Copyright Polygon

If you watch one Netflix show based on a decades old comic series that follows a teenage girl attending a special school to learn how to use her supernatural powers at the behest of her weird family, it shouldn’t be Wednesday. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina never went as viral during its run from 2018-2020, but it’s the superior YA horror show. The series actually kicks off on Halloween, when Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) turns 16. As the child of a witch and a regular human, she has to choose whether to keep hanging out with her normal friends at Baxter High or sign her name in Satan’s Book of the Beast and start going to magic school. But Sabrina is determined to split her time between both. At Baxter, she fights for social justice by opposing book bans and helping her trans friend get on the basketball team. At the Academy of Unseen Arts, she has to deal with witchy mean girls and the schemes of the sexist dean Faustus Blackwood (Richard Coyle). Of course each school has its own love interest, with Sabrina torn between her extremely wholesome boyfriend Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch) and the flirtatious warlock Nick Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood). Sabrina can be an irritating protagonist. She’s powerful, arrogant, and rarely cares about the consequences of her actions. Luckily, the show has an excellent supporting cast, including Miranda Otto as Sabrina’s haughty aunt Zelda and Gen V star Jaz Sinclair as Sabrina’s best friend, Roz. (Series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is actually a bit too fond of the ensemble, keeping some characters around long after they served their narrative purpose.) While Wednesday is more kooky than spooky, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actually gets gory and disturbing; major plotlines involve cannibalism, body horror, and human sacrifice. It gets deep into the politics of hell, too, with Sabrina caught in the schemes of Lucifer, Lilith, and ambitious demons. The show also dips into folk horror when a creepy carnival shows up with big plans for the town of Greendale, and goes full cosmic horror in its final season, which includes a hilarious spoof on the ‘90s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is extremely queer and gratuitously horny, alternating between earnest romance, ridiculous orgies, and characters working out their power dynamics with a bit of BDSM. The show’s cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to a disappointing ending, but it’s still a wild ride with rich characters and some genuinely disturbing moments. Where to watch: Netflix