I am currently watching Marianne, the grisly, horrifying series from 2019 that takes place in France, and with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, is one of the highest-rated horror shows in Netflix history. It’s my second time through, but perhaps I’ll take a break for a new European murder show instead.
The new series is Blood Sacrifice, currently #3 on Netflix’s top 10 list. It’s Nordic, in this case from Sweden, where that region produces some fantastic series in this genre, particularly miniseries. Blood Sacrifice has arrived with a solid 86% Rotten Tomatoes review score, and it is worth checking out.
What’s Blood Sacrifice about? The concept is that murders targeting police officers begin to happen every Friday at 1:15 AM, and a detective attempts to stop the timely killer to prevent this from happening as a weekly occurrence. He will have to pair up with his estranged ex-cop father to do so.
The series is led by Jakob Oftebro, who previously appeared in Escaping Bolivia, Stenbeck, and the very highly scored Kids in Crime. It’s worth noting that Blood Sacrifice was created by George Kay, who previously created Gone, Hijack and Lupin, all high-profile series. Also, he did the entire Criminal series, which spanned four European countries: the UK, France, Germany, and Spain. The point being, he’s got a great pedigree and Blood Sacrifice is especially noteworthy given his involvement.
While Outer Banks is dominating many countries on Netflix right now, including the US, Blood Sacrifice is actually #1 on the service in 12 regions. #3 on Netflix in the US means it could crawl higher in time, though given the fact that this is the series finale of Outer Banks, it may be tough to ever grab #1.
Here’s what some critics are saying about Blood Sacrifice, if you wanted more specifics before you gave it a shot:
- Variety – “Intense, bloody and thought-provoking, the show is much more than a standard murder mystery.”
- Decider – “Blood Sacrifice presents an intriguing mystery, but we hope that the relationship between the father and son investigating the killings at the center of the show gets the time it deserves.”
At just five episodes, it certainly seems like it will be around four hours of your time in full. The only other crime series out recently on Netflix are true-crime offerings, where a few of those are dumped out every week. If you’re looking for an actual drama, it seems like it may be time for Blood Sacrifice to fill that void.
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