Village of horror

Samantha Morton stars as a vicar investigating mysterious disappearances in a new thriller

- SEAN MARLAND, STEVEN PERKINS

NEW DRAMA
The Burning Girls
From Thu 19 October, Paramount+

The dark history of a small English village leads to a present-day nightmare for its new vicar in Paramount+’s nerve-jangling six-part drama The Burning Girls, adapted from C.J. Tudor’s novel.

After being assigned to a new parish in fictional Chapel Croft, Sussex, one of the first things Reverend Jack Brooks (The Walking Dead’s Samantha Morton) learns is that the village once saw the terrifying deaths of eight-year-old twin sisters Abigail and Maggie.

Burnt at the stake in 1556 during Queen Mary’s purge of the Protestants, the sisters – dubbed the Burning Girls – are now said to haunt Chapel Croft.

MURDER AND MYSTERY

Having recently fled a traumatic experience of her own in her previous parish in Nottingham, Jack doesn’t intend to dwell on the 16th-century tragedy – but when retired journalist Joan Hartman (The Crown’s Jane Lapotaire) tells her about two teenage girls who vanished from the village 30 years ago, Jack’s curiosity is piqued enough to dig deeper.