Okay, it’s not the 80’s, it’s the 90’s. The kids are a few years older, don’t hang out in penny arcades but in record stores, don’t play “Dungeons & Dragons” but listen to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Radiohead or The Smashing Pumpkins.
And yet “Der Greif” feels a lot like a German “Stranger Things”. The Amazon Prime series, based on Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein’s cult novel from 1989, mixes fantasy and coming-of-age stories almost as original as the Netflix hit. The outsider clique around Mark and Becky (Jeremias Meyer and Lea Drinda, both of whom had previously appeared in “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo”) discovered in the provincial town of Krefelden in 1994 the transition to a nightmarish, gloomy parallel world, the Black Tower . There the griffin rules, which enslaves humans.
The series by Erol Yesilkaya and Sebastian Marka tells a good story, is particularly well cast in the adult supporting roles, but cannot keep up with “Stranger Things” when it comes to the special effects budget. (Amazon Prime Video)
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