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The one big mistake Sabrina made

Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

From Digital Spy

With Netflix forecast to spend roughly £9.2bn globally on its shows this year, and Amazon around £3.9bn, the world's biggest streaming services clearly have cash to burn. In theory, it gives them a clear advantage over the likes of the BBC and ITV. With such substantial financial backing, the creative possibilities are endless.

But is all that money actually detrimental to the raft of new shows viewers are sinking their teeth into? The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina might well suggest that it is.

Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

Similar in name only, the reboot of the popular '90s coming-of-age sitcom established itself as something entirely different from its predecessor as soon as the title sequence rolled. Gone was Sabrina modelling outfits in front of her bedroom mirror in favour of a gothic, comic book-inspired intro, complete with crows, cauldrons and Satan himself, accented by a chilling score.

The tone is unmistakably darker – during the annual Feast of Feasts ritual, a witch slits her throat and the coven throw themselves upon her bloody corpse, tearing her apart as they gorge on her flesh.

We know that Sabrina can't possibly die (Netflix ordered a two-part series right off the bat, no pun intended), but there is a sense of real jeopardy and sacrifice – one of her best friends, Ros, is told that she is going to lose her sight, and Harvey's brother Tommy eventually succumbs to death after a fatal accident in the mines.

And then there is the Dark Lord himself, Satan, who is pursuing the half-witch, half-mortal teen, employing a number of dastardly tactics in the hope that she will sign the Book of the Beast, forsaking her ties to the mortal world and pledging her allegiance to him.

The show isn't afraid to deal in gore and creatures of the night, but therein lies the problem. It isn't afraid, and neither are you.

Photo credit: Diyah Pera/Netflix
Photo credit: Diyah Pera/Netflix

In a world of excess, less can so often be more. There's no denying how good CAOS looks. The rich, gothic aesthetic imbues the supernatural horror with a sense of premium quality. Everything is cast in an ethereal glow, and as a viewer you can't help but be seduced.

Aside from Riverdale, which is also a product of the Archie Comics series on which Sabrina is based, there's scarcely a better-looking show on TV. So you would expect the moments of true horror, when the mask slips and what really lies beneath is revealed in all its horror, to pop.

You would expect to feel a certain level of fear from a show that deals in the devil. But you don't, because those moments are blanketed by that identical, expensive, other-worldly sheen that characterises the rest of the series, making it impossible to establish any kind of fear factor.

So why allow the mask to slip at all?

During the show's finale episode, The Witching Hour, Madame Satan recounts the events of that fateful night, when the Red Angel of Death and the Greendale thirteen descend upon the town to wreak their unholy vengeance. Michelle Gomez's character is talking to a gagged and terrified Principal Hawthorne, who has done little to endear himself to viewers, before eventually relinquishing the body of Mary Wardwell who she has possessed throughout, exposing what she really is.

It's as much a reveal for the audience as it is for the head of Baxter High, but the grand unveiling is weak. As she peels off her face, a CGI-rendered zombie-esque creature stares back at you, and it falls flat. The moment in which Gomez should be at her most terrifying has the reverse effect, and reduces her to a shadow of her former self when she should, in theory, be at her greatest.

Hawthorne's aghast expression would have been enough. And that wasn't the only moment that fell short of its potential. The show is too eager to give up Satan's true form. He is the demon kingpin who strikes an uncanny mix of fear and adulation into the hearts of his subjects, but the goat-headed figure, topped off with horns and cloven hooves, doesn't land.

Satan, the actual devil, falls short.

Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

The HBO series Sharp Objects, based on the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, is a masterclass in sustaining fear, steadily cranking the levels as the series develops. And while the two are entirely different shows with different motivations, CAOS could take note from one of Sharp Objects' central tactics in allowing fear to flourish. We never see the murders of Ann Nash and Natalie Keene take place.

What we do see is Natalie's bruised and broken body. We are fed descriptions about what happened to her, and we watch as Detective Richard Willis yanks the teeth from a decapitated pigs head, simulating the events as part of his investigation. But the rest is left entirely to our imagination, and the horrors linger long after.

Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

If you lay every detail out on the table, there's nothing else to explore – and while big budgets undoubtedly make it tempting to adopt a "We'll have one of everything" approach to making TV, the people behind the camera would do well to let things breathe.

The less we know, the more unsettling things are, and if Sabrina had left the darker elements to our imaginations, our minds would fill in the blanks.


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