Eldritch terrors come forth in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina S4 trailer

Sabrina Spellman and the good people of Greendale face their most terrifying adversary yet as otherworldly beings seek to bring about the end of all things in the official trailer for the fourth and final season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The Netflix series is based on the comic book series of the same name, a part of the Archie Horror imprint.

(Some spoilers for prior seasons below, most notably the S3 finale.)

As we’ve reported previously, the show was originally intended as a companion series to the CW’s Riverdale—a gleefully Gothic take on the original Archie comic books—but Sabrina ended up on Netflix instead. The show retains some of the primetime soap opera elements of Riverdale, but it incorporates more full-blown horror without bowing to the niceties imposed by network television. As I wrote earlier this year, “Ultimately, the best thing about The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is how gleefully and unapologetically the show leans into its melting pot of the macabre. It’s quite the high-wire act, exploring serious themes while never, ever taking itself too seriously—and never descending into outright camp.”

In the S3 finale, Sabrina transforms a trio of unholy artifacts into a medieval spiked ball and chain known, appropriately enough, as a morning star. She uses this to create a time loop, enabling her to go back and correct the grievous errors she made over the course of the season. Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has already said Sabrina’s time meddling will have “huge repercussions” in this final season, one of which is the fact that there are now two Sabrinas. The original Sabrina Spellman returned to her life in Greendale, while her alternate self, Sabrina Morningstar, took up her rightful throne as Queen of Hell. They’re supposed to always stay within their respective realms, but, well, what are the odds of that happening with such a headstrong heroine?

Aguirra-Sacasa has also hinted that S4 will go full-blown Lovecraft. The title of S4’s first episode is “The Eldritch Dark,” an allusion to sci-fi/horror writer and Lovecraft contemporary Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote a 1912 poem with that title. S3 concluded with a now-mad Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) performing a summoning ritual to call forth the “Eldritch terrors” and telling his loyal acolyte Agatha (Adeline Rudolph) that they will bring about “the end of all things.”

The S4 trailer opens with Spellman family and friends singing “Happy Birthday” to Sabrina, who senses the arrival of something foreboding as she is about to blow out the candles. “They’re here,” Zelda (Miranda Otto) declares, meaning (one assumes) the Eldritch terrors. Meanwhile, cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) helpfully describes “ancient entities. They are world-destroying, and there are more terrors yet to come, culminating with the arrival of The Void.”

It’s up to Sabrina and her friends and family (as always) to stop the boogey-men. And it’s clear from the trailer that Sabrina’s trusty doppelgänger, Sabrina Morningstar, Queen of Hell, will prove to be a handy ally. One assumes that Hell, after all, will also be subject to the end of all things: “A threat to one of us is a threat to us both.”

Will Sabrina and her plucky crew succeed? Will Prudence (Tati Gabrielle) finally take revenge on Blackwood (her biological father)? And are things heating up again with Nick Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood) after his time imprisoned in Hell? Whatever the outcome of this final showdown, our heroes will finish it the way they always do: “together.”

The final installment of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina drops on Netflix on December 31, 2021, so you can usher in the new year with a suitably Lovecraftian binge.

Listing image by YouTube/Netflix