'Shining Vale' Horror-Comedy Pilot At Starz Will Star Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox is returning to the horror genre with Shining Vale, a new horror-comedy pilot that hopes to land a series pick-up at Starz. The story involves a family that moves into a house that was the site of some terrifying events. Cox's character is the only person who notices something scary is going on. The show hails from Divorce creator Sharon Horgan and Trial & Error co-creator Jeff Astrof.Scream franchise alumna Courteney Cox going back to the horror-comedy well for Shining Vale. The pilot episode is being produced by Warner Bros. Television and Lionsgate. If all goes according to plan, the pilot will turn into a new series on Starz. The pilot is the brainchild of Sharon Horgan and Jeff Astrof, with Astrof penning the script from a story by him and Horgan, based on an idea by Aaron Kaplan.

The show is "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 (Cox), who's convinced she's either depressed or possessed – turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same." The Deadline story has a full breakdown of Cox's character:

Cox's Patricia "Pat" Phelps is a former "wild child" who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women's empowerment novel (aka lady porn). Fast-forward 17 years, and Pat is clean and sober but totally unfulfilled. She still hasn't written her second novel, she can't remember the last time she had sex with her husband, and her teenage kids are at that stage where they love their vile friends and want you dead. She was a faithful wife until her one slip-up: a torrid 15-night stand with a hot, young artist/handyman/musician neighbor. In a last-ditch effort to save her marriage, she and her family move from the "crazy" of the city to a large, old house in the suburbs where evil and humor collide.

I dig this premise, and I like the idea of Cox returning to the genre. My only hope is that the premise is played straight and not in a broad, goofy way. But hey, that's me. The plan is for Shining Vale to be a half-hour series, with Dearbhla Walsh (The Handmaid's Tale) directing the pilot. No word at the moment on when we might see this, should Starz give it a series order.