Penny Dreadful

[Note: The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book Such a Dark Thing where, in the appendix, I list and analyze various vampire themed films, television shows, and books. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch Penny Dreadful before the publisher’s deadline. However, after viewing the series, I asked my editor to allow me to include a few paragraphs as an honorable mention of sorts.]

I was tempted to include the fantastic Penny Dreadful on my list of top five television series revolving around the undead. Unfortunately, it is somewhat disqualified as the show does not altogether focus on its frightening vampires. While featured prominently, the terrifying master vampire and his minions are only a piece of the dazzling gothic puzzle that is creator John Logan’s Victorian era horror masterpiece. However, with the insertion of Mina Murray and Abraham Van Helsing into the storyline, one could argue that Penny Dreadful is more deserving of inclusion into the pantheon of vampire television shows than the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff series Angel, which spent more time embroiled in soap opera melodrama than hard horror.

     
Driven by powerful performances from a stellar cast that includes former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton, former Bond girl Eva Green, and Josh Hartnett (who has no connection whatsoever to Ian Fleming), Penny Dreadful is layered and poetic, with Logan’s singular vision and voice bringing a literary robustness to the proceedings, expertly weaving together various gothic tales such as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein into a singular narrative.

     
Fresh, scary, and creative, the atmospheric cinematography, along with the moody score from Abel Korzeniowski, completes a package of otherworldly delight encased in an unabashed love note to classic gothic horror. The final product is a unique series that is easily one of the more creative and entertaining products to emerge from cable television within the last decade.

     

Penny Dreadful, while not overtly Christian, definitely exists within a theological framework of the sacred and the profane, with a generous helping of gradient textures and shadows minding the gap. There is undoubtedly a cosmology at play here, although the details are only hinted at, taunting the audience with their implications for the narrative and consequences for the disparate characters that gradually form a dysfunctional family unit of sorts. As Sir Malcolm tells Victor Frankenstein in the first episode, “You seem like a free thinker who might imagine a world where science and superstition walk hand in hand,” Penny Dreadful dares us to imagine a world, similar to the one described in Judeo-Christian mythology, where gods and monsters intermingle and often fuse with human terrain.