Horror fans are raving over Ares, a new Netflix original series about the occult underbelly in Amsterdam.
The streaming platform has no shortage of spooky, binge-able offerings, from The Haunting of Hill House to Marianne, to longtime shows like American Horror Story.
However, Ares is striking a chord with Netflix viewers, terrifying some into watching the full eight-episode season just to get through it quickly, while leaving others too scared to finish.
Check out the trailer for Ares here:
The show follows Rosa Steenwijk (Jade Olieberg), an ambitious college student who aims to become part of Amsterdam’s elite by joining an exclusive society – however, she’s unaware of the horrifying secret it’s hiding behind the scenes.
The trailer is intense and creepy, blending teen drama and shades of cult horror from the likes of Midsommar, Kill List and even the aristocratic dread of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (don’t worry, you won’t need to remember ‘Fidelio’ to watch it).
People have been taking to Twitter to recommend the show to their friends, praising it for being ‘beautifully shot, devilishly written, wonderfully performed and brilliantly dark’. Its eight episodes are only 25-30 minutes long – so just think of it as a really long horror movie. It’s perfect for an evening of nightmarish viewing.
Fair warning though, some people are finding it so scary that they can’t actually finish the whole season. One user wrote: ‘Ares on Netflix is so f*cking disturbing I can’t finish it.’
Another person tweeted: ‘Ok so has anybody watched Ares on Netflix? Cause I’m scared sh*tless and i wanna know if I should keep watching or…? [sic]’
It’s a foreign production, so you’ll need to overcome ‘the one-inch barrier of subtitles’ as Bong Joon Ho would say. Similarly to Dark’s release – a Stranger Things-esque German sci-fi noir also on Netflix – the platform is being applauded for investing so creatively in international entertainment.
One user wrote: ‘@Netflix please keep creating foreign shows such as Dark and Ares. They both have superb casts, fantastic direction and visuals with great eerie and engrossing tales to tell.’
Another fan tweeted: ‘Dark, perturbing, and the cinematography is really well done. Definitely will be one of my favorite foreign Netflix releases of the year.’ A further viewer added: ‘Ares on Netflix is fucked up on soooo many levels but is a true blue story of justice and revenge. AND DAMN DID THEY KEEP ME HOOKED.’
Curtains – closed. Lights – off. Ares – on. It’s available to watch on Netflix now.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.