The Horror of Dolores Roach is Laughing With Us
Doesn’t it seem like cannibalism is having a moment? The ultimate taboo is powering productions as varied as “Yellowjackets,” “Dahmer,” and “Bones and All,” and now it's taking over Prime Video through “The Horror of Dolores Roach.” Fear of people eating people is both current and ancient.
"Dolores Roach" was published about ten years ago. This is how long creator Aaron Mark has been refining this story, first as a play, then as a podcast, and now as an eight-part series starring Justina Machado as the title character and Alejandro Hernandez as Luis Batista, her unlikely benefactor.
As we move into the Washington Heights of today, a gentrified Latino neighborhood with only a few local businesses left, the TV version starts off slowly, focusing on character development and building a sense of place. The drug dealers have even changed, but they're still there, mostly serving white professionals.
As a result, Dolores becomes desperate for anything familiar when she returns to her old neighborhood after serving 16 years in prison for possession with intent to distribute (and assaulting an officer). As the inheritor of his father's empanada shop, Luis offers her a place to stay and creepy but useful devotion.
In the beginning, Dolores tries to do right, which explains the slow plot. Because of all the build-up, her first murder has meaning. Her next murder will mean something. From the start, we know she's going to become an infamous serial killer. While nothing in the early chapters makes that seem impossible, those first few episodes demonstrate her humanity. We see her other options and how difficult they would have been.
As Dolores ramps up her body count, the show really takes off. The show gets crazier and crazier as it gets more extreme. For instance, the audience is spared the nasty details of how Luis disposes of her victims in the first half of the season. It’s about as gross as you can imagine, if not even worse. And when the answer is revealed viscerally.
She snaps necks, picks fights, and burns the whole thing down as things spiral out of her control, making the climax feel all the more earned. This role is well suited to Machado, who switches between being a willfully ignorant girlfriend and being a violence-addicted mistress.
While “The Horror of Dolores Roach” is certainly dark—it spends a fair amount of time in a basement after all—it’s also funny with Machado displaying her characteristic physical humor. A simmering nervous energy ready to boil over is assisted by Hernandez.
In addition to Jean Yoon, who plays the delightfully annoying neighbor Joy, Judy Reyes, who runs the block and needsles Dolores as Marcie, and Ilan Eskenazi as the clueless nepo-baby landlord Jonah, Kita Updike portrays Nellie as the embodiment of GenZ mannerisms, realities, and frustrations.
But the best part of the show is wondering how far these characters will go, seeing them push past all common sense and decency. Dolores and Luis are bundles of contradictions, making them funny, humorous, and dangerous. They’re like someone you know until you don’t. The sense that they are on an edge, about to tip into mad cannibalism, is quite provocative.
As the series puts normality and extreme in conversation, it asks the audience to root for and against the characters. Despite being about a serial killer, "The Horror of Dolores Roach" doesn't take itself too seriously to get its frights.
