Beyond The Walls is engrossing fantasy horror for adults

Despite the recent success of Game Of Thrones, much of the realm of fantasy is still considered a young person’s genre, relegated to the margins of serious drama and found in the YA section of your local bookstore. And even when it is given the full berth of “serious drama” consideration, be it the aforementioned HBO series or things like Starz’s Outlander, the only reason is because it partakes of supposedly adult-minded things like nudity, sex, and graphic violence. (Never mind the obvious inference that kids tend to be far more eager to indulge in those subjects at any given moment.) Horror like The Walking Dead may rule television, and science fiction may have been accepted as legitimate adult fare since before Kubrick lensed the first frame of 2001, but mysticism and magic still somehow find themselves in the less reputable seat more often than not, regardless of how many books China Miéville publishes or examples of full-frontal nudity populate Westeros.
Beyond The Walls is the rare example of full-fledged television fantasy that wows its audience purely on the merits of smart, sophisticated storytelling. With hardly a naked form or intimate encounter in sight (the fleeting instances of both are so tame as to be incidental), the new three-part miniseries delves into the world of the supernatural with inventive flair and sharp-edged narrative. It asks audiences to enter a darkened underground world of ethereal mystery without so much as the promise of a titillating encounter or gruesome pitfall. It may share little in common, storywise, with French series The Returned, but the two make for fair points of comparison, both delivering high-minded and enthralling drama out of pulpy material. Whereas that critically acclaimed show did the work of a grounded drama steeped in the unbelievable, Beyond The Walls plunges fully into a dreamlike universe of the fantastical, more a two-hour-plus fable steeped in magical realism than The Night Of with ghosts added.