Anyone like me who was born around the 90s will certainly know the TV series Sabrina the Witch's Life, which brought actress Melissa Joan Hart to the fore, or Sabrina The Animated Series, cartoon of the 2000s that transformed the misadventures of Sabrina and companions from live action to animated. If, however, you are not aware of the fact that everything comes from an Archie Comics comic, then you will not even know The Terrifying Adventures of Sabrina (Chilling Adventure of Sabrina), comic series written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa e Robert Hack that turns the teen's adventures into something more horror-centric. From these premises, Netflix has produced a TV series (which will continue for two seasons) based on this last comic, starting from the ideas of Aguirre-Sacasa and developing this first season in 10 episodes.
Same, but different
The two series mentioned at the beginning showed a light and playful atmosphere, mainly dedicated to young boys: this new Netflix series is the exact opposite. A gorgeous Kiernan Shipka brings a screen to the screen Sabrina young but determined, capable of giving voice to that half of the dark side left to him by his father. She is in fact a half-breed, born to Edward Spellman - high priest of the Church of the Night - and Diana Spellman (human), both of whom died in a mysterious accident. Entrusted to the care of the aunts Hilda (Lucy Davis) e Zelda (Miranda Otto), lives with them and her cousin Ambrose Spellman (Chance Perdomo) in a gloomy villa that also serves as a base for the family funeral home. The cast also includes Michelle Gomez who will play a witch you will know better over time, Ross Lynch who plays Sabrina's boyfriend, Harvey Kinkle, and Richard Coyle as Father Blackwood, the High Priest of the Church of the Night who succeeded Sabrina's father.
The ten episodes, lasting between 50 and 60 minutes, tell stories self-contained but linked together, often with a hook that raises to the next bet. The themes are much more dark e horror of his carefree counterpart, thus allowing himself to contextualize situations in the best possible way. The Church of the Night prays to the Dark Lord, Satan himself, and for this the series describes every single ritual, magic or detail in the specifications., showing creatures of Christian mythology and above all also making connections to historical events. It will therefore be fun to see Zelda read there Dark Bible of Lucifer, or hear classic religious phrases with inverted adjectives, designed to highlight how this Dark Lord is the opposite of God. The other contextualization that The Terrifying Adventures of Sabrina makes is to describe Satan as the one who gave free will to all 'man (with the apple of Eden): this is a symbol of the fact that in the series, as Sabrina will find herself halfway between humans and witches (and sorcerers), even the points of view of the people around her will be different , sometimes conditioned by their ways of living.
Dynamic
What it manages to do The Terrifying Adventures of Sabrina is to combine all the members of the cast despite the fact that the life of a witch and a human are clearly distinct: two different schools, two different groups, yet one never hears about one more than the other, but there is a balance of contents almost mathematical. Despite being of the horror genre, the Netflix series does not abuse Jump Scare, but rather he rarely uses them, demonstrating how horror is not given by the fear itself, but by the themes told, which instead - perhaps also thanks to the exit platform - do not hide behind unfounded fears but are explicitly revealed. Killings, torture, curses, everything revolves around the way they are told: crude, but as if they were the order of the day.
The magic in The Terrifying Adventures of Sabrina it is on the agenda, but it is not the one seen in the TV series of the 90s: you will not often see the protagonist move her hands with some crazy sound effect, but there will be verses in Latin, magic formulas, blood and sacrifices. On the other hand, if you have to tell the dark magic of witches and you want to contextualize it with the horror theme, you can do nothing else but this.
One in a kind
The TV series, which will be released on 26 October on Netflix, it gives space to a fun and never boring binge watching, and each episode conclusion will push you to go further, to find out what happens in the life of a sixteen year old who has to synchronize with a problematic double life.
The Terrifying Adventures of Sabrina, as the comic did, tells an alternative version of Sabrina's adventures: some adolescent themes remain, but much of the cake is instead eaten by more adult problems. Subterfuges, betrayals and broken beliefs will be the narrator who will tell, in these 10 episodes, some scary stories almost more for how close they are to the human soul than for the monsters they depict.
