''Los Espookys'' is an American
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
television series created by
Julio Torres
Julio Torres (born February 11, 1987) is a Salvadoran writer, comedian, and actor. He is best known as a writer for ''Saturday Night Live'' and as the co-creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO series '' Los Espookys''. He previously wr ...
,
Ana Fabrega
Ana Fabrega (born 1991) is an American comedian. She is best known for her work as a writer, showrunner, and actor on the HBO series '' Los Espookys''.
Early life and education
Ana Fabrega was born in 1991 in Arizona, where she grew up in Sco ...
, and
Fred Armisen
Fereydun Robert Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen was the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series ''Portlandia''. He ...
, who also star alongside Bernardo Velasco and
Cassandra Ciangherotti
Cassandra Ciangherotti (born 14 February 1987) is a Mexican actress and producer, best known for her role in the 2015 Mexican drama film ''The Hours with You'', film for which she was nominated in the Ariel Awards for Best Supporting Actress in ...
.
The series follows a group of friends trying to turn their love of horror into a successful business, where most of their jobs consist of fabricating
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
-like situations and tricking people into thinking they are real. ''Los Espookys'' premiered on June 14, 2019 on
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
.
In July 2019, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on September 16, 2022.
In December 2022, the series was canceled after two seasons.
Premise
''Los Espookys'' "follows a group of friends who turn their love for horror into a peculiar business, providing horror to those who need it, in a dreamy Latin American country where the strange and eerie are just part of daily life."
Cast and characters
* Bernardo Velasco as Renaldo, a horror and gore enthusiast who assembles his friends to form Los Espookys. He is kind and optimistic, but naïve and incompetent with finances. He also appears to be asexual.
*
Julio Torres
Julio Torres (born February 11, 1987) is a Salvadoran writer, comedian, and actor. He is best known as a writer for ''Saturday Night Live'' and as the co-creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO series '' Los Espookys''. He previously wr ...
as Andrés Valdez, Renaldo's best friend since childhood and member of Los Espookys, and the adopted heir to a chocolate empire. While trying to put up with his unapproachable parents and the future husband they chose for him, he is also haunted by a mysterious demon, and longs to unlock the secrets of his past.
*
Cassandra Ciangherotti
Cassandra Ciangherotti (born 14 February 1987) is a Mexican actress and producer, best known for her role in the 2015 Mexican drama film ''The Hours with You'', film for which she was nominated in the Ariel Awards for Best Supporting Actress in ...
as Úrsula, a friend of Renaldo and sister to Tati, and a member of Los Espookys. She is smart, resourceful and more down-to-earth than the other members, but struggles with her job as a dental hygienist due to the mean behavior of her boss.
*
Ana Fabrega
Ana Fabrega (born 1991) is an American comedian. She is best known for her work as a writer, showrunner, and actor on the HBO series '' Los Espookys''.
Early life and education
Ana Fabrega was born in 1991 in Arizona, where she grew up in Sco ...
as Tati, Úrsula's dimwitted sister and a member of Los Espookys. She is constantly switching between strange jobs to try to make a living and is willing to put herself into any situation the other Espookys need her in. She has a boyfriend whom she has only met online, but later marries Andrés's gay ex-boyfriend, oblivious to the fact it is not a love marriage.
*
Fred Armisen
Fereydun Robert Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen was the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series ''Portlandia''. He ...
as Tico, Renaldo's uncle and a trusted and dedicated employee of a
valet parking
Valet parking is a parking service offered by some restaurants, stores, and other businesses. In contrast to "self-parking", where customers find a parking space on their own, customers' vehicles are parked for them by a person called a ''valet ...
company. He is very supportive of Renaldo's efforts and happy with his job, but struggles with his daughter's attitude problems and his own tendency to be too selfless. During the second season, he and his daughter move in with Renaldo after valet parking becomes obsolete due to self-parking cars.
*
José Pablo Minor as Juan Carlos, Andrés' vain boyfriend, who later becomes Tati's husband in a lavender marriage. He comes from a wealthy family that runs a successful cookie empire.
* Spike Einbinder as the Water Spirit, a mystical aquatic entity linked to Andrés' soul and lives inside of him. In season 2, she "quits" and enters the real world, getting a job as an assistant to Melanie Gibbons.
* River L. Ramirez as Sonia, Tico's bratty, dependent, adult daughter.
* Greta Titelman as US Ambassador Melanie Gibbons, who meets Los Espookys during one of their jobs, and later hires them for another
* Carmen Gloria Bresky as Mayor Teresa Lobos, a client of Los Espookys in season 1 who starts a presidential campaign in the second season.
*
Adela Calderón
Elena Adela Calderón García, known as Adela Calderón (born 21 February 1959 in Santiago) is a Chilean actress and comedienne who has appeared in television and stage.
Calderón's family faced severe hardship during the rule of Augusto Pinoche ...
as Renaldo's mother, who is constantly trying to find him a girlfriend.
*
Carol Kane
Carolyn Laurie Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American actress. She became known in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as '' Hester Street'' (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress), ''Dog Day Afternoon'', ''Annie ...
as Bianca Nova (season 1), an aging and forgotten American film director who befriends Tico.
*
Martine Gutierrez
Martine Gutierrez (born 1989) is an American visual and performance artist. Gutierrez is known for creating artworks that interrogate how identity is formed, expressed, and perceived. The artist has created music videos, billboard campaigns, epis ...
as Karina Salgado (season 2), a
beauty queen
A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...
who was
Miss Puerto Rico
Miss Puerto Rico is a national beauty pageant in Puerto Rico. Currently, there are two separate televised pageants held annually: Miss Universe Puerto Rico to select the representative for Miss Universe and Miss Mundo de Puerto Rico to select t ...
, and brutally died immediately after being crowned
Nuestra Belleza Latina
''Nuestra Belleza Latina'' (English: ''Our Latin beauty'') is an American reality television beauty pageant that has been broadcast on Univision from 2007 through 2016, 2018, and 2021. Reunion specials have been conducted in the years 2010, 2016, ...
; in the second season, her ghost starts haunting Renaldo.
*
Yalitza Aparicio
Yalitza Aparicio Martínez (; born 11 December 1993) is a Mexican actress and preschool teacher. She made her film debut as Cleo in Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 drama ''Roma'', which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2 ...
as
The Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the List of natural satellites, fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth ( ...
(season 2), whom Andrés can talk to
* Andrea Villalobos as Mónica Martinez (season 2), a cousin of Renaldo who starts working for Los Espookys after loosing her previous job
*
Kim Petras
Kim Petras (born 27 August 1992) is a German singer and songwriter based in Los Angeles, California. Between 2016 and 2020, she released music as an independent artist under her own imprint, BunHead Records, before signing with Amigo and Republ ...
as the Secretary of State (season 2)
*
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...
as herself (season 2)
Episodes
Season 1 (2019)
Season 2 (2022)
Production
Development
On November 21, 2017, it was announced that
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
had given the production, then titled ''Mexico City: Only Good Things Happen'', a pilot order. The episode was written by Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, and Julio Torres and set to be directed by Fernando Frias. The production staff of the potential series was set to include Armisen,
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels (born Lorne David Lipowitz; November 17, 1944) is a Canadian-American producer, screenwriter, and comedian. He is best known for creating and producing ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1980, 1985–present) and producing the '' La ...
, Andrew Singer as executive producers and Torres and Alice Mathias as co-executive producers. Production companies involved with the series are expected to include
Broadway Video
Broadway Video is an American multimedia entertainment studio founded by Lorne Michaels, creator of the sketch comedy TV series ''Saturday Night Live'' and producer of other television programs and movies. Broadway Video also held the rights to ...
and Más Mejor.
On July 2, 2018, it was announced that HBO had given the production, now titled ''Los Espookys'', a series order for a first season. It was additionally announced that Fabrega would serve as a co-executive producer and that Antigravico would join the list of production companies involved with the series.
On April 16, 2019, it was announced that the series would premiere on June 14, 2019.
On July 24, 2019, HBO renewed the series for a second season which premiered on September 16, 2022.
Filming for the second season wrapped in February 2022.
On December 2, 2022, HBO canceled the series after two seasons.
Casting
Alongside the pilot order announcement, it was confirmed that the pilot would star Bernardo Velasco, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega as Tati, Julio Torres, and Fred Armisen.
Reception
The
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports a 100% approval rating with an average score of 8.71/10, based on 26 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Igualmente hilarante y horripilante, ''Los Espookys'' is an espooky good time."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which uses a weighted average, gave the series a score of 82 out of 100, based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Espookys, Los
2010s American comedy television series
2020s American comedy television series
2019 American television series debuts
2022 American television series endings
Spanish-language HBO original programming
Television series by Broadway Video
Television series by Home Box Office
Television series set in 2019
Television shows set in South America
Television shows filmed in Chile
Spanish-language television programming in the United States
Magic realism television series