"Penny Dreadful” Is Saturated In Darkness

The leads (from left) Ethan, Brona, Victor Frankenstein, Vanessa, Dorian Gray, Sir Malcolm & Sembene are far from dreary.

“Penny Dreadful” Is Saturated In Darkness

The grimy London streets are packed with dirty masses, and choked with horse drawn carriages. Heavy fog snakes down the streets at night as the gas lanterns are lit, and a dolled up prostitute huddles on a bench waiting to be picked up. Darkness falls, and she utters one final shriek of terror before an evil force descends on her, and the screen goes black.

It’s just another one of the splendidly ghoulish opening scenes in an episode of Showtime’s series Penny Dreadful that premiered last April. Fans of Victorian England, an era that flirted with the spiritual movement and the occult, will take delight in this offering. There’s a paranormal flair to this show that makes it more than just an elegant nod to the creepy. Beyond tip-toeing around horror in shows like the latest seasons of CW’s ‘Supernatural’, Penny Dreadful goes straight for the jugular.  

Strongly cast in the black comedy "Dark Shadows", Eva Green is even more of a formidable force here.

The lead characters are impressively cast. Miss Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), an unblinking, funerary clad medium, prone to fits of possession, and American sharp-shooter Ethan Chandler (Josh Harnett) , with his ready smile and refusal to return to a country he’s a wanted man in, are introduced first. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) with his hungry, shadowed eyes and fervent talk of transcending death is one of the most memorable of the bunch.

I may be a little biased here because Frankenstein is one of my favorite literary characters, but the actor who plays him captures the entire spectrum of the mad scientist. Treadaway comes across both, tortured and at the end of his rope, and entirely driven and ambitious. There’s something very delicate and poetic about him; he has a love for the written word as seen in the classic literature he has scattered around his cramped apartment and his haphazard hidden laboratory, and yet he's also smart as a whip and entirely a man of science.

A routine dreadful day for, as Ethan calls them, a group of "morbid fucks."

The characters are layered, and incredibly flawed and desperate. Monsters, or monstrosities are one of the clearest themes of this series. Not just in terms of the various supernatural creatures, but in the men and women themselves. They all have darkness in them, they’re haunted by forces inside of them and outside of them, and they are all clawing and grasping at something. They want to conquer the impossible, they’ve been through hell and they’re still going through it. That only makes this show even more exciting, and the stakes and tension that much higher.

Victor seriously needs some of my vegan chili, stat.

It’s not a funny or light watch like some of the other dramatic horror shows airing on other networks. Penny Dreadful doesn’t do anything in halves-- it’s saturated in darkness and doesn’t promise to be anything but that. It’s a gruesome bloody mess on a graphic level. In terms of the mysteries and the plot, it’s stomach churning and anxiety spiking. There are no promises that any of the characters will come out OK at the end. There’s no sense that the show is holding back in any way; it’s the uncertainty of that, the constant mortal peril and fragility of life, that only makes the show that much more appealing.

The sex scenes are explicit, filthy and unapologetically deranged. The madness, darkness and desperation is unrestrained in these scenes.

But even scenes without skin on skin are fueled by those elements, like when a seance at the party with the lisping fop of an Egyptologist (Ferdinand Lyle)  is rocked by an impressive performance by Eva Green who plays medium, Vanessa, going into a back-bending trance on the tabletop while howling obscenities.

Dorian's homoerotic scene -ahem-  was too grainy, so enjoy this pretty face.

American sharp shooter Ethan and his strange encounter with a pack of wolves in the London zoo; ethereally beautiful and sexually charged Dorian Gray who steals every scene he’s in, and

the arrogant anatomist and surgeon Victor, confronting his first successful creation brought to life in a scene that is caught between a homoerotic encounter and a birth scene,  in a trembling, breathless wonder with tears gathering in his eyes, are just a few of the most captivating moments in this show.

Penny Dreadful is a must-watch, beautifully deranged, romp into a very new take on some very familiar stories. This paranormal treat is not to be missed.

Victor's bringing 'bodies' back.  Yup. I went there.

Season 2 premieres May 3rd on Showtime.

The first episode is available now on the Showtime website.

Images from IMDB and fanpop