The Cutprice Guignol

We made it, guys, gals, and ghouls, to the end of season one! And we’re finishing things up with The Harrowing, an exquisitely nasty gothic horror that closes out the first season of Inside No. 9 on the most deliciously dark note possible.

The Harrowing follows Katy (Aimee-Ffion Edwards – and, yes, unfortunately, I am duty-bound to tell you to watch Detectorists in these brackets), a teenager who takes on the job of house-sitting for a mysterious pair of siblings, Hector (Shearsmith) and Tabitha (the late and – I cannot stress this enough – great Helen McCrory, flexing her gothic horror muscles the same year Penny Dreadful came out), who are very much not vampires, since you ask. And pay no attention to their mouthless brother in the attic, okay? Okay.

The Harrowing is a bit of an embarrassment of riches whatever way you look at it. The genres it takes on, the actors starring, the horror, the comedy, the setting, the costuming – there’s almost nothing here that I don’t love, and it feels very much like the same sentiment is coming from behind the camera, too. Shearsmith and Pemberton’s love for horror is not exactly a secret, but seeing them dive in to something so explicitly and unapologetically horror-centric is a delight we don’t get to see often in Inside No. 9.

The Harrowing is, predominately and most obviously, a gothic horror – and I think one of the most “straight” horror stories of the show’s entire run. While it draws on a few other horror tropes (like the retro 70s babysitter premise), it really leans in to gothic horror in everything from the gorgeous stately home setting, to McCrory and Shearsmith’s costuming and make-up – while it’s not technically a period setting, their home is even cut off from phone service, a literal severing from the modern world outside. Cultivated with those long shots of the house, shot through with beams of light on the sinister paintings that adorn the walls, the atmosphere is richly Rue Morgue, somewhere between Poe and Jackson.

But one of my favourite things about gothic horror is just how silly it can get – it’s the over-the-top soap opera of the world of horror, and Shearsmith and Pemberton (who’s otherwise absent from this episode) make great use of that for its comedic value, especially in the first act of the episode. McCrory and Edwards navigate this discomforting back-and-forth that’s half comedy of manners, half sinister foreshadowing; Shell (Poppy Rush) arrives to give full teenage emo snootery, even if she does serve the plot in a more direct way than just comic relief.

But make no mistake, this is a really scary episode – probably the most outright disturbing of the season, and all the better for it. I love the slow build of tension about What, Exactly, is Upstairs, the way we traverse up through the house along with Katy, plucking up the courage to peep round corners and open doors. And the episode’s climax (side note: did she have to be in her bra and knickers for this? I feel like there’s some greater meaning I’m missing, but it didn’t really add much for me, and I found it a little uncomfortable given how young the character is meant to be) – the possessed brother of Hector and Tabitha stumbling towards a bound Katy, hissing “mischief” over and over again, those gnarled feet on the floor, the lurchingly odd performance of Sean Buckley, the knowledge of what awaits Katy on the other side – it’s horror, pure and simple, in a way the show only does once in a while, but that I’m always delighted to see in action.

And I love that it’s the image we leave the episode and the season on – there are a myriad of ways to describe this show (hell, it changes episode by episode), but if I had to pick one word that captures it, it would be “mischief”. That sense of play, fun, wicked silliness – that’s how I would sum up Inside No. 9, in its various iterations, across genres, across styles, across stories. Chanted by a demon advancing on an innocent teenager in the bedroom of a gothic mansion? That’s just the cherry on top.

Where does The Harrowing sit in your rankings? Now that we’ve finished the season, I can safely say it’s on the higher end for me, along with Sardines, A Quiet Night In, and Last Gasp – Tom & Gerri and The Understudy were the weaker outings of this first season, though I did find something to enjoy in all of them. I would love to hear how this season ranks up for you in the comments below, and I hope you’ll join me for season two in the next few weeks!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Inside No. 9 reviews. I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

(header image via IMDB)