The Serie ‘Monsters of Krakow‘ (Krakowskie potwory, 2022) is one of those Netflix originals that make the platform stand out from others for its policy of international dispersion. If others like ‘Paranormal’ delve into Egyptian mythology, this fantastic story with supernatural overtones is based on Slavic legends to build a complex Polish equivalent to ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
Directed by Kasia Adamik and Olga Chajdasits eight episodes delves into the world of traditional Polish folklore and combines it with the contemporary world, mixing deities and creatures with memories, traumas, drugs and sex with a dark tone that navigates between the typical fantasy series aimed at an audience young adult and the most unusual experiments, reaching anthological levels of eccentricity in its last chapter, which seen without knowing anything about the series can be equivalent to electroshock therapy.
The world that ‘Monsters of Krakow’ presents is dense and in its construction it stipulates that our universe is located in the exact center of a supernatural realm, dominated by forces of good that are opposed to demonic eminences. These two realities are organized on a very rigid hierarchical scale, which categorically prevents us from intervening as humans. The material world is suspended between two opposite poles, in constant struggle with each other, but far from our existence, within a balance of justice and the most absolute chaos.
a dense mythology
But we don’t know any of this until we meet Alex, a first-year student at the Krakow medical school who often has nightmares and wakes up at three in the morning. Her roommate and close friend, Mary, believes she has schizophrenia and insists she see a therapist, however she is obviously a special human, and her existence goes hand in hand with an angelic presence that can unravel the rigid pact of non-interference on which the welfare of the entire planet is based.
This is the starting point that leads Alex and other characters with extraordinary abilities to unravel the complex hierarchy that dominates the worlds of good and evil, when a vengeful demon possesses a child and endangers existence on earth by unleashing the forces of evil. ‘Monsters of Krakow’ explains all this throughout a few early episodes that don’t follow a horizontal narrative. There is a constant pecking between the plots at different levels that never fully compress.
The Serie it has a lot of horror touches, but it would fit more in the new subgenre of urban fantasywhich has gained massive popularity in recent decades, taking classic folklore beings like trolls, ogres, goblins, wraiths, and more, and presents them in a gritty, realistic metropolis, converging with stories that range from modern action-adventure to drama, and within fit from ‘Border’ to ‘Grimm’ or ‘Underworld’, but in this case it does not finish rowing for a specific place and gives the feeling that there is more ambition in the bet than an idea to articulate it.
More ambition than a clear route
Its good starting point is lost in the lack of focus and a sense of gravity that impregnates the most important events, that drags lazily to a valid conclusion but that does not quite combine all the previous ingredients, probably the consequence of a poorly structured narrative that is not helped by a slow pace, on the other hand quite common in these approaches to Eastern European fantasy and sometimes gives it a special, different and refreshing sensibility.
The series has things in common with esoteric pulp fictions like ‘The Dresden Files’, but its sometimes truly shocking quirks bring it closer to oddities like ‘Watchmen of the night’ (2004). There’s an overall mystery-filled arc centered around Alex’s character, with some great work from Barbara Liberek, but the story also tries to focus on monsters appearing in the city and a possible apocalypse that seems to be connected, but they never dance in time. .
‘Monsters of Krakow’ has more compact production values than other similar Netflix productions, and a combination of CGI and practical effects that bring to life some notable creature designs, which together with details such as corpses with two hearts and insatiable incubus that they run through the city without panties, they leave some other truculent detail that elevates it over more youthful products. It is not an essential viewing for lovers of the genre, but the most daring will find a thick but divergent curiosity.