Netflix’s new series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is decidedly darker than the comedic TV series Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. Not only is the show embracing its horror side with Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) and her witchcraft, but it is paying homage to specific horror films. Some spoilers follow.
“Episode 6 is pretty much a straight-up homage to The Exorcist from shots to different little things that I don’t want to spoil,” Shipka told Bloody-Disgusting in a phone interview.
“It’s pretty spot on. There’s a Suspiria wall. There’s a couple of shots that are pretty much straight out of Rosemary’s Baby so there definitely is a lot of love for horror in the writer’s room and it shows on camera for sure.”
When those moments and episodes came up, Shipka did her research by rewatching the classics.
“I feel like I always have a little bit of homework on the weekends to do besides learn my lines which makes for an exciting job,” she said. “It’s fun.”
An earlier scene sees Sabrina struggling with vines and roots in the forest. We all know that’s from The Evil Dead and Shipka loved it.
“I was so, so, so excited,” she said. “It was obviously the end of my night because they couldn’t clean me off in time to do anything else. It was probably 2AM and it was one of the more fun moments to just completely let go and literally dive head first into the wet mud and just wrestle with trees. It’s quite freeing to be quite honest, really fun. I really sort of got into that moment for the scene and just lost myself in it for a minute there.”
On the set, Shipka just acted like she was wrestling with the vines, but they look more menacing in the final cut.
“The vines were just all there and I had them all wrapped up around my body and hands, but no one was pulling at the more anything. They enhanced all of that through VFX.”
Other scary stuff is practical.
“Most of it’s practical to be quite honest,” Shipka said. “I think we’ve maybe worked with green screen once and it wasn’t even for something super crazy. Most of the chairs that are flying at us and the furniture that’s shaking and wind that’s gushing, it’s real, it’s there which helps tenfold as an actor to get you into the mode and the vibe. Our demons are all real. Not real demons obviously, but made up by some really talented artists. Most of it’s practical which is pretty cool.”
The very first scene has a horror homage as Sabrina and her friends go to a screening of the original Night of the Living Dead and debate fast versus slow zombies afterwards.
“That was already in there but I do enjoy some Night of the Living Dead and I was really happy we were watching that movie,” Shipka said. “It’s really fun to have those little gems and references within the show. I think it makes for a pretty rich world of things. It just makes it feel very full. When we were doing the movie scene, they actually were playing Night of the Living Dead which was so cool to react to.”
Shipka also starred in the movie The Blackcoat’s Daughter and has The Silence coming up. Maybe she’s our next scream queen?
“It’s so funny because I’ve just sort of fallen into it, not really by choice,” she said. “It just sort of happened that way. Yeah, I am a big fan of horror movies. I think they have the opportunity to be psychologically thrilling and really just movies with an added element of scare and horror just adding another layer of deliciousness to the whole experience of watching a movie. So yeah, I’m a big fan.”
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina drops Friday, October 26 on Netflix.
