John Carpenter has often been on the cutting edge of genre exploration — with “Halloween”,当然,还有“暗星,”“袭击公关ecinct 13,” “Escape from New York,” “The Thing,” “Starman,” “Big Trouble in Little China” and “They Live” among others. While not quite inventing new types of movies, the director has often found new ways to make sci-fi, horror and action films feel fresh and more alive.

So it’s not surprising to see the maestro dip into the disreputable docuseries world with “John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams” and come out with a bloody fine hybrid.

It may have a terrible title, and in fact Carpenter only directed one of the Peacock series’ six episodes — by remote, from his home in Hollywood to the re-enactments in Prague — yet the auteur’s stamp of realistically grungy atmosphere, prowling camerawork and unnerving suspense are somehow attached to every chapter of the first season. He also narrates the introduction to each segment, and as is often the case with his movies, Carpenter composed the series’ theme music.

But wait a minute, this is starting to sound like a show created from scratch, not the repetitious collection of talking heads and archive footage this exploitative format usually employs.

Indeed, actual people recount their scary encounters with supernatural forces, mad killers and the like, and we see old newspaper reports and photos. Yet despite Peacock calling “Suburban Screams” unscripted, there are more staged scenes and written dialogue than interviews with witnesses and survivors.

Does the Writers Guild know about this? How aboutSAG-AFTRA? Most of the heavy narrative lifting is done by little-known actors who aren’t exactly Meryl Streep, but are generally well-cast as younger versions of the real-life commentators. And they can emote to their wits’ ends. (Jokes aside, Peacock officials confirmed the series was filmed before the strikes.)

Performances that stand out include Ben Walton-Jones as a young man wracked with guilt, whose homemade Ouija board summons the restless spirit of a drug casualty in the first episode, “Kelly.” David Buttle brings a disturbing, controlled savagery to a man who terrorized a small Canadian town in “A Killer Comes Home.” Sarah Shipley finds the poignance of an inner city woman whose family is decimated when they find their dream house in a ”Cursed Neighborhood.” And Julie Stevens accesses all known layers of paranoia as the target of a “Phone Stalker.”

All the protagonists suffered years of trauma. Some are still processing it all.

“Phone Stalker” is the episode Carpenter directed. It’s noticeably more cinema-savvy than the others, with superb, upsetting use of screens within the screen as implements of torture. Its aural mix could well be called a screamscape. But the other chapters — some of which were directed by showrunner Jordan Roberts, a veteran of this kind of reality programming — drip with menace and well-wrought imagery rarely experienced in more straightforward docuseries.

Striking images abound, like a body sealed in a red sleeping bag rushing down a roaring river or the legendary “Bunny Man” showing up at a Halloween party with his grotesque headpiece and hatchet. Projectile vomiting and maggot-infested pimples won’t be for the squeamish.

“Suburban Screams” may not be everything it’s sold as, but it’s something better: a collection of tales that transcend their sensationalistic origins by artful, sure-handed presentation. Believe it or not.

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer.