Sometimes, when you’re a Catholic school dance troupe, your latest group initiation goes sideways. Maybe that means your choreographer dropped all the communion wafers on the floor, but for the girls of the coming-of-age drama The Body — starring Kristina Bogic, Sara Boustany, Geena Meszaros, and The Traitors winner Gabby Windey — the results are a little more complicated. Their ritual-gone-wrong leads to a mass frenzy that engulfs an entire community. (Scroll down to get a sneak peek at the show’s unholy new photos.)
The upcoming eight-episode series, which will be released on Nov. 11, is created by Quinn Shephard, the writer-director of Emmy-nominated mystery Under the Bridge. Shephard will direct the premiere and also serve as showrunner of the drama.
“I’ve always been interested in the idea of girlhood as a religious experience. This story is definitely my way of putting a playful spin on all the nightmares of my own teenage-dom,” Shephard says. “Tonally, I would describe the show as gritty camp. It’s a raunchy teen psychodrama with a dash of Catholic horror.”
Shephard also points to the show’s evergreen themes, which, she notes, remain relevant long after high school. “I think that the emotions of trying to figure out who you are, how to love your identity, where you align with your belief system, and wanting to be loved [don’t] ever really go away,” the writer explains. “I think that the truth is that as much as we’d like to think otherwise, we don’t ever stop coming of age.”
Keep reading to uncover even more truths about The Body, and check out just-released photos.
After a dance-team initiation goes wrong, a group of badly behaved Catholic school girls begin having prophetic visions that set off mass hysteria in their town. The series will run for eight episodes.
Shephard calls The Body “a love letter to all the ’90s and Y2K teen movies and erotic thrillers” she loved growing up. “Movies like Carrie, Jennifer’s Body, Heavenly Creatures, and even Mean Girls [are all inspirations], but with a grounded lens,” she says. “I was also a teen with an embarrassingly intense fixation on The Crucible and the Salem witch trials. It’s been very interesting to revisit that with the shading of our current political climate!”
The writer-director promises plenty of cliff-hangers are ahead. “I love a spooky sense of mounting dread,” she admits. “I hope people eat popcorn while they watch this, even when The Body hits hard. Maybe light some candles and throw a slumber party.”
Shephard pulled from her own adolescence to write her “most personal” story yet.
“I joke that this show is so me — it’s really aggressively me,” Shephard tells Tudum. “It’s satirizing some of the trauma of growing up queer and repressed and the confusion around that.” The Body was Shephard’s first TV script, which she penned when she was in her early 20s.
“I started writing the show the year I came out,” she says. “All the confusion, shame, passion, spirituality, and the language of girlhood [were things] I was still learning to speak. It felt really heavy to me.” Years later, Shephard returned to the script with fresh eyes — and a totally new take on its genre.
“I was able to realize, ‘Oh, it’s a dramedy,’” she says. “I think the biggest discovery was that there was so much comedy in it, which I imagine is something a lot of writers have when they revisit high school with a smidge more perspective.”
Yes! Get a hell-raising look above and below.
The series regulars of The Body cast are:
Some recurring cast members have also been announced, including:
Shephard is the creator and showrunner and will helm the first episode of The Body, along with additional select episodes. Amy Israel, Peter Chernin, and Josh Stern will executive produce for North Road, alongside Riley Keough, Gina Gammell, and Sacha Ben Harroche for Felix Culpa.
“It’s our second show together, which speaks to how much I adore this team,” Shephard says. “The Felix Culpa team is as real as they get. Riley and Gina are visionaries and also hilarious and have killer taste, along with their whole team. I consider Gina my true creative partner on this. She’s in the trenches with me daily, and she never stops pushing this show to be the best (and wildest) version of itself.”
The Body marks a creative reunion for Shephard and Emmy nominee Riley Keough, who previously starred in and executive produced Under the Bridge and will executive produce The Body.
Grab your dance shoes and holy water — The Body lands on Netflix on Nov. 11.
