‘Riverdale’ Creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Previews Netflix’s New Series ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’
Preview
Something wicked this way comes! The Archieverse’s teen witch, Sabrina Spellman, is making a comeback in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina— but don’t expect this incarnation to be anything like the Melissa Joan Hart ’90s sitcom.
Mad Men alum Kiernan Shipka plays the titular troublemaker in a macabre frightfest from creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (also executive producer of The CW’s Riverdale). “Every episode is like a horror movie,” he says. “It’s got a bit of tongue-in-cheek and campy humor, but it doesn’t pull its punches as a horror show.”
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina introduces the half-witch, half-mortal on Halloween — also the eve of her 16th birthday. “It’s a dark coming-of-age story that’s all about trying to reconcile these two different halves of her life,” Aguirre-Sacasa says.
Sabrina’s human high school existence — which contains her heartthrob boyfriend Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch) and hardcore feminist BFF Rosalind (Jaz Sinclair) — and her witchy home life with Aunt Hilda (Lucy Davis), Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto) and warlock cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) pull her in diverging directions. But it’s the family home (also the location of the aunts’ funeral parlor business) that is the “heart of the show,” Aguirre-Sacasa says. “We built a 45-foot-tall house in the middle of a field in Vancouver. It [will be] as iconic as the Psycho house.”
CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA
Aguirre-Sacasa also took inspiration from genre classics like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, tapping more into psychological fears than gore. Aguirre-Sacasa fully expects Shipka, his top pick to play Sabrina, to shine in the role. “It’s the perfect fusion of actor with character,” he says.
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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Series Premiere, October 26, Netflix
