‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ Season 1 Review: Witches Be Crazy

Gone is the sweet and spunky little half-witch we’ve all come to know growing up because Netflix’s new original series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, take the Spellman story to a whole other level. From softballs-like witch spells and curses to heavy hits like cult ceremonies and demonic summonings guest starring the devil himself, this series pushes every witchy macabre aspect there is to the spotlight.

Being born to a mortal mother and warlock father who both passed away from an accident, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) was raised amongst mortals in a family-owned Mortuary business run by her two witch aunts Zelda (Miranda Otto) and Hilda (Lucy Davis) with her cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo). Despite being born half mortal, she still has a chance to be just as powerful as any other witch, especially considering that her father was the best one there was. The problem is she can’t leave her mortal life with her best friends Rosalind (Jaz Sinclair) and Susie (Lachlan Watson) and her boyfriend Harvey (Ross Lynch). Living in two polar opposite worlds, Sabrina is determined to keep both intact, not knowing that it is just not possible.

Here is how the adventure went:

The (not-so) Sweet Sixteen meets Runaway Bride

It’s a funny coincidence to Sabrina’s mortal friends that her birthday is on Halloween, and what luck that an eclipse is scheduled to happen then too. Her aunties don’t see the humor in it though, considering that it would be her sixteenth birthday, when she is set to undergo a dark baptism to sign her name in the Book of the Beast in order to claim her full powers as a witch. To the Spellmans, her baptism was crucial and set in stone. To Sabrina, it was a choice she wasn’t sure she wanted to make.

Part of the reason is that she hadn’t settled things in her mortal life, so she had to as soon as possible. Her friend Susie was getting bullied by football players which she just couldn’t ignore. So with the aide of dear cousin Ambrose, she curses the school principal to take a day off to get a women’s support group up and to go to their school. Things were also doing great with boyfriend Harvey, but when she told him the truth about her being a witch, and it freaked him out, she took it back with a forget-I-said-anything spell.

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The rest of the factors that played into her indecisiveness made her decision even tougher. Taking a bite from an apple that grants knowledge showed her a horrific vision of witches hanging surrounded by hellish fires. A visit from dark high priest Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) didn’t help either when he tried to convince her that she wouldn’t lose her freedom when the reality is she would. Big time.

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After a fun night of celebrating her birthday/Halloween with her friends, she goes into the woods for her dark baptism. With the unwillingness to lose everything she has and the visions of her parents telling her to run, she takes off from the forest back to the house, not selling her soul to the Dark Lord.

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This leads to a trial before the court of her family’s coven. She hires a lawyer to help her get a deal that would meet her halfway between pursuing witchcraft and maintaining a mortal social life. With Hilda revealing that a Christian church baptized Sabrina as a baby, the Dark Lord cuts a deal with the half witch, letting her keep her mortal life in a condition that she went to the Academy of Unseen Arts.

The Journey in the Path of Night

Balancing school and more school meant going through high school drama twice, each weighing heavy on Sabrina’s shoulders.

In her new witchin’ school, she deals with the three orphan sister witches Prudence (Tati Gabrielle), Agatha (Adeline Rudolph) and Dorcas (Abigail F. Cowen) who bully her through the school’s tradition of Harrowing, which is like a harsh initiation that led to actual deaths of fellow witches. Sabrina puts the sisters in their place, ending the practice with the help of the tormented souls of children killed by Harrowing.

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The curriculum also proved to be useless to Sabrina, so to get more advanced classes, she had to solve a puzzle invented by her late father. With classmate warlock Nicholas (Gavin Leatherwood) stealing her father’s notes for her, she answers the puzzle but then releases a demon was trapped in it. After nightmare hopping here and there, Sabrina catches the demon. Sabrina also confronts Ms. Wardwell (Michelle Gomez), the woman they call the mother of demons and has been stalking Sabrina as part of her mission for the Dark Lord. But she tells the young witch that she’s a witch ordered by her father to watch over her. Her mission? That reveal comes later.

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Back in Greendale, Sabrina’s friends have a hard time dealing with Susie’s uncle, Jessie. Sabrina finds out that he’s been possessed by a parasite-like demon. With the help of her aunties and Ms. Wardwell, they perform an (unconventional) exorcism by calling upon the names of fellow witches.

Thanksgiving comes along, and the witches celebrate the Feast of Feasts, a sick practice where a representative out of fourteen families draw lots to see who will be picked as Queen of the Feast. The catch is the Queen will be eaten by the rest of the coven. Prudence gets picked, and Sabrina draws the role as a handmaid to her. Sabrina finds out that Blackwood’s wife rigged the lottery because Prudence was her husband’s bastard. Prudence wasn’t killed, but another devout witch steps in and kills herself for the feast to continue.

Falling into Place

Two of the orphan witch sisters curse the mines that Harvey’s family owns. The mines collapse while he and his brother were still in. Because of a protection spell, Sabrina puts on Harvey, he comes out fine. His brother Tommy, however, doesn’t make it, which leaves Harvey devastated.

Sabrina then tries her hand at a little Necromancy, temporarily killing orphan witch Agatha to bring back Tommy. His body comes back to life, but his soul gets stuck in limbo. Meanwhile, Agatha, whom they brought back to life, began vomiting dirt. Despite all the efforts of Sabrina, she had to face the truth that she could not cheat death. She comes clean to Harvey, who then shoots his brother and breaks up with her.

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Surprisingly, Sabrina is incredibly lucky in the friend department. Rosalind acquired a sixth sense kind of power called “cunning.” and Susie began seeing the ghost of her ancestor, which is how they found out about Sabrina’s witch identity. Despite this, they still love her and accept her, which interrupts the plan of Ms. Wardwell, which is to compel Sabrina to sign her name in the Book of the Beasts.

So to speed things along, Ms. Wardwell summons the thirteen witches of Greendale from the dead to wreak havoc unto Greendale. The thirteen witches summon the Red Angel of Death, who will kill every firstborn. Convinced that the only way she can save her friends and family is to sign her name in the Book of the Beasts, Sabrina does it. She gets full power and defeats the thirteen witches by summoning hell fires upon them.

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After a long road with twists and turns, Ms. Wardwell finally fulfills her mission into signing the Book. She formally reveals herself as Lilith, mother of demons, and Satan’s foot soldier with the intention to groom Sabrina into taking her place. With her place taken, Madam Satan will have herself a crown in Hell. As for Sabrina, she leaves behind her mortal life and takes on a new journey to becoming one hell of a witch.

‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ Season 1 Overall Verdict

If you’re curious to see how dark the show’s team took Sabrina the Teenage Witch, then you’re definitely in for both a trick and treat. The series’ macabre element is a lot to take in, especially that it has no problem incorporating blasphemy, Satanic practices, the appearance of the devil himself, and a whole lot of gore. The series may not be for everyone to enjoy, but when dark magic and witchcraft are at stake, the series just has to be commended for going all out and achieving the dark aesthetic holistically.

The story retold took a much horrific yet deeper turn than the original. As a witch, the show gave Sabrina a much darker arts-type of magic and coven, which is arguably more realistic when talking about magic. As a sixteen-year-old girl, she did face problems that were more realistic to a girl in her time at her age. Sabrina still maintains that sweetheart vibe, but she also stood strong and tall and got a little bit evil once in a while.

If it’s horror you seek, then move along. This show definitely revolves around the story of Sabrina and the tension between characters and events more than it is meant to scare the living hell out of you, so consider it more of a suspense or drama series. The show left room for another season with some questions still unanswered and a possibility to watch Sabrina train as a full witch, so who knows what the future has in store for the series.