Could you really resist a cult if a beloved celebrity was at the helm?

Hollywood has eagerly mined this premise amid the 2020s’ true crime boom, from Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers to The Weeknd in The Idol. Now Toni Collette is getting in on the fun, starring as the unnervingly smiley face of a school for troubled teenagers in Mae Martin’s off-beat, scattered new Netflix series Wayward, debuting Sept. 25.

The show’s creepy, cryptic marketing has already drawn largely unwarranted comparisons to the likes of Twin Peaks and Stranger Things, but only the opening scene comes close to either.

It’s 2003, and a panicked teenage boy tears through an underlit forest late one night, trailed by a droning voice going on about something to do with his mother and an all-important door. Of

See Full Page