The stunning Rhodope Mountains are the setting for this latest dark thriller from the good people at Walter Presents. The region is located in southern Bulgaria and extends across the border into Greece. It’s a popular area for hiking and camping – and, it would appear, for grim murders and serial killers, although they probably don’t promote that in the local tourist office.
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
When an elderly man’s naked body is found in a lake in the forest, Police Commissioner Filip Chanov (Vladimir Karamazov) and his team are brought in to investigate. The victim has suffered a stab wound to the chest, which is what killed him. But more bizarrely, his eyes have been cut out and replaced by those of a sheep, an act done with such precision that it could only have been done by someone with medical training. And he has also been circumcised post-mortem. These macabre ablations suggest a religious motive for his killing and lead the team to the mystical world of local folklore and traditions.
When the dead man is identified as a retired police officer, the team investigate his family ties and career. They also discover he had a much younger mistress. But his identification also brings in Miya Yazova (Teodora Duhovnikova), a profiler for DANS, the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security. His name has come up in her investigations as he is believed to have been a major player in illegal human trafficking at a Turkish refugee camp.
When Miya arrives at the crime scene, rather than reveal her official position in DANS and risk a potential leak which could jeopardise her own investigation, she goes undercover as a journalist. Using her quick wits and, it must be said, the stupidity of the male officers, she surreptitiously begins her own inquiries – before eventually revealing her true identity to Filip.
It’s probably worth mentioning that there are 12 episodes of this drama. And given the macabre nature of the opening episode, it might be a bit of a long haul for many viewers. There’s very little levity here – it’s dark, foreboding and, frankly, quite hard-going at times.
Sadly, I struggled to feel any kind of engagement with the main characters. Filip is a cold fish, and Miya is the somewhat cliched female cop in a male-dominated world. The main draw in The Devil’s Throat (its original title being (D)evil's Throat: Djavolskoto Garlo) is the location and the excellent cinematography – it is very easy on the eye. But the script is a touch laboured and predictable.
Although it looks great on screen, I found “The Devil’s Throat” was hard to swallow.
Walter Presents: “The Devil's Throat” is available as a full boxset on C4 Streaming now.
