From the title alone we knew Los Espookys was going to be a bilingual horror comedy unlike any other. Created and starring Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres and Fred Armisen, Los Espookys follows a group of four friends in Mexico City who become professional spookers, creating all sorts of horrors for their unusual clientele. At its center is Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco), a horror and gore enthusiast who recruits his friends — including Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) who’s a dental assistant; Úrsula’s sister, Tati (Fabrega), who constantly juggles several odd jobs, such as breaking in other people’s shoes and counting people’s steps; and blue-haired Andrés (Torres), a dark and mysterious heir to a chocolate empire who longs to unlock the secrets to his past and avoid his beautiful boyfriend. Armisen co-stars as Renaldo’s reliable uncle, Tico, who’s living his dream of parking cars as a prodigious valet driver in Los Angeles.
That synopsis alone doesn’t quite do justice to the delightfully bonkers-sounding show. The trailer, for example, opens with an image of a Jesus statue losing its head, a pair of red-gloved hands climbing up a tiny set of stairs, and Tico coming face to face with an Armisen-lookalike in a long blond wig and mustache. The show embraces a B-movie horror aesthetic — budget makeup and costumes seem to be part and parcel of Los Espookys’ repertoire. But there’s also a more surrealist vibe to their spooks, like when we hear an ambassador wants them to craft a real abduction only for Andrés to suggest trapping her in a mirror. “Like a cursed mirror?” asks Renaldo. “Exactly.” Which is precisely what we see as the blond, pink-dressed ambassador finds herself in a dessert surrounded by mirrors.
The deadpan comedy beats are present all around but nowhere as pronounced in Torres’ Andrés, who’s telenovela-pretty boyfriend asks him to promise him he’s not doing anything weird and spooky (“raro y fantasmagórico”) only for us to later see the blue-haired young man who drinks from bedazzled juice boxes in front of some waves and flicking his wrist before finding himself underwater facing some sort of water nymph. With such distinctive style and comedy, Los Espookys is intentionally hard to describe, which is reason alone to catch its full trailer below and see for yourself what these SNL alums have cooked up.
Los Espookys premieres June 14, 2019, on HBO and HBO Latino at 11 p.m.