The Halloween traditions continue with the debut of the new Robert Aguirre-Sacasa series on Netflix. The sub-title refers to a collection of stories by Ray Bradbury published in 1955. The character of Sabrina was introduced in Archie’s Madhouse #22 (1962) by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo. She might be known as tv movie in 1996 and a television series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2003) played by Melissa Joan Hart. Roberto Aguirre Sacasa and Robert Hack produced a comic book that ran for nine issues with the same title as the current program. The opening credits features artwork from Robert Hack. I like the peek and the original Dan DeCarlo art. It opens with narration by Kiernan Shipka who plays Sabrina. We see the moon and a pan down to the town of Greendale, this is the town that is next to Riverdale, and also mentioned on that show. She explains that she is turning 16 and has to choose between the witch world and the human world. We move into a showing of Night of the Living Dead (1968) at the Paramount Theater. Sabrina is smiling eating popcorn with her boyfriend, Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch) with his arm on her. Shipka is fine as a lead, but Lynch doesn’t have fun with his part. After the movie, Sabrina in her red coat walks with her friends, Roz and Susie, an explains why the zombies moved quickly. She bumps into Mrs. Wardwell (Michelle Gomez). Sabrina invites Mrs. Wardwell to come with them to talk about the movie. Mrs. Wardwell excuses herself to grade papers. It doesn't seem to be the same world as Riverdale.
Mrs. Wardwell is driving in the rainy night. She suddenly sees the form of a young girl in the road and swerves to avoid her. Mrs. Wardwell goes to check on the girl, she appears behind her at the car, and pleads for help. She drives the girl back to her cottage. At the diner, Sabrina and her friends discuss the themes of the movie, then Sabrina kisses Harvey. At the Spellman Mortuary, Harvey chases Sabrina, kisses her again, and gives her the gift of a necklace. Sabrina enters her house and uses her magic to turn on the radio. Mrs. Wardwell pours tea for her guest. The girl says the woods attacked her. Mrs. Wardwell explains that there was a witch hunt in Greendale and thirteen witches were killed. The girl asks about Sabrina. Mrs. Wardwell knows her as a student at Baxter High where she teaches. The girl goes into demonic voice says she knew Sabrina’s father who married a mortal. She uses her power to throw a scissor into Mrs. Wardwell’s neck. The girl kneels by the blood pooling from Mrs. Wardwell, recites a spell, and takes her form. She promises to bring Sabrina to the Dark Lord. Sabrina is startled awake, she goes to her calendar with the 27th unmarked and the 31st her 16th birthday and Dark Baptism. She looks at a black and white photo of her parents. Sabrina looks out at the night and a bat shatters her window. Sabrina takes inspiration from it and becomes Batgirl? She lifts up a heavy book and with some words brings down the book.
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CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA -- “Chapter One: The October Country” -- Diyah Pera/Netflix.
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Morning, Sabrina walks into the kitchen greeting her aunts and cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo). Her Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto) is looking at the newspaper. Otto of course is known for playing Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings films. Hilda tells her to be a rabbit underneath her pillow to sleep. She is played by Lucy Davis who was perfect as Etta Candy in Wonder Woman (2017). Hilda has prepared a drink to cleanse her body as Aunt Zee explains. She wants Sabrina to chose her familiar which she says is a goblin in the form of an animal. Sabrina says she wants to use a summoning spell to ask for a familiar. She also adds that she wants her new name to be Edwina Diana to honor her parents. Sabrina goes to bury the bat in the pet cemetery, Ambrose is there, and explains it’s alright to be nervous. Sabrina tells him that he was born a full witch and didn’t have to say goodbyes to mortal friends. Ambrose explains he has been in house arrest for 75 years. Ambrose is an interesting character, kinda related to Sabrina as a cousin, but he seems to understand the challenges Sabrina faces. Sabrina walks into the forest, rings a bell and carves symbols into the ground. She addresses the spirits of the forest to bring a familiar. There are three witches whom Sabrina calls the Weird Sisters; Prudence (Tati Gabrielle), Agatha (Adeline Rudolph), and Dorcas (Abigail Cowen), they circle her asking if she will be attending the Academy of Unseen Arts. The witches try to bully her into staying out of the school. They recite a spell in unison, Sabrina realizes it is a curse, and they vanish. Her nose bleeds and Sabrina runs off.
Sabrina walks to the school and showers trying to scrub away the curse. She finds Susie crying at her locker about four football jocks who pulled up her shirt to check her gender identity. This would be handled differently in Riverdale, the gang would ask around the school, Betty and Veronica would find the football bullies, and bring the punishment. Sabrina stomps over to Principal Hawthorne’s office to explain what happened. Without names, Principal Hawthorne (Bronson Pinchot) says that Susie should move to another school. Sabrina later tells Harvey, but he thinks the team will keep silent. Then, Mrs. Wardwell walks up to them, and in her office, says that Principal Hawthorne is the problem. She also mentions his fear of spiders. At her home, Sabrina tears off the page of Principal Hawthorne from her yearbook. At lunch the next day, Sabrina suggests to Roz and Harvey about a club, she dismisses her birthday. Watching over all of this is a crow. Sabrina and Harvey are walking in the forest (the forest is out of focus, almost otherworldly), he suspects she’s hiding something, Sabrina reveals that she was born in the forest. She also admits she’s a half-witch. Harvey is upset at her goodbye and Sabrina uses a spell to take away his memory with a kiss. You might say a super kiss like in Superman II (1980). Sabrina returns home to tell Ambrose and asks for his help with the spell for Principal Hawthorne. Sabrina tells her aunts about the curse. Aunt Zelda says it’s because she’s the daughter of a High Priest.
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CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA -- “Chapter One: The October Country” -- Diyah Pera/Netflix.
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Aunt Hilda has Sabrina break an egg in a bowl and sees that it is a blood curse. It really the casual Satanism that is disturbing. She tells her niece to use salt water baths and reversing candles for several weeks to remove the curse. Sabrina says that the Weird Sisters implied her parents death was not an accident. Aunt Zee says her father had a lecture at the Vatican when the plane crashed. Sabrina takes the salt water bath and falls asleep. She wakes up hearing a baby cry in the forest. Sabrina sees her parents and walks out of the bathtub. She asks if they will be going to her baptism and then sees two children, a twin? Sabrina lifts the blanket to see baby feet with one infant and the other goat legs! She wakes up from the vision, dream, she puts on a bathrobe and walks up to the attic. Ambrose is there and she tells him not to kill Principal Hawthorne only scare him. Ambrose places his picture in a glass case of spiders. They cast the spell sending spiders swarming into Principal Hawthorne’s house. He wakes in his tv chair to find them crawling all over him and screams in terror. Happily, Sabrina returns to her room, closes the window that has claw marks. A dark form is in the corner and says it came at her calling. Then, a black cat, Salem, emerges. This is another powerful figure that is entering Sabrina’s life. The next day, Wednesday, the 29th, Sabrina says she wants to delay her baptism. Aunt Zelda is upset and says it’s Hilda’s fault for not home schooling her. She says it is the wish of her parents for Sabrina to become a witch.
Ambrose talks to Sabrina and says that she will feel nothing from casting spells so she needs a malum malus. He tells her that for a woman it is an apple of knowledge that might give her a glimpse of the future. Ambrose tells to find the oldest tree. The crow flies off and says what is happened to Mrs. Wardwell. The club gets approved, named by Roz, WICCA, The Woman’s Intersectional Cultural and Creative Association. Kinda sinister. Sabrina goes to talk to Wardwell about the club and her hesitation about moving to a new school. Mrs. Wardwell suggests working out the problem after school, but Sabrina says she’s going apple picking. Ambrose is examined the body of a dead man. He goes to tell the aunts there is something in the embalming room. Ambrose shows them on the man’s arm a mark that doesn’t bleed, a witch’s mark, he suspects he was killed by a witch hunter. Harvey drives Sabrina in his truck and he goes off to find a pumpkin. She sees a sign saying “Old Tree” in a maze. A crow flies to the arm of a scarecrow. The scarecrow attacks her, but Sabrina manages to escape. Mrs. Wardwell manipulates a puppet of the scarecrow. In the maze, the scarecrow is knocked down, by a beast that Sabrina sees as Salem. She reaches the tree and finds a red apple with several green apples. She asks the question takes a bite of the apple, it is covered with worms, and sees the hanged witches. Out of the tree, breaks the monstrous goat form of the Dark Lord. She spits out the apple and finds Harvey looking for her. Sabrina returns home to find everyone with the High Priest, Faustus Blackwood (Robert Coyle), who is there to change her mind about the baptism. It is difficult to recommend this series to young people who might be impressionable, even with fake spells, and it may be too teen like Riverdale for adults. I do like the cast and hope that this series will find it’s direction.
Three Scarecrows out of Five!
#ChillingAdventuresofSabrina, #ChapterOneTheOctoberCountry, #RobertoAguirreSacasa, #KiernanShipka
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