The legend of the Baba Yaga has haunted the edges of Slavic mythology for centuries, and she is arguably one of folklore’s most enduring boogeywomen. Whether depicted as a hag in the woods, a terrifying old woman in a chicken-legged house, or the keeper of forbidden knowledge, the Baba Yaga is a figure built on contradiction, which is what makes her such irresistible material for reinvention. With Yaga, the new series from Canada’s Crave (distributed on AMC+ in the States), the familiar story is used to conjure up a series that’s stranger and sexier than anticipated.
Created by Kat Sandler and adapted from her own stage play of the same name, Yaga takes the recognizable beats of a supernatural horror series and slips them into the patchwork skin of a missing-person mystery like True Detective or Broadchurch, a small-town noir like Twin Peaks, and a modern witch’s tale. Set in the coastal community of Whittock, the series begins with the disappearance of Henry Park (Heated Rivalry breakout star, Hudson Williams), the privileged son of a commercial fishing dynasty. His vanishing act attracts the attention of local detective Carson (Clark Backo of Letterkenny and The Changeling fame), while his wealthy parents dispatch their own private investigator, the slippery Charlie Rapp (Schitt’s Creek’s Noah Reid). What starts as a straightforward investigation soon becomes a descent into something much more sinister.
Whittock, not unlike the FANGORIA Chainsaw (and Primetime Emmy) Award-winning titular town of Widow’s Bay, is not the sleepy seaside town it appears to be. Residents have been keeping secrets, and peculiar forces have been waiting a long time to bare their teeth. And hovering over it all is Katherine (Carrie-Anne Moss), an enigmatic biology professor whose reputation for becoming involved with her male students has earned her the rather memorable nickname of the “Boner Beast.” If that sounds like an unusual introduction to a modern Baba Yaga retelling, well, that is part of the fun.
The Baba Yaga has never been an especially convenient fairy-tale figure, because she exists outside conventional morality. This is a character who, depending on who is telling the story, is simultaneously feared and sought out; monstrous and wise. She is not quite a villain, and not quite a benevolent guide, yet popular culture has often reduced her to a convenient symbol of feminine wickedness: the dangerous old woman lurking beyond the safety of civilization.
Some argue that Baba Yaga is the grandmother of the entire hagsploitation subgenre, which makes subverting her story all the more exciting. For comparison, Carrie-Anne Moss is five years older than Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, a sobering reminder of how ghoulishly misogynistic the Hollywood machine has always been. Sandler's interpretation of the character is far more interested in who benefits from that characterization in the first place, a question we should also be asking regarding why so many horror movies seem to think “This Woman Is Older Than 50” is all it takes to craft a “villain.”
The series makes this argument through Baba Yaga herself, whose gravelly, sardonic narration bookends the episodes. Her observations carry a distinctly wounded sense of humor, as though she has spent centuries listening to humanity get her story laughably wrong. It is a cheeky device, and extremely satisfying to watch a figure so often cast as the embodiment of evil push back against the mythology constructed around her.
Yaga succeeds as a blend of maritime gloom, folkloric atmosphere, dark comedy, and erotic tension, with the occasional eruption of graphic violence, but it’s the performances that elevate the show into must-watch territory.
Moss is, unsurprisingly, absolutely magnetic. Her composure is chilling, delivering sermons through the slightest shift in her expression. Speaking as someone who had a framed photo of Moss and Billy Connolly in the zombie comedy Fido as dorm room decor in 2008, I’m an easy mark for anything she does, but Katherine rivals Trinity in The Matrix in my eyes as Moss comes into her full power. Her seductive performance also plays beautifully into the show's thesis that women don't become less powerful with age, no matter how insistently society tries to convince us otherwise.
Backo provides a compelling counterbalance as Carson, and her grounded, practical demeanor makes her an ideal audience surrogate. Watching her play off Reid’s Charlie Rapp is especially entertaining because of their clashing personalities and Rapp’s desperate flirtation, which Carson consistently (so far) rebuffs. And as expected, Williams once again demonstrates his impressive versatility in his dual portrayal of Henry and his considerably more withdrawn roommate, Logan. He remains the king of microexpressions, rivaled only by his Heated Rivalry co-star Connor Storrie.
But by drawing a connection between supernatural folklore and the very real horrors of patriarchal violence, Yaga suggests that the mythology surrounding so-called “dangerous women” is just as revealing as the behavior of the men who fear them. For horror fans who enjoy shouting “good for her” at the screen, Yaga provides an entertaining invitation into the woods. It may not answer every question it raises, but like any good folk tale, it knows how to make you curious about what lurks beneath the surface.
Episode 4 of Yaga premieres Friday, November 6, exclusively on AMC+ in the U.S. New episodes will debut on Fridays, with an epic two-episode finale on Friday, November 27.
