Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Sabrina Spellman is a teenager split between two worlds, trying to balance ordinary high school life with an inheritance of witchcraft and responsibility. She lives with her aunts Hilda and Zelda and warlock cousin Ambrose, who help her learn spells, rules, and the darker customs of the Church of Night. As she dates, studies, and deals with school drama, Sabrina also faces moral questions about loyalty, power, and what it means to belong to a community with strict, supernatural laws. The series keeps a steady mix of teenage concerns and occult threats, with an undercurrent of political and social tension that forces Sabrina to weigh personal desire against family and tradition.

The show premiered on Netflix in 2018, created for television by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and adapted from the Archie Comics graphic novel series of the same name. Kiernan Shipka headlines as Sabrina, joined by Ross Lynch, Lucy Davis, Miranda Otto, and Chance Perdomo across its run.

While it didn’t sweep mainstream award shows, the series received attention within genre and craft circles, earning nominations and recognition for its production design, makeup, costumes, and performances. Critics and guilds noted its distinctive visual identity and the actors’ portrayals of complex, morally ambiguous characters.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina made a visible mark on pop culture with its gothic aesthetic, holiday-season popularity, and a darker reimagining of a classic character that many viewers embraced. It sparked fan art, social media discussion, and a loyal audience that appreciated its mixture of horror, soap opera melodrama, and queer representation, especially in how relationships and identity were portrayed.

Critical reception tended to praise the show’s willingness to push tonal boundaries and its lead performance, reflected in strong audience ratings, the series vote average being 8.183 out of 10. Recurring themes include identity and agency, the clash between religious dogma and personal ethics, feminist undercurrents, and the pressures of growing up when moral choices have supernatural consequences.