Critic Reviews
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While the first season of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches is ultimately a very different beast than the books upon which the show is based, it’s also in many ways, a better, more coherent experience. A slow-burn saga that is heavy on atmosphere and low on easy or immediate answers.
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This adaptation has barely scratched the surface of just how bonkers it could possibly get. The glimmers of that promise yet remain, beneath a slow-burn story and a modern Gothic setting that continues to build out Rice's legendary world even further.
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While there are some promising moments, Mayfair Witches fails to offer much to really hook in viewers who aren’t already excited about a shared Anne Rice universe on AMC.
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An AMC series that is occasionally fun but overall way too slow and careful, despite dripping with Gothic horror tropes.
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While there are surprising turns, and the series does improve as it progresses, “Witches” never grabs you with the power that “Interview” did. Stick to the books instead.
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Plays like a weak Gothic stepsister to last year’s more compellingly erotic AMC adaptation of Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. [16 - 29 Jan 2023, p.6]
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There’s a bit too much dross amid what works. ... Through it all, Daddario proves herself an able performer once again. Even as one wishes something more from the show surrounding her, she makes the part her own.
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Barring a yet-untapped reservoir of magic, this tepid cauldron of gothic horror looks like the product of plenty of toil that, as viewing commitments go, might not be worth the trouble.
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A paint-by-numbers take on the supernatural melodrama genre, working from a palette of dull grays and washed-out blues. Everyone involved seems to be sleepwalking through each plodding story beat.
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Fundamentally, the show is not frightening. It’s not even unsettling, which is a baseline requirement. Only Hamlin embraces the baroque nature of the tale; everyone else trudges through as if appearing in the kind of forgettable films that Channel 5 shows at 2pm on a Tuesday.
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A disappointment, a superficial and miscast take that left me cold. The themes of empowered women coping with male oppression are still in the mix, but what a dull mix it is.
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It's the general sullen nature of the series that sucks the life out of a few of its figures—despite having such a unique life's work, Ciprien is too bland thanks to his grave seriousness.
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There’s a point at which an alluring enigma begins to look like frustrating opacity. ... Absent characters worth loving or a plot clear enough to follow, what we’re left with is faint exasperation at a world that, for all its superficial and fleeting charms, seems to make no sense at all.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 9
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Mixed: 3 out of 9
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Negative: 4 out of 9
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Jan 11, 2023
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Jan 8, 2023
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Mar 3, 2023