Before Stranger Things made 80s nostalgia a global currency and way before Wednesday leaned into the "spooky teen" aesthetic, there was a strange, messy, and deeply visceral show called Hemlock Grove. It premiered in 2013. It was Netflix's third-ever original series. Back then, we didn't really know what "a Netflix original" was supposed to look like. Most of us were still getting DVDs in red envelopes. Into that world dropped a show executive produced by Eli Roth, based on a novel by Brian McGreevy, that basically told the glittering Twilight era to go jump off a cliff.
It was gross. Honestly, it was frequently confusing. But it had a specific, dark energy that most modern streaming shows have completely lost in their quest to be "bingeable" and "mass-market." If you look back at Hemlock Grove now, it feels like a fever dream from a different era of television.
What Actually Happened in Hemlock Grove?
The plot is a lot to take in if you're coming at it fresh. Set in a decaying Pennsylvania steel town, the story kicks off with the brutal murder of a teenage girl. The local rumor mill immediately points fingers at Peter Rumancek, a nomadic kid played by Landon Liboiron, who also happens to be a werewolf. Not the "shirtless and brooding" kind of werewolf we were used to in the early 2010s. We're talking about a guy who literally eats his own skin during a transformation.
Then there’s Roman Godfrey. Bill Skarsgård played him with this detached, oily charisma that clearly paved the way for his later turn as Pennywise. Roman is an "Upir"—a fancy, high-society version of a vampire who doesn't mind the sun but has a serious thirst for blood and a massive inheritance. The core of the show isn't really the mystery of who killed the girl; it's the bizarre, homoerotic, and deeply codependent friendship between these two outcasts.
They’re trying to solve a crime while dealing with the fact that their own bodies are essentially biological nightmares.
The Transformation Scene Everyone Remembers
We have to talk about that scene. You know the one. If you’ve seen the show, it’s burned into your brain. In the first season, Peter undergoes his full werewolf transformation, and it is a masterclass in practical effects and body horror.
Forget the CGI dust clouds or the seamless shifting seen in other franchises. In Hemlock Grove, Peter’s human eyes pop out. His snout pushes through his face. He births a wolf out of his own human skin and then—to keep things tidy—he eats the discarded remains. It’s disgusting. It’s also brilliant. It won an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects, and it remains one of the most visceral depictions of lycanthropy ever put to film. It signaled that this wasn't a show for the Vampire Diaries crowd. It was for people who liked David Cronenberg.
Why the Show Was Polarizing
Critics mostly hated it. The Rotten Tomatoes scores for the first season were, frankly, pretty dismal. Reviewers complained about the wooden acting, the nonsensical plot leaps, and the "edgelord" tone. And they weren't entirely wrong. The dialogue could be clunky. Famke Janssen, playing the terrifying matriarch Olivia Godfrey, chewed so much scenery she could have been a werewolf herself.
But fans? Fans loved it.
There was something about the atmosphere—the grey, depressing Pennsylvania sky, the weird pseudo-science of the White Tower, and the genuinely tragic backstory of Shelley Godfrey. Shelley was Roman’s sister, a giant, silent girl with glowing blue skin and a heart of gold. She was the moral center of a show that otherwise lacked any morals whatsoever.
The show didn't care about being "good" in a traditional, prestigious way. It wanted to be weird. It wanted to be uncomfortable. In a landscape where every show is now focus-grouped to death, that kind of messy ambition is actually kind of refreshing.
The Netflix Purge
One of the weirdest chapters in the Hemlock Grove saga isn't actually on screen. It’s what happened to it in 2022. Despite being one of the founding pillars of Netflix’s original programming, the service just... deleted it.
Because the show was produced by Gaumont International Television and only licensed by Netflix, the rights expired. Instead of renewing them, Netflix let the show vanish from its library. For a while, one of the most important pieces of streaming history was basically digital ghostware. It eventually found a new home on places like FilmRise and Prime Video, but the fact that a "Netflix Original" could be kicked off its own platform was a wake-up call about the fragility of digital media.
The Cast: Where Are They Now?
Looking back, the talent on this show was actually insane.
- Bill Skarsgård: He went from "the guy in the weird wolf show" to becoming a horror icon as Pennywise in IT. You can see the seeds of that performance in Roman Godfrey—the way he tilts his head, the unsettling stillness.
- Landon Liboiron: He stayed in the "period piece/genre" lane, doing great work in Frontier alongside Jason Momoa.
- Dougray Scott: He was already a veteran, but he brought a certain gravitas to the role of Norman Godfrey before heading off to Fear the Walking Dead and Batwoman.
- Madeline Brewer: She played Tasha Williams in the first season. You probably know her now as Janine from The Handmaid’s Tale.
It’s a testament to the show’s casting that so many of its actors went on to dominate the genre space. They were doing "elevated horror" before that was even a marketing buzzword.
How Hemlock Grove Changed the Game
You can’t talk about the current golden age of horror TV without acknowledging what Hemlock Grove did first. It proved that there was an audience for high-budget, R-rated, serialized horror.
Before this, horror on TV was mostly episodic like American Horror Story or soap-opera-leaning like True Blood. Hemlock Grove tried to be a novel. It didn't always work—the second and third seasons got increasingly "out there" with ancient cults and strange biological experiments—but it paved the way for shows like Hannibal and The Haunting of Hill House. It showed that you could have high production values and still be absolutely repulsive when the story called for it.
Common Misconceptions
People often lump this show in with Teen Wolf or The Originals. That’s a mistake. While it has teenagers and it has monsters, the "vibe" is completely different. It’s much closer to Twin Peaks than it is to Dawson’s Creek.
Another thing people get wrong is the "vampire" label. Roman isn't a vampire in the traditional sense. The show uses the term "Upir," rooted in Slavic folklore. They don't have fangs. They have a "barb" under their tongue. They don't die in the sun. They are a different biological species altogether. This focus on "scientific" horror over "magical" horror is what gave the show its unique, sterile, and creepy edge.
Actionable Steps for the Curious Viewer
If you’re looking to dive into the world of the Godfrey family or revisit the madness, here is the best way to do it without getting lost in the weeds.
Start with the Source Material
Read Brian McGreevy’s novel first. It’s dense, poetic, and even weirder than the show. It provides a lot of the internal logic for Roman and Peter’s relationship that the show sometimes glosses over in favor of shock value.
Watch Season 1 as a Standalone
The first season follows the book almost beat-for-beat. It has a definitive ending to the main mystery. While seasons 2 and 3 have their charms—mostly in the form of increased gore and bizarre lore—the first 13 episodes are the strongest "experience."
Pay Attention to the Background
The White Tower (Godfrey Institute) is full of Easter eggs. If you like environmental storytelling, look at the set design in the laboratories. There’s a lot of foreshadowing about the "Vargulf" and the experiments being done on Shelley that isn't explicitly stated in the dialogue.
Seek Out the Practical Effects BTS
If you're a film nerd, look for behind-the-scenes footage of the werewolf transformation. It involves an incredible amount of puppetry and animatronics that you rarely see in television today. Understanding the physical labor that went into those scenes makes the "gross-out" factor much more impressive.
Check Availability
Since it is no longer on Netflix in most regions, check platforms like Prime Video, Apple TV, or FilmRise. Don't expect to find it in the "Netflix Originals" tab anymore; it’s a free agent now.
Hemlock Grove was never going to be a universal darling. It was too jagged, too weird, and too unapologetically dark for that. But as a piece of television history, it’s a fascinating look at the moment streaming decided to get weird. It’s a show about the monsters we become and the monsters we choose to befriend, wrapped in a layer of rust and blood. It isn't perfect, but honestly, that’s exactly why people are still talking about it over a decade later.