# The Horror of Dolores Roach (2023)

> After sixteen years in prison, an ex-convict masseuse in gentrified Washington Heights is pushed to shocking extremes to keep her fragile new life.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/137898

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 8
- Episode runtime: 29 min
- Status: Canceled
- Genres: comedy, horror, drama
- Created by: Aaron Mark
- Network: Prime Video
- Cast: Justina Machado, Alejandro Hernandez, Kita Updike, K. Todd Freeman, Ilan Eskenazi, Jessica Pimentel, Jimmy Alvarez, Maureen Cassidy
- TMDB rating: 7.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9174630/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: brutal
- Tone: darkly comic, gallows humor, tense, wry, unsettling

## What critics say

Audiences find the series a darkly comic and inventive take on the revenge story, with a strong lead performance and a bold mix of horror and dramedy, though its reception is mixed overall.

## Synopsis

The Horror of Dolores Roach (2023) is a United States Prime Video dark comedy horror series created by Aaron Mark, adapted from a podcast and produced with Blumhouse Television. Justina Machado plays Dolores Roach, a former inmate released after a sixteen-year sentence who returns to a gentrified Washington Heights. She reconnects with her old friend Luis Batista (Alejandro Hernandez), who lets her live and work as a masseuse in the basement beneath his empanada shop. Her hands are her livelihood and her weapon, and each episode traces how her fragile stability is threatened and how she is driven toward desperate, shocking acts to survive. Dolores is a dark, neighborhood-rooted character whose choices turn ordinary Latino New York struggles into something unsettling. The eight-episode single season runs about half an hour per episode, moving briskly through a story built on sharp humor and rising dread. The show carries a gallows humor tone, pairing wry comedy with brutal violence and the pressure of displacement and economic precarity. Fans of Dexter, Fargo and Orange Is the New Black will find resonance in its morally compromised protagonist, its darkly comic crime, and its grounded city textures. The series is a single season, so its story stops before a full resolution.

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