Netflix's 2-Part 'Supernatural Meets Van Helsing' Series Is Quietly One Of Its Best Fantasy Shows

While Netflix has a lot of great horror shows in its back catalog, one that has been described as Supernatural meets Van Helsing is particularly vital viewing for genre fans. Although Mike Flanagan’s Netflix exit was a big blow to the streaming service, the iconic writer/director isn’t the only heavy hitter that Netflix has in the genre. Netflix has been creating great horror content for over a decade, from terrifying shows like 2019’s Marianne to more family-friendly spooky fare like Stranger Things.

However, not all the streaming service’s horror offerings lasted as long as they should have. Although SyFy’s Van Helsing lasted five seasons and earned stellar reviews for its dark, bloody, but still campy and fun take on the title character, a show from Netflix that borrowed its inspiration from the same iconic character was canceled after only two seasons. To make matters worse, the show also owed its format to the cult classic Supernatural, which lasted a staggering 15 seasons.

Developed by Van Helsing’s Simon Barry and based on a comic book character created by Ben Dunn, Warrior Nun was a blend of fantasy, supernatural horror, and procedural thriller with a killer premise. Starring Alba Baptista as the titular warrior nun Ava Silva, the show saw the teenager take on the mantle of slaying demons as part of the ancient Order of the Cruciform Sword. Like Constantine, if he were a teenage nun with a divine artifact jammed in his back, this killer nun took on monster-of-the-week cases.

Warrior Nun Blended Supernatural Horror And Religious Lore In Its Dark Story

While Warrior Nun might sound like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Evil, The X-Files, or any number of earlier shows that blended the police procedural format with supernatural horror, the show’s tone was a lot darker than its wacky synopsis might imply. Warrior Nun was a brutal, violent series that borrowed its bloody action from the earlier Van Helsing series, feeling closer to the earlier TV adaptation of From Dusk Til Dawn than a standard network procedural.

That said, if there was one network TV series that the show owed some creative debt to, it was Supernatural. While Netflix’s later supernatural mystery shows played up their campiness and family-friendly appeal, Warrior Nun instead took the religious mythology of later Supernatural seasons and ramped it up to eleven. If there were any fans of Supernatural who felt that angels, demons, and the beings between them were under explored in the original show, Warrior Nun had them covered.

Warrior Nun’s Brief Two-Season Run Makes It An Ideal Binge Watch

For everyone else, the show was simply a gory good time that offered bone-snapping action, grisly violence, and some genuine scares amid its religious exposition. While the dark tone might have been a bit too much for some viewers, genre diehards were likely to love the hidden gem. Unfortunately, like many other Netflix fantasy shows, Warrior Nun remained just that for mainstream audiences and was canceled after only two seasons, as the show failed to command a big enough following to justify its budget and the planned movie spinoff.

While Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale proves that mainstream audiences aren’t always averse to punishingly dark, self-serious storytelling in genre shows, Warrior Nun failed to win over a massive mainstream audience in its first outing, and this didn’t improve when the show's sophomore season arrived. As such, the show never got to entirely fulfill its potential as a blend of martial arts action, religious horror, and police procedural. That said, for fans of Supernatural and Van Helsing, Warrior Nun remains an underrated must-watch that is well worth seeking out, even if the show never managed to expand its fandom.

Release Date 2020 - 2021

Network Netflix

Showrunner Simon Barry

Directors Simon Barry

Writers Simon Barry