Los Espookys de HBO will make you want to be a horror technician too



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AUSTIN, Tex .- "When did you see a show like this for the last time?" Drunk historyDerek Waters asked the crowd after a world premiere screening at the ATX television festival last week. "I am honored to moderate this panel because what you have just seen is revolutionary."

To be clear, "never" could be the answer to Waters' question. And this panel has do not focused on Drunk history; he did not even present another Comedy Central show. Instead, the moderator was sitting on the stage alongside a group of key writers and main writers of what could be the next big HBO comedy: a series of half an hour in Spanish next to the horror that will debut tonight (23h ET) titled Los Espookys.

Horror how

At the lowest level, Los Espookys follows four friends who form a business in an undisclosed Latin American country where occasional supernatural occurrences are an integral part of everyday life in an unrecognized way. After the friends managed to perform a Quinceañera on the theme of goosebumps for one of their youngest sisters, the wise uncle Tico (Fred Armisen of SNL, Portlandia) casually said that their work is so beautiful, so full of passion that they should pursue it as a rear wing. (The wise Tico would know it well, he works as a valet.)

"All I've always wanted to do is park the cars, now I'm doing it full time," says the legend of the valet, Renaldo, the group's leader in full boom. "The horror is your parking car."

Our heroes Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco), his friends Andrés (SNL-writer Julio Torres) and Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) and her sister Tati (Chris Gethard Show the writer Ana Fabrega) finally follows the advice of Tico and creates a production company focused on creating horror scenarios for others. Do you need an exorcism in your church to put some shine on the young priest, for example? Who will you call? Los Espookys. From there, the show combines the adventures of classic television of the week with the season's evolution of these friends, their activities and their understanding of life in their area. In the middle of all the beautiful pieces, Los Espookys could be somehow the most poignant series about pursuing your creative passions or looking for your professional position as a young adult. (American Vandal, with its ability to combine jokes about the genitals with observations on the issue of identity in high school, could be a good point of reference.)

Simply label Los Espookys "horror comedy" feels inaccurate, though. Although the observations of the series on the genre more and more loved can not be better programmed for this moment of rebirth built on get out, Hereditary, and Blumhouse empire, the show has more in common with the skit of high absurdity than it does with tremors or Ghost hunters. We feel closer to Tim Robinson's new series (I think you should leave) that Peele (blurred area), and these writers do not scruple about it.

"The current trend is horror as a means of making social criticism scary, like the work of Jordan Peele," Torres told Ars. "It's more stupid than that, it has a very stupid sensibility. "

In this aspect, Los Espookys his tone and his comic sensibility are very different from those of television: they can sometimes evoke the naivety and obsession of Community, the clumsiness of Nathan for you, or the unit group report of Broad City. The characters have families who have a fortune in the making of chocolate, but who could also be old orphans cursed ("I love when the chocolate prince gets angry", says the character premierrsula in first, you will soon feel the same). The laughter also comes from extremely bright lips as well as jokes about the Boingo Wi-Fi style.

But again, this degree of stupidity does not mean unclever. Andres, the character of Torres, has a perfectionist touch regarding the details of the various Los Espookys concerts, for example. And his disposable replica of how an heiress introduces a haunted night into a mansion or the accents used by scary butlers will be "OMG, they see it too!" moments for horror enthusiasts. Most of these impeccable observations were inspired by the personality and comedic style of Torres and co. More than by any encyclopedic research of the history of film B.

"I like a lot the horror, but [those moments] Also talk to Julio as a real person, "says Armisen to Ars. He is very attentive to the details. What you see in the scene is also what he does in the series. His…"

"Small critics," says Torres.

"That's good, it helped the show tremendously," admits Armisen. Even in the first three episodes, Ars was selected for this exam, Los Espookys Too many gestures too perfect, it hurts, to shout: Platform combat boots worn by the group leader with a keen sense of fashion; a city that wants to stimulate tourism through a dark urban legend; motivations for revenge being as petty as e-mails ignored.

The trailer Los Espookys

It's not TV, it's HBO

Of Gary Shandling's show at Calm your enthusiasm at Veep, HBO has a rich history of comedies that go against contemporary sitcom peers on other networks. Thus, even though the evolution of the continuous post-broadcast sector has paved the way for foreign-language programming (Americans had regular pieces of Russian on FX, heavy spanish Narcos has attracted a lot of Netflix and will look at the German Deutschland & # 39; 83 right now), maybe Los Espookys finally found the most suitable house for this show after Armisen and co. The idea was presented in 2017. HBO's is at least partly unmarked by screenwriters because they have never questioned the setting or the choice of the series to be mainly in Spanish (only the scenes in Los Angeles with Uncle Tico are in English and everything is subtitled). This framework and sensitivity remain at the heart of Los Espookys.

"I've always wanted to do something sinister and spanish, and I've always wanted to play a guy with valet parking – they look so fast and focused," Armisen said when of the 2019 ATX TV festival panel. "I love horror movies, but I also love the love of people for horror movies – it's like its own kind." so I made this trip to Mexico City and saw from the start that there is a real scene, not just horror but goth, and I wanted to capture that. "Armisen also said to Ars that the horror scene in Mexico felt distinct and untouched from these communities of supporters in the United States, and Los Espookys try to reflect that.

"[The show is] Horror in a warm atmosphere, "as Torres said at the ATX television panel. My mother used to watch Brazilian telenovelas, which are different from Mexican women in that there is a lot of magical realism. I remember a character where there was a character who was in love with the moon and where the whole nation was saying, "Ooo, will he meet the moon?" He would tie a chain around his waist, as he would float to the moon during the full moons. I like that. "

The first Los Espookys The season lasts only six episodes, each one quite tight. Similar to something like Fleabag S2 or Chernobyl, this time commitment seems refreshing after years of work in over 90 minutes Westworld or Game of thrones sessions.

And the appearance of the show only adds to its overall enjoyment. Los Espookys is shot in Chile in collaboration with the production house Fabula, winner of an Oscar, with meticulousness in the staging and framing that might evoke Wes Anderson. Unlike traditional horror music with radical orchestrations and a bit of theremin, the music of this show relies instead on minimalist electronic arrangements, which go even further in its quirky philosophy.

Yes Los Espookys It turns out to be as "revolutionary" for a wider audience than for Waters – and to put it plainly, this show is definitely good and refreshing – HBO would not have been able to find it at a better time. The TV comedy and HBO as a whole could enter a state of change in the summer of 2019. Some of the most surely and most beloved comedies of recent years (Veep, The right place, Broad City, even the devil Modern family) will end or will have ended next year. And the same goes for HBO TV shows like Game of thrones and Silicon Valley. While the real world continues to be quite scary, most of us need an escape and / or a semi-regular laugh. Fortunately, these self-proclaimed horror technicians seem to be up to the task.

Image by HBO

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