Álex de la Iglesia is a filmmaker with a reputation for insanely dark humor, stark violence, and an impressive ability to blend genres. All of which are on full display in cult hits The Day of the Beast, Witching and Bitching, The Last Circus, and more. The acclaimed horror filmmaker now turns his focus on television, spinning an eight-episode series that catapults an unlikely team into a dark, foreboding conspiracy that fuels a biblical battle of good versus evil. Through de la Iglesia’s vision, a classic demonic tale of potential Vatican corruption instead becomes something far headier and more compelling based on the first seven episodes screened for review.
30 Coins follows Father Vergara (Eduard Fernández), an ex-convict, boxer, and exorcist exiled by the church to be the priest for a remote village in Spain after an exorcism gone wrong. He uses his new post as a means of repressing his past, but that proves tricky when the town becomes under siege by a series of increasingly bizarre events. A cow gives birth to a human baby. Villagers hear voices and turn to aggression. Ouija boards come with added dangers, and reality distorts with increasing frequency. Along with Vergara, Mayor Paco (Miguel Ángel Silvestre) and local vet Elena (Megan Montaner) seek answers. They discover that one of Judas’ 30 pieces of silver paid for Jesus’s betrayal is at the center of it all. They’ll have to team up to fight the forces of Hell and the covert religious organization aiming to collect all 30 coins.
Writer/Director de la Iglesia, co-writing with Jorge Guerricaechevarría, kicks off 30 Coins with a shocking sequence in which a man walks into a high-end bank with guns blazing, shooting his way to a vault. He retrieves an item, brings it to a mysterious clergyman waiting in a car, then succumbs to injuries. It’s an action-heavy tease of the larger conspiracy before the series slows down to focus on the dynamics within the small village at the heart of the narrative. Centering the overarching mysteries from a rural town perspective isn’t just an ingenious way to drive the mystery forward and use its residents as an audience proxy, it builds increasingly complicated character dynamics that make 30 Coins such a compelling show.
Elena is beloved as the town veterinarian, but she’s also a significant gossip source for the townies between her husband’s disappearance two years ago and her relationship with Paco. There’s a clear attraction and strong bond between Elena and Paco, which proves a bit of a problem for his wife, Merche (Macarena Gómez). Father Vergara is a recent transplant to the area, and his prickly closed-off demeanor only fuels the friction when things start getting weird fast. Their positions put Elena, Paco, and Vergara on the front lines of the sinister forces descending upon the village. Still, conflict and secrecy tend to throw wrenches in their ability to unite. So, too, does the paranoia and mistrust that builds among the residents. The character work and drama give depth and rooting interest, though de la Iglesia’s unique take on horror certainly helps.
The default expectation for any genre narrative featuring an exorcist and Vatican conspiracy is that it’ll wind up another entry in possession horror. 30 Coins eschews that expectation from episode one, thanks to a bizarre storyline featuring a baby, er, thing. As each episode progresses the story using a different cursed object, warped miracle, or new complication to the town’s onslaught of terrors, it’s clear that de la Iglesia and Guerricaechevarría have zero interest in retreading any familiar ground. At least not without giving it a distinct, unexpected twist. That early episodic format means that pacing ebbs and flows, but it picks up speed fast as the pieces slowly converge into the central plotline.
De la Iglesia continues to be a master of genre storytelling, using his brand of gallows humor, brutal violence and bloodletting, and engaging examinations of the human condition to explore age-old theological themes through a modern lens. 30 Coins keeps drama at the forefront, anchored by fantastic performances by its trio of leads, but never shies away from the weird, the spooky, and the bizarre in what’s shaping up to be one epic showdown between the underdogs on Team Good Guys and the all-powerful Team Bad. Not only is this a trip worth taking, but 30 Coins continues to demonstrate why de la Iglesia is a modern horror master.
30 Coins debuts on January 4, 2021, with the first two episodes airing back-to-back on HBO. Subsequent episodes will release every Monday, and the series will also be available to stream on HBO Max.
