Monsterland is a Hulu original series based on Nathan Ballingrud’s short story anthology, North American Lake Monsters. The first season debuted on October 2 of 2020 as a part of Hulu’s Huluween celebration and has been getting rave reviews. The stories mix a brutal, depressing realism with fantastical creatures in line with Ballingrud’s original works, shining a light on the darker parts of human existence.
Each episode in Monsterland season 1 follows the tone and mood of Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters. The season features eight episodes, adapting four from Ballingrud’s anthology and adding in four original stories that fit within the same themes. While each story does feature a monster of sorts, the stories are more about grey morality and human darkness than they are about the creatures themselves.
Following closely to the mood and intent of the source material, there’s no question that the intent of Monsterland was to adapt Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters for the screen. However, not all of the episodes from Monsterland season 1 are based on stories from the book, and there are definitely some episodes that are more accurate to their source material than others.
Original Stories Not from Ballingrud
With a total of eight episodes in its first season, Monsterland took a half and half approach to its stories, including four based on Nathan Ballingrud’s short stories from North American Lake Monsters and four original. The original stories are" episode 3, "New Orleans, LA," episode 4, "New York, NY," episode 6, "Palacios, TX," and episode 7, "Iron River, MI."
Though none of them are directly based on stories from the original anthology, all feature the same tone and themes that are included throughout the rest of the book, including the stories being focused on human monstrosity being illuminated by the contrast with strange, otherworldly creatures.
Episode 1 “Port Fourchon, LA”
The first episode of Hulu’s Monsterland follows closely to Nathan Ballingrud’s story “You Go Where It Takes You” about Toni, played by Kaitlyn Dever, an exhausted single mother with no money and a three-year-old daughter, who meets a strange man that opens her eyes to a whole new idea of who she can be.
Monsterland presents Alex, the mysterious man Toni meets at the diner as an accomplice to Mr. Grey, a man who helped him kill all the people in the back of the car. In the story, Alex is a simple thief who stole a car and found all the alternatives inside. He’s only changed into one once, and he’s not keen to do it again. Additionally, in the book, Toni wants to take one of the skins and come with him on the run, but Alex is horrified by the idea that she would leave her daughter and refuses.
Alternatively, in the show, Toni is disgusted and terrified by Alex’s actions, having killed all those people and then going on the run and refuses his offer to take one of the alternatives and start a new life. In both iterations of the story, Toni instead takes her daughter and just starts to drive, leaving her old life behind. In the book, she leaves her daughter, Gwen, at a rest stop, while in the show she leaves her daughter, Jack, in a BMW at a roadside restaurant.
Episode 2 "Eugene, OR"
Episode 2, "Eugene, OR", follows a young boy caring for his out-of-work mother as she recovers from a stroke. Isolated and struggling, Nick sees a shadow figure in his room one night and posts about it on an online forum where he becomes increasingly influenced and indoctrinated by the group's extremist beliefs.
This episode is loosely based on Ballingrud’s story “SS,” which follows similar beats and features the same main characters, Nick and his ailing mother; however, in the short story, Nick’s extremist beliefs start with his girlfriend, Trixie, who leads him into a neo-Nazi street gang. He’s seduced towards racism by the powerful, influential leader for the same reasons as in the show: isolation, hopelessness, and poverty.
While the episode uses a more metaphorical basis to tell the same story, the shadow people are obviously a metaphor for people of color and other “outsiders,” where the short story tackles these topics directly. The story in Monsterland also clearly takes some inspiration from the modern phenomenon of QAnon, discussing political candidate dog whistles and secret conspiracies, while the short story is much more straightforward.
Episode 5 "Plainfield, IL"
Episode 5, “Plainfield, IL” is based closely on Ballingrud’s short story, “The Good Husband.” The story of a couple torn apart by mental illness and suicide and an inability to let go is almost entirely accurate to the short story it’s based on with just a few exceptions. In the book, the couple is heterosexual, while in the show, the couple is two women.
The episode stars Roberta Colindrez as a suburban lawyer and Taylor Schilling (Piper from Orange is the New Black) as her wife, struggling with bipolar disorder. The show expands a bit more on the couple’s personalities, their relationship, and their history while the short story picks up at the suicide, moving forward from that point. The short story also continues on a bit further than the episode, bringing Heather, the couple’s daughter—who is a college student in the book—down into the basement to see her mother in her new ghoulish form.
Episode 8 "Newark, NJ"
Based on “The Monsters of Heaven” by Nathan Ballingrud, the final episode of Monsterland season 1 details the event known as ‘the Fall’ - in the book referred to as "the Lamentation" - in which hundreds of strange humanoid creatures called angels fell from the sky. Both stories explore one family’s struggle with the loss of their child, and their encounter with one of the creatures as a substitute for their missing child. Mike Colter stars as the male lead, Brian.
While this is the story that shows the biggest departure from the book to the TV adaptation, it still follows basically the same story as the book it’s based on. The first difference is that the missing child is a boy in the book, while in the TV series she’s a girl. The sequence in the diner with Toni isn’t in the book; there’s no inclusion of the angels’ blood being a street drug in the book, either.
In the story, it is implied that there is a sort of aura the angels have that makes people feel euphoric; the husband and wife do make love bathed in the blood of the angel, but it’s because they eat the creature, not because it slits its throat over them. The movie theatre scene also does not appear in the book. Though the short story does also end with Brian finally accepting that his son is gone for good, it’s much less optimistic than the ending painted by Monsterland.