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Fear of a Flesh-Eating Future
Whenever I write about a new horror series, I tell myself I am taking a break from horror. As much as I love the genre, I try not to keep too much murder on my mind, fictional or otherwise. But when the Amazon Prime homepage showed me that they had released a new Sweeney Todd-inspired series with a multicultural twist, I had to watch it.
Cleverly titled The Horror of Dolores Roach, the series stars Justina Machado (an actress whose comedic timing I have missed from her role on Netflix’s One Day at a Time) as the title character, Dolores Roach. After 16 years, Dolores has been released from prison and into a newly gentrified New York City. Without any contacts or family in the area, Dolores ends up at the one store still familiar to her, a small family-owned operation called “Empanada Loca.” The series unfolds like a cross between Sweeney Todd and In The Heights, replacing Mrs. Lovett with the Usnavy-esque store owner and baker Louis Batista (played by Alejandro Hernandez) and human meat pies with a cannibal’s creative empanadas. With only eight short episodes, I quickly made my way through the series.
