Netflix's new supernatural thriller looks raunchy, raucous and extremely on trend
The Body seems like it's timed perfectly
Coming up with a new series for Netflix is never simple, I'd imagine, but there are certain pillars that you can include to give yourself a great chance of not just getting picked up, but also of scoring a proper hit once your show eventually hits the streaming service. I think The Body ticks quite a few of those hypothetical boxes, personally.
The new series got its first proper trailer last week, which is full of arresting imagery, and it'll hit Netflix on 11 November. What boxes does it tick, you ask? Well, it's got teenagers bullying each other, high school sports drama, hints of the supernatural, and a strong implication of steamy, messy relationships.
The show appears to revolve around a dance squad at a girls' school, recruiting for new members and putting those new dancers through an initiation rite that goes more than a little wrong. From the blurb, this will apparently kick off a series of prophetic visions among the girls, who start to see things and believe increasingly scary things about each other.
It's clear from the trailer that at least one of them might end up getting literally possessed, whether it's by a demon or the literal devil, or by nothing at all, we don't know right now. What's clear is that this tone will take the show from a high school drama into the territory of a supernatural thriller or even an outright horror show.
The good news for Netflix is that those genres have done brilliantly for it over the years, with audiences clearly hungry for the sort of thrills and frights that come with that territory. If The Body can deliver on them, I think it has all the ingredients to be quite a hit in terms of Netflix's all-important charts.
We know that it's an eight-episode season, and it hasn't been billed as a limited series, so it'll be fascinating to see whether this is a "one and done" scenario, or whether it'll sow some seeds for more potential seasons down the line – with a young cast of relative unknowns, you'd assume that might be at least an option. We'll know more on 11 November, when it starts streaming.
