Here’s Why You Should Watch This New Dark Comedy, The Horror Of Dolores Roach

11th July 2023 | By Rufus Punt

It’s becoming increasingly popular these days for TV shows to be adapted from popular podcasts, taking our obsession with the latest listening trend and turning it into a fully scripted series. Recent shows like last year’s The Dropout and Gaslit both put stories explored in podcasts onto the small screen to success and acclaim- so it’s no surprise that Amazon’s new series The Horror of Dolores Roach is taking the exact same approach.

Based on the pod of the same name, it’s a pretty weird horror-comedy that will make you laugh one minute and sick to the stomach the next.

What’s The Horror of Dolores Roach about?

Unlike The Dropout, The Horror of Dolores Roach isn’t based on real events, which means the series and characters can feel more zany and entertaining than if they were portraying real people and events. Dolores Roach, our titular character (played by Justina Machado, Six Feet Under), is a woman who’s been doing time for selling drugs in prison: 16 years to be exact, and is keen to reintegrate back into the outside world.

In that time though, her old neighbourhood of Washington Heights has undergone significant change and gentrification, leaving her feeling a disconnect from her once familiar surroundings. She gets back in touch with an old stoner friend, Luis (Alejandro Hernandez, Gotham), and the two agree that she can move in and work in the basement beneath his empanada business. With a sense of stability and normalcy, Dolores finally feels like she’s back on track- but things are about to get gruesomely weird.

With a talent for massaging, Dolores starts up a fledgling career as a masseuse, and success is in her sights. Suddenly though, an unsympathetic landlord and several drug dealers operating in the area start to threaten her business and once again torpedo her newly rejuvenated life. Though she apparently doesn’t mean to, her desperation results in her killing several people, and being left with the bodies. The only way to get rid of the evidence is to dispose of it, and Luis has an idea equal part devious and disgusting: chop up the corpses and put the remains inside the empanadas to later sell. The crazy cannibal scheme actually seems to work, but can Dolores keep it a secret for long? You’ll have to watch the eight-part series to find out.

What else do we know?

The Horror of Dolores Roach may take a lot of inspiration from the successful and very binge-able podcast, but the bizarre horror-comedy actually first originated as a one-woman stage show on Broadway called Empanada Loca by Aaron Mark. The Amazon series, like the podcast, is created and written by Mark.

Where can I watch it?

All episodes are now available on Amazon Prime from 7th July.

Watch the trailer


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