Kevin Bacon Returns In Horror Comedy The Bondsman

The devil goes down to Georgia in the horror comedy series The Bondsman, but he’s not looking for a fiddle fight. This demon master is actually an old-school telemarketer, fax machine at the ready, overseeing a pyramid scheme of lost souls. And when he taps you on the shoulder, you’d best be ready to do his handiwork. A gory, tongue-in-cheek slice of Southern Gothic, the new Amazon Prime Video series, premiered on April 3, 2025, and presents a system of penance that borders on bureaucracy.

A rural Georgia bondsman named Hub Halloran (Kevin Bacon) stumbles into the scheme in the first episode, when his throat gets slit in the line of duty. Coming to with a gaping wound in his neck, he soon realizes that he has been to hell and it has spit him back up. He’s still a bondsman, but now his job is to track down demons that have escaped from hell. If he refuses, he gets sent back.

In a TV landscape offering no shortage of horror in recent years, The Bondsman has a folksier flavor than most. The show’s haunts are rural; the main characters are scared and surprised by the demons they encounter, but they also seem inconvenienced and perturbed by the whole affair. “The operational theory is like, ‘Well, hell, I was going to go grocery shopping today, and instead, I’ve got to deal with a demon on the loose in my small town,’” said Erik Oleson, the showrunner.

The system, in this case, is represented by Pot O’ Gold, which presents itself as a tenacious series of pop-up ads and voicemail messages offering one of those opportunities that you just shouldn’t pass up. The company logo is a jovial leprechaun. The boss is the devil himself, though he’s too busy to make himself seen; instead, he sends a very cheerful, un-devilish minion (Jolene Purdy) to give Hub his new assignment.

Hub is skeptical, though he notices that his slashed throat, which he initially covered up with duct tape, seems to have magically healed. Soon he’s off to hunt down demons, armed with a variety of weapons (shotgun, chainsaw), and Kitty, his spitfire mama (Beth Grant) by his side.

The Bondsman was created by Grainger David, a soft-spoken former journalist for Fortune who grew up in Atlanta and South Carolina. He studied literature at Princeton, where he immersed himself in Southern Gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor. In an interview, David cited a line from O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”: “She would have been a good woman … if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Hub, David said, “could have been a good man if there’d just been a demon around every minute of his life.”

In short, Hub had demons to wrestle with well before he died and came back. He was a lousy husband (though a pretty good country music collaborator) to his ex-wife, Maryanne (the singer-songwriter Jennifer Nettles), and an inattentive father to his teenage son, Cade (Maxwell Jenkins). Both have now taken up with a carpetbagging Boston gangster (Damon Herriman) who is looking for his own redemption, though not very hard.

Hub isn’t a terribly nice guy, but as played by Bacon and written by David, he has the impish swagger of a man who doesn’t realize he’s in over his head — or, in this case, enslaved by the big boss down below. Plus, his mother is always there to knock him down a peg or two, or help him with his new gig. “On the one hand, Hub is kind of the quintessential ideal of American manhood,” Bacon said. “He’s kind of a loner and lives hard and all that stuff, but he’s still very much of a mama’s boy. I found that very funny.”

As the eight-episode first season unfolds, Hub learns how his sins during his time on Earth led to his condemnation to arguably a fate worse than death. Revenge isn’t likely to get Hub far in the world of The Bondsman. Even if his circumstances aren’t the best, though, his second chance at life is an opportunity to right some of his wrongs, particularly when it comes to his estranged family, who both help and hinder his horrifying hunt for the monsters among them.

“When I started first experiencing horror, every time I would do it, it would be in the company of a bunch of people in a dark room in a movie theater,” Bacon told Bloody Disgusting. “And when you share that experience of everybody going, ‘Ah!’ They jump at something, and then right afterwards they laugh at the fact that they all collectively jumped at that thing.”

In addition to Herriman, Bacon will share the screen with Jennifer Nettles, Beth Grant, Maxwell Jenkins, and Jolene Purdy. Reviews for their work on the demon-of-the-week series have been positive overall, with an 85% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and praise for the cast led by Bacon. While Collider's Aidan Kelley only gave the series a 6/10, he saw the potential for another season, saying, “When the show finally starts to stretch out of its comfort zone and begins setting up a horror comedy, it finds its own distinct identity.”

As the show progresses, viewers can expect a mix of humor and horror, with Hub trying to reconnect with his soon-to-be-ex-wife and estranged son while realizing the demons escaping are attempting something more than general possessions. The series promises a unique combination of humor and horror, with Bacon at the forefront, making it a must-watch for fans of both genres.

Ultimately, The Bondsman blends action, horror, and comedy while exploring themes of redemption and family dynamics. The show is a testament to Bacon's enduring appeal and ability to navigate a complex character, delivering a performance that resonates with viewers. With its unique premise and engaging storytelling, The Bondsman stands out in the crowded landscape of television horror.