[imagesource:hulu]

This new Hulu series featuring pale children dressed like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and wearing Sia wigs may seem sweet enough.

But The Daily Beast has used the words “hair-raising”, “bloodcurdling,” and “downright dreadful” alongside a review of The Clearing.

You’ll have to get through the apparently ‘truly disturbing’ premiere episode’s opening scene before delving into the show’s thematic density and its chilling depiction of ruthless cult tactics. Sounds like a fun time.

The story begins with a young girl named Sarah (Lily LaTorre) who is kidnapped from an Australian back road on the way home from school, after being lured into danger by another girl, Amy (Julia Savage). Sarah is renamed Asha and given a new mother, Adrienne (Miranda Otto), (and hairstyle) who leads a cult called The Kindred.

The Australian series is said to take from other similar cults in recent Australian history, with its practices eerily reminiscent of modern American iterations, like NXIVM, too.

The Kindred is closely associated with The Family, lead by the manicured Ozzie Anne Hamilton-Byrne who ran the doomsday cult in the 1960s with the belief that she was a Messiah, per an older article by The Guardian:

Hidden away in the countryside outside Melbourne, The Family’s motto was “Unseen, unknown, unheard”. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. It emerged that over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and “gifts” from followers, dressing them in identical clothes and bleaching their hair platinum. To keep her eerie brood under her control, they say she subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture.

See the likeness?

Image: The Guardian

The Clearing follows a similar path, dissecting cult behaviours and the trauma they heap onto their child members:

The Kindred—and the estate they live on, the mud-mired Blackmarsh—all follow their mother’s orders dutifully, despite Adrienne rarely being present among them. Instead, her collection of adult lackeys does her bidding, doling out punishments and keeping Adrienne’s “children” in line. This means strict diets, constant exercise, and time in a damp, locked cellar if there’s any backtalk. Some of Adrienne’s cohorts enjoy this more than others, particularly Tamsin (Kate Mulvany), who revels in imposing penalties as harsh as her crude bowl cut.

Give the trailer a watch:

The series’ split timeline narrative offers slow-burn twists that will keep you watching, so be warned.

The Clearing will be premiering on Hulu on May 24.

[source:dailybeast]