30 Coins Season 2 Review: Go-For-Broke Religious Horror Series Returns Bigger And Scarier Than Ever [Fantastic Fest 2023]
Álex de la Iglesia's "30 Coins" is one of the best horror shows of the past decade, one that packs 30 different horror movies into one show that begins with a cow giving birth to a human baby that turns into a spider monster in a small Spanish village. This is de la Iglesia's biggest and best work to date, a super ambitious, hyper-stylized, soaked-in-blood show that stares down at the biggest evils of humanity, at primordial fears, and spits them out covered in blood and guts.
Where season 1 felt a bit more episodic (at first), with different shenanigans plaguing the village building up to something big, season 2 has no time for that. The world is ending, and we have to move soon. In a more ambitious, more visually striking, more urgent season premiere, "30 Coins" expands its plot to encompass multiple locations across the globe (and on different planes of existence!) giving us Cenobite-like demons, Paul Giamatti as the new villain who casually threatens Lucifer, and a woman who may or may not be pregnant with the new Jesus. It is gonzo horror, it is sacrilegious horror, it is the best horror.
The season picks up right where we left off, with our gun-toting exorcist priest Vergara (Eduard Fernández) dead after throwing himself out a balcony to kill the leader of an evil cult within the Vatican that had gathered the power of the 30 silver coins paid to judas after betraying Jesus. This caused all the cultists to scramble to get the coins, killing each other and unleashing in a small Spanish town in the process.
Welcome to hell
The season takes place a year later, with town mayor Paco (Miguel Ángel Silvestre) in Madrid looking after veterinarian and new flame Elena (Megan Montaner), who is in a coma. Meanwhile, Paco's wife, Merche (Macarena Gómez) is now in possession of one of the coins and living a life of evil, using powers to levitate and throw people off cliffs and more. As for Vergara, he is literally in Hell, trapped in a huge tower populated by Cenobite-like demons and other ghouls.
From the get-go, "30 Coins" season 2 goes big, goes ambitious, and goes absolutely cuckoo bananas. The two-episode premiere introduces us to new threats, like Paul Giamatti as the leader of a Scientology-like cult who wants to use the coins to destroy the world and start a new one, who is so self-assured that casually threatens Lucifer (who works for God here) when offered a deal. Giamatti is having a ball in the role, and every time he is seen or heard he brightens the room. He is being posed as the big bad of the season, a man both God and the Devil fear because he wants for nothing; he is an enigma.
There's both a sense of urgency in the Giamatti storyline and in Vergara's trip to Hell, yet the season hits a bit of a reset button as the coins being spread out means we have time to explore different stories. Like the excellent "Evil," the key to this show is its balance between the supernatural and the mundane. Hell is scary, but so is a corrupt psychiatric hospital doing experiments on its patients.
A master at work
Álex de la Iglesia is a master of horror, and he is using "30 Coins" as a canvas to paint some truly horrific yet visually stunning imagery. Every time we cut to Hell there's something new to see, a new tortured soul, a new messed-up demon in a fun costume. We haven't had a spider baby yet, but there is enough here to satisfy any "Hellraiser" fan.
Where "30 Coins" shines brightest, however, is in its worldbuilding. Like "Evil," it weaves an intricate tapestry of demonology and religion, twisting mythology and canon in interesting ways that allow for fantastical horrors, like the idea of the coins and how every powerful person tried collecting them (Napoleon got 3, Hitler had 5). Growing up catholic, I always found myself drawn to movies or shows that bent the canon to tell unique stories, anything from "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" to "The Omen" and "Saint Maud." De la Iglesia's "30 Coins" raises some compelling questions about the nature of evil and God's grand plan, while also understanding the simplistic appeal of a bunch of weird demon costumes and a gun-toting priest.
/Film Rating: 9 out of 10
"30 Coins" season 2 premieres October 23, 2023 on HBO and Max.