Idris Elba in Hijack and vampires in What We Do in The Shadows keep hearts racing in new streaming thrillers
From a vampire hit to a nailbiting hijack and a fresh spin on Sweeney Todd, we are welcoming a surprising new wave of scary television.
Do you know what we all need on television? A bit more shock and awe, a bit more blood and violence.
Nothing quite gets the heart racing as much a good scare or a little murder here and there: A chase off a roof or someone spooky with a knife or, the personal favourite, something blowing up.
This year has been a bit hit and miss with horror and action on the small screen.
We television lovers got a bit of it in the year’s mega zombie hit, The Last of Us. Those zombie fungus things could be pretty scary, and the humans in it were pretty rotten too.
But gosh, they also liked talking and thinking about their feelings in that show.
And don’t get us started on the so-called action thrillers Disney and Netflix have offered up in 2023. There’s as much suspense and thrill in them as in a Senate estimates hearing.
But there’s a few returning favourites and new shows around this week that might just make you hide behind the sofa.
What We Do in the Shadows is back for its fifth season on Binge and proves once again why it’s the most underrated comedy on television.
It’s about a bunch of housemates on Staten Island who just happen to be vampires. And the best part is these are not your Munsters-style vampires who are secretly very nice. These are the kind of bloodsuckers that eat their neighbours and more to boot.
There’s the Vlad the Impaler type (Kayvan Novak) and his devoted assistant (Harvey Guillen), who in a moment of impatience went and got bitten and turned by someone else.
The only problem is the poor assistant can’t fly or turn into a bat or even fit in a coffin yet.
There’s a sex-crazed ’70s lounge lizard vampire (Matt Berry) and his furious terror of a Transylvanian bride (Natasia Demetriou) who’d give any blood-soaked tyrant a run for their money.
And then there’s the most boring man in the world, who sucks energy instead of blood (Mark Proksch).
What We Do in the Shadows – based on a 2014 film by Kiwi comedy giants Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi – thrives on the blood and the guts and the screams, and yet manages to make it all just so funny.
The dialogue and characters are sharp, and nothing is wasted. There’s definitely a sense of tenderness there – especially between our Impaler and his servant – but they don’t linger on the softness for too long. There’s too many necks to bite for that.
If you want the thrills but less of the bloody spills, then Apple TV’s latest starry action series Hijack is definitely for you.
We have had plenty of action-man, all-guns-blazing outings this year on the streamer. There was the mildly amusing Arnold Schwarzenegger spy comedy Fubar on Netflix and an absolutely dreadful TV remake of one of Arnie’s old favourites, True Lies, on Disney Plus.
But nothing quite gets the heart pumping like Hijack.
The title gives it away really. A bunch of people on a plane get hijacked by a group of baddies (Neil Maskell, Jack McMullen, Mohamed Elsandel, and Aimee Kelly) with shadowy, unclear motives.
Luckily for everyone, Idris Elba is on board. And luckier still, he’s the world’s best negotiator.
The Good Wife’s Archie Panjabi and Torchwood’s Eve Myles are the crack team on the ground trying to find out what the hijackers are up to – it’s up to them and Elba to get everyone safely off the plane.
Hijack can’t be accused of being the most sophisticated or original thriller ever shown on television, and there’s not much in the way of 3D characters – this is very much goodies v baddies with a little Middle Eastern politics thrown in.
There’s even a dashing older pilot (Ben Miles) having an affair with a pretty air stewardess (Kate Phillips)*. With some sillier moments, Hijack has to be careful not to tip into Airplane! territory at times.
But the pace of Elba’s star vehicle is rather startling and the action is very well played out. It seems both natural and shocking whenever a trigger is pulled or a body is found, which is saying something for action thrillers on both the big and small screen these days.
The rather anonymous passengers of the hijacked plane are rather delightful as a sort of modern Greek chorus – cooking up conspiracy theories and gossiping while they wait to be rescued.
But the magic at the centre of Hijack is certainly Elba. He’s effortlessly cool and mysterious and suave.
You never quite know what he’ll be willing to do to make the deal he wants and seems to even charm the horrific, no-good, bully boys on the plane.
Hijack is really a testament to why Elba should have been Bond, a role he may now be too old for.
The strangest and bloodiest thriller on TV right now surely has to be Amazon Prime Video’s The Horror of Dolores Roach – a new take on Sweeney Todd, that demon barber of Fleet Street who rather enjoyed putting his victims into pies.
The demon barber is reimagined as a devilish masseuse (Justina Machado), Victorian-era Fleet Street is swapped for modern-day Washington Heights, and the pies are now empanadas.
And yet you almost hear Sondheim’s most infamous interpretation of the Sweeney Todd myth in your head as you watch Machado kill and cannibalise and still feel like she’s in the right. “And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their maker impeccably shaved,” Sondheim once wrote of the demon barber.
Well, Machado’s victims are going to the maker with their neck and shoulder tension sorted.
The Horror of Dolores Roach is certainly not hiding from its inspiration*. References to the old myth and the famous musical are peppered throughout.
And there’s even a Mrs Lovett-like cook, played by Alejandro Hernandez, who’s in love with Machado and more than willing to use the spare meat.
This weed-addicted, creepy fella is as far from past Mrs Lovetts – think Angela Lansbury and Joanna Lumley – as one can imagine, but Hernandez gives a winning performance.
There’s a decent ensemble of victims – both deserving and blameless – oddly rounded out by ’80s music star Cyndi Lauper.
The pop icon’s true colours are definitely shining through by the time Machado is done with her, and those colours are blood red.
The real star of course is our serial killer. Machado is excellent as the masseuse betrayed by her lover and by the system, and now is just trying to get ahead in the world – one snapped neck at a time.
She maintains a remarkable aura of innocence and sweetness, even if murderous rage pops up once in a while.
It seems a sure thing that Machado will be a name to watch in future awards seasons.
What We Do in the Shadows, Binge.
Hijack, Apple TV+.
The Horror of Dolores Roach, Amazon Prime Video.
