Netflix’s chilling ‘Sabrina’ is devilish fun
Greendale is a bit chillier than you may remember.
Just in time for Halloween, Netflix has welcomed back Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) in “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” a fresh take on the iconic character you might remember from ABC’s saccharine 1990s sitcom “Sabrina: The Teenage Witch.”
Like CW’s “Riverdale” (“Sabrina” shares its creative team), this Archie Comics adaptation is darker than you’d expect. But the latest version of the teen witch – who has a “dark baptism” and experiments in necromancy – is welcome, if startling. “Sabrina” (streaming Friday, balances horror and high school with aplomb, making the Satanic delightfully soapy. It’s a gleeful descendant of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with the blood-soaked aesthetic of “American Horror Story.”
Here, Sabrina is a plucky half-witch, half-mortal teen with a caring boyfriend, sweet pals and a loving family. However, when she turns 16, she’s forced to choose between the mortal world of Baxter High and the witchy world of the Church of Night, the devilworshiping religion to which the Spellman family belongs.
Sabrina’s witch aunts Zelda (Miranda Otto) and Hilda (Lucy Davis) and her warlock cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) encourage her to take the path of darkness. But she’s in love with Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch), and has doubts about signing her name in the Dark Lord’s Book, which essentially gives away her free will.
Despite the darkness, there’s a sense of levity to the series. “Sabrina” mines a considerable amount of snort-worthy humor with its casual devilish references. Its mythology is a weakness at times, but the writers’ full-throated embrace of all things 666 is aesthetically astonishing. Every frame is overstuffed with an atmosphere of blood, ghosts, graves and pentagrams.
Part of what makes this series unique is its timelessness. You’d be hardpressed, until a smartphone appears a few episodes in, to identify the year in which the series is set. Most of the cars are vintage, the hairstyles basic and the clothes conservative enough to belong to any number of eras. Despite this, its combative tone and anti-patriarchal messaging feel distinctly tied to the cultural chaos of 2018, such as when Sabrina’s friends fight for feminism at Baxter High or Sabrina resists becoming a servant of the Dark Lord.
Shipka, who found acclaim as Sally Draper on “Mad Men,” reveals her full talents as an actress. She balances Sabrina’s sweeter and darker sides as a caring, kind girl who believably flirts with evil. The casting is sinfully good. Otto is a delight as the scenery-chewing Zelda, a Satanic zealot with perfect hair and a flair for the dramatic. Tati Gabrielle, who plays Sabrina’s teenwitch nemesis Prudence, and Michelle Gomez, as a villain disguised as an ally, also are standouts in the heightened world, practically slithering with excitement in their demonic delivery.
“Sabrina” is one of Netflix’s most successful attempts to build a series for binge-watching. Frequent cliffhangers and rapid storytelling make the series addictive. But more importantly, the writers still make smart use of self-contained episodes, a format that’s lacking in many streaming shows. “Sabrina” breaks up the season intoeasily digestible parts, which makes the binge feel breezier than many shows that feature one overwhelming story that merely pauses nine times for a few credits and a “next episode in ...” countdown.
While “Sabrina” is mostly fun and melodramatic, there are a few duds in its 10-episode season, and the plot in the later episodes becomes convoluted. Like many of its somber contemporaries, from “Mr. Robot” to “Ozark,” “Sabrina” is too dimly lit, including some night scenes where it’s nearly impossible to see some of the action. But the series almost always recovers quickly from these shortcomings
“Sabrina” is the rare remake that lives in harmony with its predecessor. In ABC’s version, a light sitcom, Sabrina used her magic to clean her room and land hunky Harvey. So dissimilar is this new series that calling it a remake seems inaccurate. “Sabrina” manages to be both comfortingly familiar and uncomfortably different.
Which is not unlike the devil himself.