trouble past. He is compelled to return to his hometown of Iron Hill, Ohio, where he hopes to learn the mystery behind who killed five children during the late 80s…including his own twin brother. At the center of all this is the infamous show Candle Cove, which the ’80s children watched, and to Mike, are the cause of this entire mystery.

While the bulk of the premiere takes place during present day, we are treated to snippets of the past, in both quick flashes and longer sequences, in which more about Mike, and his history, are revealed.

While horror is currently in no shortage on TV today, where Channel Zero succeeds is making itself quite different from everyone else. There is no “in-your-face” scares here. Instead, the show adopts a slow, brooding unease, one that creeps in and never lets up during the course of its running time. While I don’t know if they can keep up that feeling over the course of the rest of the season, it worked quite well in the premiere episode.

Setting the story around an unreliable narrator, while an well-worn trope, works quite well here. We’re never quite sure what is real, and what is just in his head, but overall, it makes for wonderful visuals.

Along that line, the visuals are top-notch. Long, lingering shots, though they look gorgeous, still make you feel uneasy. The actual special effects are quite unnerving as well. The puppets in the actual Candle Cove show, the snippets of the tragedy that unraveled Mike in the 80s, and even the “tooth man” who makes a brief appearance here all are incredibly well done.

While there were a few times when the writing stumbled, something always happened immediately after to make up for it. The show does an ample job of combining some of the best details of some of our favorite pop culture, horror films and shows, and adds its own twists to it to make it work. In a way, it’s like IT mixed with Twin Peaks, and it pulls it off.

And really, any show that has extended David Bowie references is totally good in my book.

At the end of the day, Channel Zero is a wonderful surprise this year, and something I look forward to exploring more as the weeks unfold.

But sure to check it out every Tuesday on Syfy.