--- title: "Penny Dreadful" year: 2014 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/penny-dreadful" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 75 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-17T20:18:17.114058+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T20:18:30.145736+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Penny Dreadful (2014) Created by John Logan · 1h 00m · MPA TV-MA · Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama, Mystery, Action & Adventure **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 75 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* Every monster in the Victorian library meets in one drawing room, and Eva Green frightens them all > John Logan’s gathering of Victorian monsters takes every one of them seriously, and Eva Green is remarkable as the medium at its centre. It moves slowly and it is sometimes daft, but it is made with more care than pulp usually gets. ## Synopsis London, 1891. Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), an explorer, is searching the city for his daughter Mina Harker (Olivia Llewellyn), who has been taken by creatures that drink blood. He has the help of Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a medium with secrets of her own, and hires Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), an American sharpshooter performing in a travelling Wild West show. To examine what they kill, they turn to Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), a young doctor experimenting on the dead in a rented attic. Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) hosts parties, and Brona Croft (Billie Piper), an Irish girl with consumption, sells what she has. Something is killing people in the streets, and the newspapers are not sure what. ## Review John Logan has taken the monsters of the Victorian novel out of their separate books and put them in one city. Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) is stitching corpses together in a rented attic. Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) is throwing parties. Something with teeth is taking people off the streets. Into this walks Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), an explorer whose daughter Mina Harker (Olivia Llewellyn) has been carried off, with a medium, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), at his side and an American sharpshooter, Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), on his payroll. The title promises cheap thrills, and nobody involved treats them cheaply. It is a good series, slow and sometimes silly, and it takes its ghouls seriously enough that we did too. The series belongs to Green. Vanessa has seen things and has been trained to say nothing about them, and Green plays her with a stillness more alarming than any of the creatures. There is a séance early in the first season, a party trick in a rich man’s drawing room, that becomes something else: Green’s voice drops and changes, speaks as people who are not present and know things they should not, and her body folds into positions it was not built for. We were unnerved in a way television rarely manages, and it was not the effects, because there are none. It was Green’s face, and a camera that would not cut away from it. It looks expensive and it looks dirty. Jonathan McKinstry’s production design gives Sir Malcolm a house of maps and mounted heads, and puts Frankenstein’s laboratory under a leaking roof with the tables lit by gas. The streets are wet and the fog is a colour the whole picture has been dipped in. Gabriella Pescucci dresses Vanessa in black to the throat and the men in tailoring so tight it looks like restraint, which is the point. Abel Korzeniowski’s score is strings and a waltz that keeps coming back, a little slower each time, and it does a good deal of the frightening on its own. J. A. Bayona is among the directors, and the opening episode has his patience: a mother, a child, an outside privy, a noise through the wall, and a long wait before anything is shown. Rory Kinnear is the other reason to watch. He plays a creature who has read too much poetry and been given too little reason to live, and we will not say how he arrives. His speeches, delivered from a scarred face under a fall of black hair, moved us more than we expected a monster to, because Kinnear plays the loneliness and lets the make-up do the rest. Dalton growls handsomely and means every word. Hartnett is lighter and better than his reputation, a man who wants to be liked and is puzzled that these people do not care. Billie Piper’s Brona Croft, an Irish girl dying of consumption, has an accent that takes some getting used to. Carney’s Dorian Gray is the weak spot, waxy and underwritten. Danny Sapani’s Sembene, Sir Malcolm’s manservant, is given too little to do. The trouble is pace, and Logan chose it. He writes speeches, long ones, and his people deliver them to each other in rooms lit by one candle. Some are fine. Some are there because an hour needed filling. The mythology piles up as the seasons go on, witches and older gods and things from the American desert added to the vampires, each with its own rules, and there are stretches where the plot is left to look after itself while the cast talks. Simon Russell Beale’s Ferdinand Lyle, an Egyptologist in a bad wig, and Helen McCrory’s Madame Kali improve matters when they arrive. The third and last season is nine episodes, and it ends in more of a hurry than it began. Set against the gothic it borrows from, this is the rare one that does not wink. Nobody makes a joke at Frankenstein’s expense; nobody nudges you about Dorian Gray’s portrait. Three seasons, 27 episodes, certificate 18, and the certificate is earned. Give it two episodes. If the séance does not get you, nothing after it will. *Fi1m score 76, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (9) - **The AV Club**, Sonia Saraiya (A-): The show impresses with its slow, atmospheric buildup and long, intense scenes that draw out fear and wonder rather than rushing explanations. It offers a moody dark fantasy with extraordinary performances and cinematic sensibilities that evoke the era's dirt and horror. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/penny-dreadful-is-a-penny-delight-1798180392) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a creative horror amalgamation with real potential to reimagine classics, praising the fresh mixing of familiar characters like Frankenstein and Dorian Gray with new ones in Victorian London. It is weird, enthralling, scary, intriguing and entertaining, with strong character work and direction. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/tv-review-showtimes-penny-dreadful-702313/) - **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (90/100, inferred): The series is a wonderful surprise and handsomely produced hybrid of supernatural horror and historical drama. Its greatest virtue is its sincere approach without irony or air quotes around the characters and situations. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2014/05/tv-review-showtime-penny-dreadful.html) - **Empire**, William Thomas (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the series pulpy but smart, with a big-game hunter and clairvoyant hunting vampires in Victorian London. Events move slowly, but it is splendidly lurid and Eva Green is fantastic in her paranormal scenes. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/penny-dreadful-review/) - **The Guardian**, Filipa Jodelka (70/100, inferred): The series is a ghoulish affair that piles on Victorian gothic tropes including vampires, reanimated corpses and monsters in a lavishly shot package. It delivers eight hours of delectable horrors held together with grave looks, though it teeters between daft and solemn. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/may/17/penny-dreadful-filipa-jodelka-review) - **The Times** (70/100, inferred): The show brings together every nightmare available to the Victorian mind including ghouls, vampires and reanimated corpses. The leads stand up well amid the onslaught of mythologies, though the Frankenstein reveal feels like an error. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/tv-review-penny-dreadful-xf5jh2v69df) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (70/100, inferred): The critic finds it solidly entertaining, well cast and oozing with atmosphere, a shrewd genre choice for the network. It builds a dense mythology around classic literary figures but has slightly uneven production values and generic monsters. [Read](https://variety.com/2014/tv/reviews/tv-review-penny-dreadful-1201172141/) - **The Independent**, Ellen E Jones (50/100, inferred): The well-cast gothic horror with lush sets and genre tropes like body snatchers and blood fails to make a gripping start due to a missing over-arching storyline. The constituent parts are high quality but reanimating them into a whole proves tricky. [Read](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/penny-dreadful-sky-atlantic-tv-review-a-well-cast-gothic-horror-ticks-all-the-genres-boxes-but-still-9405542.html) - **Den of Geek**, Tony Sokol (4/5): The premiere is a stylish monster mashup that whets the appetite with strong atmosphere and suspense, introducing a compelling cast of literary monsters and characters. It excels in visual storytelling and performances but has not yet fully delivered on dread. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/penny-dreadful-night-work-review/) ## Details - **Created by:** John Logan - **Creator:** John Logan - **Director:** Damon Thomas, James Hawes, Brian Kirk, Paco Cabezas, Dearbhla Walsh, Coky Giedroyc, J. A. Bayona, Toa Fraser, Kari Skogland - **Writer:** John Logan, Andrew Hinderaker, Krysty Wilson-Cairns - **Music:** Abel Korzeniowski - **Production design:** Jonathan McKinstry - **Costume design:** Gabriella Pescucci - **Producer:** Morgan O'Sullivan, Sheila Hockin, James Flynn - **Cast:** Eva Green as Vanessa Ives; Josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler; Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcolm Murray; Harry Treadaway as Dr. Victor Frankenstein; Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray; Rory Kinnear as John Clare / The Creature; Billie Piper as Lily / Brona Croft; Danny Sapani as Sembene - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 11 May 2014 - **Genres:** Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama, Mystery, Action & Adventure - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOM0rziqEY4 ## Where to watch in the US - Paramount+: streaming, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BG, BR, CL, CO, CZ, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IN, MX, NL, NO, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Terror* (2018): Franklin’s lost expedition, a thing on the ice, and men who talk like Victorians. - *Crimson Peak* (2015): Del Toro’s haunted house with the same appetite for velvet and blood. - *Taboo* (2017): Tom Hardy grunting through a filthy Regency London; less literate, just as dark. - *Bram Stoker's Dracula* (1992), Fi1m 79: Coppola’s operatic vampire, all costume and colour, the direct ancestor of this look. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bram-stokers-dracula.md) - *The Devil's Backbone* (2001): A Spanish orphanage, a ghost, a war outside; grief treated with the same seriousness. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/penny-dreadful