Recommendations: Week of 9/5/22
It's already spooky season
It’s simultaneously cute and annoying that every year we humans collectively try to bring our favorite holidays/seasons forward in time. I remember when it was taboo to hang your Christmas lights before Thanksgiving; now people barely seem to wait until Halloween. Pumpkin Spiced Lattes can be enjoyed iced, so why wait for the first chill of September? And thus it is with spooky season. The lead-up to Halloween now begins in late August, and the streaming services wouldn’t dare be caught flat-footed. These recommendations are for those who carry a little bit of Halloween in their hearts all year round and have been waiting patiently to go full dark no stars.
Devil in Ohio (Netflix): I love a Deschanel sister as much as the next millennial so I was more than ready to tune in when Netflix released a limited series starring Emily. She plays a psychiatrist who becomes involved with a young woman when she appears mysteriously on the side of an Ohio road with a pentagram carved into her back. What follows is extremely paint by numbers, but if rural American cults, upside-down crosses, dead ravens, bloody white roses, and young women running through corn fields clutching butcher’s knives is your spooky vibe, then this limited series will appeal. Emily is a comforting presence (she’s just really good at playing doctors) and the show achieves some genuine frights. I wouldn’t go in with any expectations of novelty, but it’s a good weekend watch to get you geared up for the long road to Halloween. Watch if you like the M. Night Shyamalan oeuvre.
The Essex Serpent (Apple TV+): Nothing says Fall in 1893 like pulling out your woolens and going to a small English fishing town in search of a mythical demonic sea serpent. Based on the novel by Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent is an atmospheric and faithful adaptation starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. Danes plays Cora Seaborne, a recent widow with a deep interest in natural history. After hearing there may be a murderous sea serpent in Essex, Cora decides to take her new freedom and investigate. She encounters the Rev. William Ransome (Hiddleston), a modern intellectual who has devoted himself to cultivating the suspicious minds of his congregation. Cora and William soon learn that superstition and fear are formidable opponents, and perhaps modern thinking isn’t enough to vanquish them (a scene where Cora vainly attempts to explain fossils to terrified school children is particularly affecting). The series is a wonderful adaptation of Perry’s novel; the costuming and set design especially lead the viewer deep into both the muck of the marsh and the silk of the late-Victorian drawing room. Watch if you like dark costume dramas, science vs superstition vs faith, and Tom Hiddleston brooding.