Halloween was once a simpler time, when neighbourhood kids would dress up as mythical serial killers, the undead or bedsheet-wearing ghosts. At some point, following America’s lead, it became sexy and cat-forward. It has now become a sort of conceptual art show. I’ve heard people this year planning to go to parties dressed as Erling Haaland, Prom Carrie (Prime Video edition) and Bad Bunny’s half-time Super Bowl show. It’s horrifying.
The perception of witches has evolved, too. Once understood to be a malignant version of the crone archetype, sympathy for witches has grown. They have been embraced as a feminist image of the older woman, free of patriarchal command and possessed of a powerful rage. In recent years, Maleficent, Elphaba from Wicked and Marvel’s Scarlet Witch have given witches a pop edge. Some of my most intense friends proudly wear slogan T-shirts proclaiming themselves descended from the witches whom society failed to burn.
Now, in swoops Yaga (Sat, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), a quasi-horror mystery series from Canadian streamer Crave. They are known for making Heated Rivalry (matching oversized jerseys? Huge Halloween outfit this year). Yaga is another genre-bender. It opens with a cocky detective, Charlie Rapp, arriving in the quiet fishing town of Whittock, present day. He’s investigating the disappearance of Henry Park, son of a wealthy local family. As the case grows violent, it brings evidence of cult activity to light, and increasingly hints at the existence of a dark, supernatural figure behind events.
To those unfamiliar with Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a forest-dwelling hag who lives in a hut on chicken’s feet, flies around in a pestle and mortar, and eats children. It is her voice that bookends every episode in a taunting monologue, though her exact involvement with Henry’s disappearance is a grisly little puzzle. I’m a few episodes in, and it’s still unclear if she is a literal character in the play or the embodiment of its theme: women being sick of men’s shit.
The men are certainly a rum bunch. Charlie Rapp is our hero – yet his credentials are questionable, and he flirts with every woman in town, including his police partner Carson. Henry Park – played by Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams – is vain, adulterous and given to druggy parties. Williams also plays Henry’s slippery roommate Logan. The show has fun with the unlikely physical resemblance between them, as when Logan answers the door to the surprised detectives. “I have brown eyes and glasses,” he explains with a straight face. He’s also naked under his overalls, FYI.
The women are formidable, including Clark Backo’s drily unimpressed take on police detective Carson. She’s introduced as a fan of romantasy (or what her superior officer describes as “fairy smut”). Carson is unenthusiastic about pursuing the case of the missing rich kid. “Billionaires aren’t real people,” she shrugs. Even more no-nonsense is Carrie-Anne Moss as an older, morally ambiguous osteo-academic. When Charlie sits beside her at a bar and asks what excites her, she replies: “Sex. And bones.”
Given the bones, and the overalls, you may be thinking: “Stuff the spooky business, are there hella sexy shenanigans?” Yes and no … The theme of Henry’s parties, which take place Gatsby-like in his absence, is Dark Solstice. Expect masked ball eroticism, fetish wear and debauchery and, elsewhere, an erotic encounter that had me laughing at the audacity. But it’s never wholesome fun. There are chicken bones in unexpected places, and Rapp in particular is haunted by horror imagery. While sex is on the menu, the male gaze is under the microscope.
Playwright-creator Kat Sandler has, so far, found room on the broom to make Yaga pointed but playful, and fun while tackling the darkest of subject matter. There are Ukrainian covers of pop songs, a hero who looks like a leather-trouser version of Tim Key, and Saltburn-esque parties. But what I really want, whisper it, is for an actual witch to appear, rather than the political idea of one. I’m basic, and like pointy hats. Will this be another Blair Witch situation? How far will the witch-tease go? I’m crossing my fingers and burying the hair of a bat.
