Critic Reviews

When Salem isn’t being deliberately outrageous, it’s cultivating a dynamic that could be fruitful as things move along.

There's plenty of room in the graveyard for Salem, although it's way too early to tell if it can effectively build on the scary and sensual elements introduced in Sunday's premiere.

Not all of the acting works all of the time, but the cast holds it together when necessary, guided with assurance by Montgomery, who alone deserves another episode or two just to appreciate.

WGN America's first scripted drama is American Horror Story Lite, a conventional dark fantasy with an unconventional angle on history. [18/25 Apr 2014, p.101]

It’s a poor man’s “American Horror Story: Coven” but with more shrieking and less fun. On the upside, Janet Montgomery makes for an intriguing sorceress.

Salem as a whole reflects the difference in the work of West and Montgomery. Yet its wildly uneven premiere has enough going for it to make me watch at least another episode.

West and the rest of the cast perform solidly as well, and once we know the lineup, presumably we’ll dive deeper into the game.

While Salem isn’t bad, necessarily, it doesn’t conjure any magic, either.

Salem is replete with scenes that make little sense. It’s mostly a jumble of decent enough special effects, less-than-decent acting, a script that also should be lashed with “10 hard ones” and lots of blood-curdling screaming.

The Salem pilot is rather plodding except when occasionally punctuated by these more gonzo scenes.