The witchy thriller “Yaga” is a Canadian production that co-stars Hudson Williams, now hot enough off of “Heated Rivalry” to earn a “with” before his name in the credits. That’s about where the similarities with the hockey-themed megahit end, though not for lack of trying: “Yaga” — which airs on streaming service AMC+ in the States — painfully strains for the eroticism and insight into sexuality that came so easily to “Heated Rivalry,” resulting in an eight-episode season that’s often cringe without ascending into camp. But other blunders are all “Yaga”’s own. Choppy pacing, poor casting and facile feminism all combine to make “Yaga” a misfire, one viewers in search of seasonal scares should overlook in favor of alternatives.
Adapted by creator Kat Sandler from her play of the same name, “Yaga” introduces itself as a missing persons mystery centered on Williams’ Henry Park, a billionaire heir whose concerned parents send family fixer Rapp (Noah Reid) to track down somewhere in rural British Columbia. But the story’s real interest is right there in the title: Sandler wants to rework the Baba Yaga myth of cannibal witches in chicken-legged huts for the modern day. (“Yaga” foreshadows this project with Slavic covers of various pop standards, a legitimately fun detail.) Unfortunately, the show can’t muster a take more interesting than platitudes like “a witch is just someone society has decided they’re afraid of,” coming more than a decade after touchstones like “The Witch” and “American Horror Story: Coven” advanced similar ideas in a more artful way.
“Yaga” could deliver excitement in other areas, and tries to. Rapp quickly discovers Henry and his lookalike roommate Logan (also Williams, minus colored contacts and plus a prosthetic nose), both college students, had an uncommonly close relationship with their professor Katherine (Carrie-Ann Moss), an anthropologist known as the “bone lady” for her academic interest in ossified remains. When he meets Katherine in a hotel bar, not realizing she’s about to be a person of interest, Rapp’s idea of a come-on is asking for sexy facts about bones.
Such clumsy and futile attempts at chemistry are not the fault of Moss, who’s pretty much the only person in the ensemble to project the earthy, seductive vibe “Yaga” is clearly going for. Rapp himself is part of the problem: Reid’s performance renders him a loudmouth bro whose effect on the town’s women, including but by no means limited to Katherine, utterly baffling. (At times, the question of Rapp’s inexplicable attractiveness is more pressing than that of Henry’s whereabouts.) There’s also a clash between the gorgeous, haunting atmosphere implied by the scenery, all fog-bound waters and shady forests, and the buddy-cop banter between Rapp and his quasi-partner Carson (Clark Backo), a local police officer he mocks for being mannish — or even, gasp, gay! “Yaga” can’t manage the ramp-up from such crass comments to the eerie and metaphysical, with the elements forming a discordant clash rather than a smooth blend.
If there’s an archetype more overdone than the witch who’s actually a misunderstood outcast, it’s the rich guy who’s secretly into sinister sex stuff. Sure enough, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein begins to haunt “Yaga” as Rapp and Carson start to uncover what Henry and Logan have been up to — namely, house parties suffused with bisexual lighting and the occasional chicken sacrifice. Rather than alluring or even disgusting, the details of Henry and Logan’s trysts are almost juvenile in their attempts to provoke; the particulars of who’s sleeping with who, and under what circumstances, are filled with over-the-top and unconvincing details, jumping the shark from the salacious to the outright criminal in the blink of an eye.
By the time “Yaga” arrives at its inevitable reversals of perpetrator and victim, whatever spell (get it?) the show’s cast on the audience has long since been broken. Already offputting, Reid’s performance of Rapp’s dawning realizations — flipping from dismissive skepticism to feverish belief with little in between — grows less grounded by the minute. To be fair, the fault here lies equally with the scripts, which dump information without first creating suspense. Perhaps there’s a reason most horror dramas don’t have quick, 30-minute episodes, though the prospect of an even longer “Yaga” is not an enticing one.
The first two episodes of “Yaga” are now streaming on AMC+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays.