Netflix has ordered “My Sad Dead,” a four-episode limited series from Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, marking his latest collaboration with the platform after “El Conde” and the forthcoming biopic “Maria.” The project adapts Argentine author Mariana Enríquez’s ghost-laden short story of the same name and begins principal photography in Buenos Aires and Santiago late June.
Each hour-long instalment will weave elements from “My Sad Dead,” “Julie,” “A Sunny Place for Shady People” and “Back When We Talked to the Dead,” blending domestic drama with supernatural dread. “I enjoy seeing my work re-imagined; this adaptation has felt calm and respectful,” Enríquez said, adding that Netflix’s reach gives the stories “a breathtaking new audience.”
Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi and Alejandra Flechner lead a cast that also includes Carlos Portaluppi, Germán de Silva, Luz Jiménez and Carolina Sánchez Álvarez. Larraín writes alongside Guillermo Calderón and Anastasia Ayazi; Fabula’s Juan de Dios Larraín produces with Argentina’s K&S Films, the company behind Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of “The Eternaut.”
The narrative centres on Ema, a 60-year-old doctor who has long suppressed her ability to see the dead—until her niece Julie, who experiences the afterlife through unsettling erotic visions, arrives uninvited. Enríquez’s fiction, praised for translating Latin-American social trauma into gothic imagery, underpins the series’ focus on violence that lingers “like unfinished business,” as literary critics have noted.
Industry analysts say Netflix is deepening its Spanish-language horror slate to consolidate growth in Latin America after the success of titles such as “El Conde” and “Sister Death.” By pairing Larraín’s auteur credentials with Enríquez’s cult reputation, the streamer aims to attract both prestige-drama viewers and genre devotees ahead of a planned 2026 release.
