The Creepy Thriller Series On Netflix That Will Keep You Guessing
Netflix has had a great deal of success in foreign markets lately, with over 88 titles in the German language alone. The latest German-made mini-series to premiere on the streaming service, Dear Child, has been hailed as a critical favorite that is certain to get your heart thumping with thrills. Dear Child is available to stream on Netflix now.
Netflix found success with the German series Dear Child, which has become the top show in multiple countries.
Dear Child opens with a heart-racing teaser, immediately instilling a number of questions and concerns within the viewer, drawing us deeper and deeper into the tangled web of high-intensity thrills. A severely injured woman is discovered by authorities with an uninjured little girl after a major hit-and-run accident, resulting in an exploration of the pair’s connection to one another.
The series is based on an international best-selling novel of the same name, written by German author and television producer Romy Hausman. Dear Child serves as a six-part mini-series faithfully adapting the events of the book, which interweaves a woman’s harrowing escape from captivity with a decade-old cold case file following a missing persons report. Like the recent hit Showtime series Yellowjackets, Dear Child tells its story by bouncing back and forth between the modern day and a series of mysterious flashbacks, allowing the audience to slowly piece together anachronistic information.
Dear Child first premiered on Netflix on September 7, rapidly drawing in massive views from subscribers of the AMPTP streamer and garnering excellent reviews on aggregate sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, which currently lists the series alongside an 82 percent certified fresh score. The first week the series was made available, it reached number 1 on the global charts for most popular Netflix shows, with many viewers taking to social media to discuss the series’ intense plot and themes.
Due to its themes of isolation, entrapment, and battling evil through a flawed legal system, Dear Child has been compared to a number of critically acclaimed projects, such as 2014’s Gone Girl…
Beyond critics referring to Dear Child as a must-watch series, general audiences seem to be flocking to the show in droves, perhaps due in part to the lack of new material coming from the domestic market amid the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Netflix has been a key holdout in prolonging the strike due to the streamer’s unwillingness to return to the negotiating table to offer Hollywood union reps a fair deal with greater benefits. As a result, a number of foreign language films are seeing a sudden uptick in public interest, providing some viewers with an opportunity to broaden their horizons.
Dear Child has also been hailed for its ability to convey the deeply complex emotional trauma its characters have faced on screen. Series co-writer and co-director Julian Pörksen even explained during a recent press junket that the show’s portrayal of trauma responses was very purposeful and unique, as the behind-the-scenes crew made special care to focus on victims of crime and their behavioral changes and not on perpetrators of crimes. This decision was apparently made because the writers felt that there is a significant over-saturation of dark and mysterious criminal characters committed to television and film whose crimes are treated as intriguing instead of psychotic by modern audiences.
Dear Child has also been hailed for its ability to convey the deeply complex emotional trauma its characters have faced on screen.
Due to its themes of isolation, entrapment, and battling evil through a flawed legal system, Dear Child has been compared to a number of critically acclaimed projects, such as 2014’s Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck, and The Wheel of Time’s Rosamund Pike, as well as 2015’s Room starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. Much like Room, Dear Child features a young woman and a small child who were kidnapped and held captive by a nefarious man and a depiction of the difficulties that come with adjusting to life outside captivity.
Though many American audiences likely wouldn’t recognize the names and previous projects of the German cast, Dear Child stars a number of talented performers. The mini-series features gripping performances by Birge Schade, Christian Beermann, Kim Riedle, Naila Schuberth, Julika Jenkins, Haley Louise Jones, Justus von Dohnányi, and many others.
For those who haven’t had a chance to see the series yet, be sure to tune in and binge through all six 45-minute episodes before going on social media and having the incredible twists and turns of the fast-paced thriller spoiled for you. The series is only expected to grow in popularity in the coming weeks as word of mouth continues to provide high praise. Dear Child is currently available to stream on Netflix.
