Editorials
Kiernan Shipka Talks the Feminism of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and Her Allergic Reaction to Salem
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is a great character for female readers to look up to. She’s still in high school so everyone can relate, but she’s coming into her powers. Sabrina’s powers may be more magical than real teens’, but she’s still empowering. Netflix’s new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina focuses on female empowerment, as Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) fights for her and her family’s freedom, and even helps her friends fight for freedoms at school.
“I’m lucky that I’ve fallen into shows with such feminist qualities,” Shipka said.
“I really respond to that and besides this show just being completely entertaining, magical, fantastical and wonderful, from just a cinematically beautiful perspective, it also has these elements of female empowerment and activism that I think are really important and really awesome because they’re going to reach a wide audience of people.”
Based on creator Robert Aguirre-Sacasa’s own Archie Comics run of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the show elaborates even further.
“Just because there’s so much more time and so many more moments to explore a little bit more of that, the show definitely dives deepest into that aspect,” Shipka said. “It’s based off of the comic The Chilling Adventures, which is a more recent comic that Roberto did a few years ago. It has a lot of its own similar tones and similar storylines to that particular comic. Obviously, we have more time and more episodes, the storylines veer off into different directions. That’s really the basis of it all, but I would say the show is even tenfold more feminist just because we have more time and dialogue to explore those opportunities.”
Shipka came of age playing Don Draper’s daughter on Mad Men. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has decidedly more female energy, since there are many more women on screen.
“The women are definitely the bosses in this show, 100%,” Shipka said.
“But at the same time, it still is a show that acknowledges the patriarchy. The patriarchal vibes are present in both the mortal and the witch world. It still focuses on the women fighting against that. By no means is it a show where the patriarchy doesn’t exist and sexism isn’t a thing. But it’s told really from the perspective of very powerful, powerful women.”
It’s not Shipka’s first time with source material either. She starred in the Lifetime remake of Flowers in the Attic, based on the V.C. Andrews books.
“I find the source material really helpful when I’m developing a character at the beginning,” Shipka said. “At this point, we’re so deep into the show that it’s not really a point of reference anymore just because I feel like I’m so familiar with the character and her experiences in a way that’s completely isolated or independent of any other kind of source material that it was really helpful in the beginning to do world building and to get a tone and vibe for the show and look for answers and come up with a sort of series. At this point, I’m so all in that the space in my brain is just pretty much taken up by my version of Sabrina and her world.”
Many fans of Sabrina came via the sitcom starring Melissa Joan Hart. That was before Shipka’s time, but she was still well aware of it before taking on the role.
“I think it came out in ’96 and I was born in ’99 and it ended in 2003 so it was before my time,” Shipka said. “Obviously it was so iconic that I knew of it and even having never seen the show, you could probably walk up to me a year and a half ago and say Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and I’d be, ‘Oh yeah, Sabrina and the cat.’ It became iconic.”
And yes, Salem the cat is in Chilling Adventures, but won’t share too much screen time with Shipka.
“I am allergic to Salem, sadly,” she revealed.
“So Salem does the best that he can but my face still likes to break out in hives from time to time. There’s three of them. We have three kitty cats, Shaq, Boomer and Edward. They are really fantastic. Honestly, they are so professional. They are absolutely great. I have nothing but nice things to say about them. I can be in the same room. It’s not a respiratory thing. It’s really just a contact thing so we make it work.”
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premieres Friday, October 26 on Netflix.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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