The Josh Hartnett Horror Series Everyone Needs To Watch At Least Once
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
As a young actor, Josh Hartnett stole hearts and turned heads with remarkable performances in '90s hits like "The Virgin Suicides" and "The Faculty." Years after his self-imposed disappearance from Hollywood, Hartnett has made an exciting comeback, appearing in the Academy Award-winning "Oppenheimer" and starring as a charming serial killer in M. Night Shyamalan's 2024 concert thriller "Trap."
Anyone eager to see another darkly sophisticated performance from Josh Hartnett should seek out the gothic horror series "Penny Dreadful," which ran on Showtime from 2014 to 2016. Created by John Logan and produced by Sam Mendes, "Penny Dreadful" takes its name from the lurid and macabre serialized stories popular in 19th century Britain. Fittingly, the show is a veritable monster mash, featuring famous fictional characters Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), Abraham Van Helsing (David Warner), Henry Jekyll (Shazad Latif), plus Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his Creature (Rory Kinnear), among others.
Josh Hartnett plays Ethan Chandler, a sharpshooter who has fled his troubled past in America to run a traveling Wild West show in Victorian England. In the series premiere, "Night Work," Ethan is recruited by the beautiful and mysterious Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) and her wealthy benefactor Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) for a secret mission in London that leads to the bloody extermination of a vampire den. Ethan is thus plunged into a dark world of demons, immortals, and mad scientists, as his "night work" is only just beginning.
Penny Dreadful ran for three critically acclaimed seasons
A sinfully delicious gothic drama teeming with sex and violence, "Penny Dreadful" is like a modern update of a classic Hammer Horror film — if that Hammer Horror film was struck by lightning and resurrected on Dr. Frankenstein's slab. "Penny Dreadful" ran for 27 extremely bingeable episodes across three critically acclaimed seasons (plus a 2020 spin-off miniseries, "Penny Dreadful: City of Angels"), with the main series never dipping below an 81% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times argued that "Penny Dreadful" was distinct from contemporary supernatural shows like "The Walking Dead," remarking, "Oh dear; another show to add to our ever-growing guilty-pleasure lists." Variety's Brian Lowry praised the series premiere as "Solidly entertaining, well cast[,] and oozing with atmosphere."
Contributing to the second season's perfect RT score, Maureen Ryan at HuffPost noted Hartnett's performance, saying, "He could do fabulous things in tender moments and also take charge of big set pieces." She then concluded that "['Penny Dreadful'] somehow manages to be an escapist pleasure full of Dickensian interiors and lush paeans to pleasure and gore." Mark Perigard admired the globetrotting third season's set work in the Boston Herald, calling it "Unparalleled. This season the bright oranges and yellows of the Old West make for a welcome contrast to the washed-out blues and grays of Old London." For fans of horror, "Penny Dreadful" should not be passed over.
"Penny Dreadful" is streaming on Amazon Prime and Paramount+.