# Penny Dreadful (2014)

> Literature's most terrifying figures, including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dracula's circle, confront supernatural evil in Victorian London.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/49015

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 27
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: horror, drama, fantasy
- Created by: John Logan
- Network: Showtime
- Cast: Eva Green, Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, Harry Treadaway, Reeve Carney, Rory Kinnear, Billie Piper, Danny Sapani
- TMDB rating: 8.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2628232/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: gothic, brooding, melancholic, frightening, lush

## What critics say

Critics and audiences broadly admire the gothic atmosphere, the lush Victorian production design, and Eva Green's commanding performance, though the sprawling mythology is sometimes felt to strain.

## Synopsis

Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) is an American premium cable gothic horror series created by John Logan for Showtime. Eva Green plays Vanessa Ives, a haunted woman who joins a search for her abducted daughter in Victorian London, alongside Timothy Dalton as Malcolm Murray, a grieving explorer, and Josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler, an American sharpshooter with a dark secret. Harry Treadaway plays Victor Frankenstein and Reeve Carney plays Dorian Gray, both drawn into a shadowy occult conflict. Across three seasons and twenty-seven episodes, the series builds a single continuing story in which the cast's private wounds meet the supernatural forces stalking the city's fog-soaked streets, its séance rooms and its hidden crypts. The engine is dread: each character wants relief from a curse or a past they cannot escape, and every step toward it draws the monsters closer. The tone is mournful, lush and brooding, with a deep melancholy beneath the gore and an unsettling sense of damnation. Its literary pedigree and atmosphere will appeal to fans of Dracula adaptations, gothic period drama and the moody monster ensembles of Hannibal and The Alienist, who want a horror story steeped in Victorian grief and faith.

## Shows like Penny Dreadful

- [The Terror (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/65263)
- [Beauty and the Beast (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/40529)
- [NOS4A2 (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/72488)
- [The Knick (2014)](https://ember.film/tv/54421)
- [The Nevers (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/69238)
- [Jekyll and Hyde (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/42683)
- [The Alienist (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/62634)
- [Ripper Street (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/42498)
- [Dracula (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/73774)
- [Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/71368)

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