General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Girl in the Woods

The Girl in the Woods is an American supernatural horror drama television series that premiered on the streaming service Peacock on October 21, 2021, with all eight episodes of its single season released at once.¹ Produced by Crypt TV, the series follows Carrie, a teenage runaway from a cult-like colony whose members guard a secret door in the woods that keeps monsters out of the world; after she escapes to a small Oregon mining town, she teams up with two local teenagers to fight the creatures that follow her.²

Key fact	Detail
Network and run	Peacock original; one season of 8 episodes, all released October 21, 2021; status ended¹
Genre and rating	Drama, horror, and fantasy; rated TV-MA²
Episode length	About 26 minutes on average³
Directors	Krysten Ritter (first four episodes) and Jacob Chase (last four episodes)⁴
Source material	Based on Crypt TV's 2018 short film The Door in the Woods and its 2020 sequel The Girl in the Woods⁵
Main cast	Stefanie Scott (Carrie), Misha Osherovich (Nolan), Sofia Bryant (Tasha), Will Yun Lee (Arthur Deane), Reed Diamond (Hosea), Kylie Liya Page (Sara)²
Reception	57% Tomatometer from 7 critics and 82% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes²

Spoilers

Premise and setting

The series is set in the Pacific Northwest, in the fictional Oregon mining town of West Pine.⁶ Carrie, played by Stefanie Scott, is a runaway from a cult-like colony called the Disciples of Dawn, a group that trains children to guard a door to a hellish dimension hidden in the woods.⁶^•⁷ When strange occurrences shake the town, Carrie enlists two new friends, Nolan (Misha Osherovich) and Tasha (Sofia Bryant), and the three become an unlikely team of monster slayers, though Nolan and Tasha come to question whether they can trust Carrie.²

The season's eight episodes are titled The Guardian, The Door in the Woods, The Lure, Cracks, One Door Closes, Vast Gehenna, Weapon Against the Shadow, and Angel of the Dawn.⁸ The finale centers on Carrie and Tasha escaping armed disciples, rescuing Nolan, and closing a tear between worlds before it is too late.³

Cast and characters

Stefanie Scott leads as Carrie Ecker, a warrior trained from childhood to guard the door.³^•⁷ Misha Osherovich plays Nolan Frisk and Sofia Bryant plays Tasha Gibson, the local teenagers who join her.³ The supporting cast includes Reed Diamond as Hosea, Will Yun Lee as Arthur Deane, Kylie Liya Page as Sara, and Leonard Roberts as Khalil.²^•³ The series also features monstrous antagonists including the Hypnotist, the Brute, and the Echo, played by Mark Steger, Douglas Tait, and Marina Mazepa respectively.⁹

The show drew attention for its representation: Nolan is written as non-binary, Carrie is a young queer woman with a past relationship with Sara from her compound, and Tasha is a girl of color.¹⁰^•⁷ A review in Autostraddle described the series as delivering a complex queer horror hero, exploring grief, trauma, friendship, and love alongside its supernatural plot.⁷

Origins with Crypt TV

The series grew out of short-form horror content from Crypt TV, a digital studio founded by filmmaker Eli Roth and funded in part by Blumhouse. The Girl in the Woods was the first Crypt TV property to cross into a mainstream streaming platform.⁶ It adapts two shorts: the 2018 film The Door in the Woods, written and directed by Joey Greene, and the 2020 sequel The Girl in the Woods, written by David Calbert and Van Nguyen and directed by Roxine Helberg.⁵ The shorts had followed Carrie, sole survivor among the child guardians of the door, and the 2020 sequel had aged the character, played by Peyton List, and paired her with the demon-hunting engineer Arthur Dean, played by Kal Penn.⁶ The series keeps the shorts' core elements, the girl, the door, and the woods, while moving the story to West Pine and recasting the leads with Stefanie Scott and Will Yun Lee.⁶

Peacock announced the adaptation in April 2021, with Krysten Ritter, known for acting in and directing Jessica Jones, set to direct the first four of the eight episodes.⁵ Ritter also served as co-executive producer, and Jacob Chase produced and directed the final four episodes.⁴ Crypt TV's chief executive Jack Davis and chief operating officer Darren Brandl were executive producers, with Jeremy Elliott and Jasmine Johnson as co-executive producers.⁴ Jane Casey Modderno served as head writer of an all-women writing team.⁴

Production and filming

The series was filmed in Oregon, and the Willamette Week review noted that the production tapped the atmosphere of the state's shuttered mines and mills for its setting.⁶ Maxime Alexandre served as cinematographer across all eight episodes, with Schuyler Telleen as production designer and Erin Aldridge Orr as costume designer.¹¹

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 57% Tomatometer based on 7 critic reviews and an 82% Popcornmeter audience score from fewer than 50 ratings.² JustWatch lists an IMDb user rating of 5.5 out of 10.¹² Common Sense Media judged that the series felt dated next to the young-adult trends it followed, but found the horror scary, creepy, and gory enough to entertain genre fans.¹⁰ The Willamette Week review criticized the flashbacks and backstory exposition that filled much of the season, while praising the interplay among the lead actors in later episodes.⁶ No second season was produced, and the series is listed as ended.¹^•³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026