‘The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza’ Will Be Your Favorite Microdose of Horror/Comedy This Fall

With a name like The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza and a preview in which a Filipino man is constantly approached by various white men excitedly exclaiming that their wives are some type of Asian, I thought it was going to be an Asian Get Out horror series, exploring a different set of racial dynamics. And then I read the press release more closely and got to watch most of the series, and I quickly discovered that The Terrors was something a little bit different from what I expected. It was a sketch comedy with a horror veneer. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it did end up being exactly what I needed. The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza is Adult Swim’s latest live-action series and “first Asian sketch show ever,” meant to fill those odd fifteen-minute intervals. Each episode contains a few different sketches that have a distinctively surreal flavor around them. It is a show that is acutely aware that comedy and horror are close cousins, and the things that make us laugh and the things that make us squirm are a couple of pieces of context. There is something relatable in the approach, the way that some laughter is derived from shock and others is derived from pure unease. Mendoza, who has previously lived life as a YouTuber, wrote for FX’s Dave and Showtime’s Ziwe, and has a few acting credits between Neon and Kaledoscope to give the briefest taste of his resume, is very good at what he does. In the selection of episodes I watched, none of the sketches felt like they duplicat…