Sabrina Spellman is a witch. Wait, no— she’s only half-witch! Half of her body has been corrupt by humanity because her beloved warlock father just could not stop loving Mrs. Spellman. Now, thanks to her maker, she can’t be a full, completely epic, completely satanic witch and attend The Academy of Unseen Arts. She has to live her sad, human life with the love of her life and some really good friends. However, she doesn’t think it’s sad at all! She loves her regular life and wishes there could just be equality between mortal and magic people, but unfortunately there is not, and she has a very hard time with that.

Season one of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina only has 10 episodes, but each episode is so packed to the brim with plot that it feels like there are 30. That’s not necessarily a good thing, since it was sometimes hard to keep paying attention; that’s probably just because I’m a Linkster. Every episode has at least 20 twists and introduces about 500 new mysteries. Right when it starts losing my attention, it introduces something new and hooks me right back in. It’s a weird thing that hasn’t really happened for me with any other shows.

      The magic and horror in this show are all so believable, and it’s not just because of the special effects team and directors. The actors in this show are really good. Even if they occasionally have some pretty corny lines, they portray these characters living in this weird fantasy world quite well. It feels like watching Wizards of Waverly Place if the acting and plot were actually good and it was Halloween all the time.

     After the 10 hour Halloween-y adventure that is season one of Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, there is A Midwinter’s Tale! It deals with the aftermath of all of Greendale’s evil happenings in season one and teases what’s to come in season two, while at the same time telling a Christmas story full of witchery and trickery! This Christmas special is a lot creepier than any other episode of Sabrina, even though it’s the one episode that isn’t set around Halloween in a small witch-town. It’s my favorite episode of the series so far because of how quickly it deals with all of the plot threads left over from season one and introduces plenty more just in time to leave you hanging on a cliff for season two, while at the same time being completely terrifying about Christmas! Krampus can’t even make Christmas scary, so it’s awesome that Sabrina can.

This show captures the feeling of Halloween so well, which I love because it’s my favorite holiday, but it’s awesome that it creates that feeling so well even when it’s not set on Halloween. One of the things that makes it feel so much like Halloween is all of the horror movies references. I found nods to A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, and even the weird dancing movie, Suspiria. However, the references are subtle, being outfits or even wallpaper from the films instead of direct name-drops. It shows how much passion the creators have for horror and that they probably did a lot of studying to make their show as good as they have.

This show is really great. It tells a story that feels so similar to what many have done before, yet so original and modern. It uses so much from the original Teenage Witch show, but it diversifies and upgrades things all while being different enough that it’s hard to know they’re even based on the same thing. It’s a creepy tale of teenage romance, magic, and very hard moral dilemmas (seriously, lots of moral dilemmas). I highly recommend Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but hopefully whoever watches it has a good attention span and is okay with the occult.