Pick of the week
The Enfield Poltergeist
In August 1977, Peggy Hodgson called the police to report that the furniture in her London home was moving. So began the fascinating, funny, sad and still enigmatic events explored in this series, which reconstructs the story of a troubled family, a paranormal investigator who wanted to believe and, possibly, a child with a mischievous streak. Using actors lip-syncing over the actual recordings made by investigator Maurice Grosse is a masterstroke: it makes the voices captured on tape feel like hauntings, ghostly in themselves. It prompts the thought that maybe we have willed this and other similar mysteries into being. This notion becomes a metaphor for the whole, peculiar tale.
Apple TV+, from Friday 27 October
***
Life on Our Planet
David Attenborough has spoiled us; it’s hard to watch any other natural history epic without longing for his air of welcoming authority. And so it is with this series that, despite stretching back billions of years and featuring brilliantly realised and long-extinct beasts, still sometimes feels like a triumph of style over substance. The script, sonorously voiced by the Attenborough of Hollywood, Morgan Freeman, is clunky in places (dinosaurs are “the most iconic dynasty of them all” apparently) and feels light on the science. Still, the blend of CGI and actual footage is undeniably impressive.
Netflix, from Wednesday 25 October
***
What We Do in the Shadows
The lovably daft vampire comedy returns for a fifth season. This time, the big question involves Guillermo. At the end of season four, he asked Derek to turn him into a vampire. And now, the results of the transformation become clear. As ever for this eternal fall guy, it hasn’t gone entirely smoothly. The strength of the series continues to be the performances: Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou and Kayvan Novak ham it up irresistibly while Harvey Guillén as Guillermo and Mark Proksch, as the brilliantly boring “energy vampire” Colin, have their moments, too.
From Wednesday 25 October, Disney+
***
The Other Mrs Jordan: Catching the Ultimate Conman
As an excuse for extreme secrecy and frequent absences go, it’s a bold one. This documentary series tells the story of William Allen Jordan, who told his wife, Mary Turner Thomson, that he was a CIA agent working in counter-terrorism. The truth was much grubbier and grimmer. In 2006, Mary received a phone call from a woman claiming to be another Mrs Jordan – it turned out her husband was a serial bigamist, predator and liar whose victims were more numerous than either woman could imagine.
From Thursday 26 October, ITVX
***
Sebastian Fitzek’s Therapy
A missing child, a broken marriage and a search for the truth: these aren’t exactly unfamiliar components of psychological thrillers but this series (adapted from Fitzek’s novel Therapy) manages to convincingly evoke the mental terrain of grief. Therapist Viktor Larenz (Stephan Kampwirth) has retreated to an almost deserted island after the disappearance of his daughter. Once there, he’s plagued by physical and mental manifestations of his trauma. But expect multiple twists – nothing here is quite as it seems.
From Friday 27 October, Prime Video
***
Tore
A coming-out and coming-of-age Swedish drama, as shy, introverted Tore (the charismatic William Spetz) goes on a reckless, sex and drugs-fuelled voyage of discovery after the death of his father. Tore had continued to live with his dad into his late 20s while struggling with his identity – but will he be able to cope with his new freedom? It does a good job of locating the frightening, exciting jeopardy that comes with letting go: Tore suddenly finds himself in a world full of dangerous possibilities, some of which may prove too much to handle.
From Friday 27 October, Netflix
***
Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-fi Film Club
A charming documentary that gives context to the flowering of Korean cinema by exploring an experience shared by a generation of cinephiles. In the early 90s, a group of young Koreans gathered regularly to share their passion for films. Among them was Bong Joon-ho who would become the first Korean to win an Academy Award. At the Yellow Door film club, he screened his first film, Looking for Paradise. For all that Boon is the breakout star, the real strength of the film is its sense of a shared journey – the club was clearly an important staging post for everyone involved.
From Friday 27 October, Netflix
• This article was amended on 23 October 2023. An earlier subheading said that Enfield was in east London when it should have said north London.
