THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR Season One
Inversion Of The Body Snatchers
UK/US Netflix, streaming now Showrunner Sergio G Sánchez Cast Mireia Oriol, Álex Villazán,
Claudia Roset, Pol Monen
When a bus full of students crashes off a fogswamped road in a mountainous region of northern Spain, there are few survivors. And those that do survive seem different. Though they still rut with each other like rabbits, same as before.
Alma is one survivor, but she’s lost her memory. As she struggles to piece together her pre-crash persona, she apparently starts seeing the ghost of her sister, who died of brain cancer. At the same time, other survivors, including
Alma’s potential boyfriend Tom, begin to realise that the crash was no accident, and has something to do with body-snatching demons from ancient myth.
Alma, incidentally, is also the original Spanish title of this series. Luckily it remains on-screen in its intended stylised form (with The Girl In The Middle as a subtitle), as it’s the basis for a clever meta gag in a later episode, and – as the series goes on – links into the whole mirror motif in far more subtle ways than the on-the-nose English title.
The series boasts some excellently crafted horror set-pieces and moments of exquisite tension, along with a bunch of wonderfully ludicrous twists. Two high-concept episodes that turn everything on its head certainly liven up the latter part.
But oh dear, getting there is a right old slog. Dull teen relationship traumas and an unrelentingly dour tone drag listlessly through the first six episodes, interrupted only by infodumping flashbacks that sketch out a creakily contrived backstory for the demons. There’s a checklist of dark fantasy paraphernalia: ancient tomes, sigils and a mysterious device that serves no purpose other than advancing the plot at a crucial point. Be prepared for some industrial-strength mawkishness too. It might have been better off as a 90-minute film. Dave Golder
Writer/director Sergio G Sánchez scripted director JA Bayona’s highly regarded Spanish 2007 horror film The Orphanage.