HBO’s engrossing ‘The Outsider,’ drawn from Stephen King book, grows stranger by the week

Terry Maitland is a loving husband and father, a Little League coach, a respected figure in the All-American community of Flint City, Oklahoma.

He might also be a cold-blooded monster who kidnapped, abused and murdered an 8-year-old boy.

The case against Terry is overwhelming, from the multiple eyewitnesses who saw him with the child on the day of the murder to an abundance of DNA evidence.

But wait. Terry also has an ironclad alibi. He was at a literary conference 70 miles outside of town. There’s video of him asking a question to a panelist in a crowded room at the time of the murder. He couldn’t possibly have carried out this heinous crime.

Except for all the evidence indicating he did.

This is the confounding, fascinating, chilling and immediately engrossing premise of “The Outsider,” the HBO series premiering at 8 p.m. Sunday.

“The Outsider” benefits from teaming two of the great heavyweight storytellers of our time. It’s based on the Stephen King novel of the same name and adapted for television by Richard Price (“The Wire,” “The Night Of,” novels such as “The Wanderers” and “Clockers”). It doesn’t get any better than that.

I’ve seen the first six episodes of the 10-part story arc. With each hour, “The Outsider” grows darker and stranger and more … otherworldly, shall we say. Even as a possible explanation for how Maitland (and a handful of people accused of killings in other towns) could be in two places at one time comes into focus, it serves only to further the sense of dread and doom and death seeping into the lives of virtually every major character.

There’s a little bit of “True Detective” in the tone and the police investigative procedural scenes and a little bit of M. Night Shyamalan’s series “The Servant” in terms of the supernatural element.

Of course, there’s no shortage of classic Stephen King signature scare moments, and we’ll leave it at that. (I was also reminded of a certain Denzel Washington thriller from long ago, when time was on his side, yes it was.)

“The Outsider” features an outstanding ensemble cast, led by the wonderful Ben Mendelsohn, who usually plays heavies, as arguably the most sympathetic character in the story: Detective Ralph Anderson, who is in deep mourning over the loss of his own young son (who died of cancer) when he’s put in charge of investigating the murder.

Mare Winningham is Ralph’s wife, who is plagued by realistic nightmares. (And she’s not the only one in town dealing with some extremely vivid dreams that might be more than dreams.)

Jason Bateman (who directed the first two episodes) plays Terry Maitland, the good-guy family man who is handcuffed on the Little League field and charged with the murder of an 8-year-old boy. Julianne Nicholson is Terry’s wife Glory, who knows her husband couldn’t have committed the crime but is as confused as everyone else by the evidence against him.

Initially blinded by grief over his own son’s death and rock-solid in his belief Terry is guilty, Ralph slowly comes to realize it’s possible Terry is innocent — which would mean someone else out there could kill again. At the urging of a lawyer (Bill Camp), Ralph enlists the help of Cynthia Erivo’s Holly Gibney, a private investigator with an unusual skillset that might include paranormal gifts.

Bleep’s about to get weird, as they say. (Well. I’m saying it.)

“The Outsider” has a brooding, deliberate tone, which makes it all the more stunning when a shock moment transpires. Some of the nighttime scenes are shrouded in such a level of darkness, and filmed from such a distance, it makes it difficult to ascertain what’s going on. (I didn’t even realize one character had died until we cut to the funeral scene.) Sometimes, this technique is effective. A few times, it’s just maddening.

Over all, though, this is a great-looking show with brilliant work in particular from Mendelsohn and Erivo, who should be remembered come next awards season cycle.

My biggest complaint about the end of episode 6 was that I couldn’t immediately plunge into episode 7.