“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” originally began as a comic series in 2014. It started as a darker take on the original “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” comics which were made as a spin-off after her first appearance in “Archie’s Funhouse”. “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” had also gotten its own animated series, live action series, and even multiple spin-off movies. “Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is one of the best Netflix Originals to date. This show strongly executes cinematography, story, characters, atmosphere, and sound.

The “Chilling Adventures” story is very interesting in its sense of giving the “teen with magic powers” storyline a darker angle. Sabrina’s character is a teen with magical powers who struggles when she has to figure out if she wants to keep her powers and become a witch, or stay with her friends and live a normal life at Baxter High. Considering what the story was based on, it is surprisingly horrifying and complex. I thought it would be more comedic but it really is a morbid, gritty and dramatic series. Especially with its focus on Sabrina either picking her friends at Baxter High or being with manipulative and psychotic witches at the Academy for Unseen Arts.

Along with the story, the characters were spectacularly casted and played. Standouts for me were Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda played by Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto. For Aunt Hilda, the actress brought so much love and affection to this character. Aunt Hilda’s character brought light into the show’s otherwise gruesome story and atmosphere.  But Aunt Zelda, was shown as this unshakable witch who did not care what was right for anyone other than Sabrina. As the story goes on, her outer shell fades away to show her fear and her love for all the characters that matter to her. She does these hardcore things to make Sabrina and the witch world safe. One character that was not as strong as others was Harvey played by Ross Lynch. For the story, Harvey was the boyfriend who either needed saving or ran away from the bad things. In the second half of the series while everyone grows in a positive way, Harvey‘s character changes negatively by being the crybaby who needed help from Sabrina. It was not until the end of the series where Harvey became strong and stood for himself and the humans he cared for.

Another thing this show executes very well is cinematography. The show’s cinematography helped give the story this eeriness with its shot transitions and filters. With the cinematography being directed by Brendan Uegama, Stephen Maier and David Lanzenberg for different episodes, there was a good fluidity of the imagery in the series. These directors conducted amazing and sometimes traumatizing imagery. Additionally, the show does well of is its music and sound. The show’s sound is very much horror-esque with dramatic blurts of sound and slow building strings sending shivers down my spine. The sound was designed by Adam Taylor. Taylor really adds a lot of fear and suspense to increase the drama of the scene.

One thing to add is that the atmosphere adds a very distinct feel to the story. Even though story is already unique enough, the atmosphere helps add an entirely new feel to this series. I believe that “Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is one of the current best Netflix original series because of its greatly executed cinematography, story, characters, atmosphere, and sound. While its character Harvey suffers from being poorly written, I think it is still a great series that horror fans should watch. 9/10 Stars