Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hound’s Hill’ On Netflix, Where An Author Returns To His Hometown To Solve The Mystery Behind His High School Girlfriend’s Death

Small-town mysteries are always good fodder for thrillers. But one of the best aspects of those kinds of stories are all the quirky characters in that small town, who may or may not know all of the secrets that will be revealed as the series goes on. A new Polish thriller on Netflix takes place in a small town, but the characters in it aren’t quite as quirky as we want them to be.

HOUND’S HILL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An older woman in what looks like a funeral headress looks straight at the camera.

The Gist: Eighteen years ago, we see a teenager bemoan to his father that his girlfriend Daria (Kamila Urzedowska) left him. The father reassures him that it’s not true. That night, police come to the father’s door and tell them they’ve found a body. In a large pit, the teen runs and finds police looking at Daria’s mangled body. Her brother, Sebastian (Jan Dravnel), is in a police car, screaming his name for the teen: “Paleface.”

In the present day, that teen, Mikolaj Glowacki (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) is a successful author, with his latest book being a roman à clef about his time in his hometown of Zybork. He’s driving back to the town with his journalist wife Justyna (Jasmina Polak) for the first time in years to celebrate the birthday of his father Tomasz (Robert Wieckiewicz), and hopefully make amends.

Mikolaj died a couple of years after Daria did, and his father has started a new family with a younger woman named Agata (Helena Sujecka). And when he and Justyna enter Tomasz’ house, Tomasz treats him like a second class citizen, scoffing at Mikolaj’s gift and pretty much dismissing him and showing irritation for portraying him as an abuser in his novel.

As Mikolaj and Justyna drive back to Warsaw late at night, they almost run over a man lying in the street. It’s a man that Mikolaj knows well, and despite being beaten to a pulp he’s still alive. As police question everyone about the assault, Mikolaj decides to stay in town, not just to visit his mother at the local cemetary but to visit Sebastian, who’s nicknamed Gizmo. He thinks Gizmo wrote him a postcard saying that he knows everything in the book is lies. But when he gets to the psychiatric ward where Gizmo lives, he sees the drawings all over the walls and finds that his friend is barely verbal. All he says is “two one eight” before orderlies usher Mikolaj out.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hound’s Hill is in the vein of other small-town thrillers like Top Of The Lake and Mare Of Easttown.

Our Take: There was something about Hound’s Hill, which is based on a novel by Jakub Zulczyk, that left us cold. The idea is that Mikolaj and Justyna are going to stick around Zybork to continue to look into Daria’s death as well as what happened to the man they almost ran over. The stay in Zybork isn’t just going to test what they know about the town and about Tomasz, but their marriage is going to also be put to the test.

We get a brief scene where Justyna is looking at texts that indicate she may be engaged in an affair, but every other sign in the first episode show that she and Mikolaj are a strong couple. But Daria’s death has always haunted him, and perhaps she’s tired of competing with her husband’s checkered past. Even so, she’s also going to probe because as a journalist she’s always looking for an interesting story to tell. But how all that connects with what is going on in Zybork is a mystery right now.

It’s apparent that Tomasz is highly influential in town, but it also seems that he’s made many enemies, many of whom are in law enforcement. The parade of people who are both in praise of him and critical of him felt generic in the first episode, and we had a hard time trying to figure out just what everyone’s roles are.

At the end of the episode, Mikolaj goes to see Sebastian about the “two one eight” rant and finds that he supposedly killed himself. So was he really the one who killed Daria, or did someone else? That is the part of the story that will keep viewers watching, but we wish there were a few more interesting characters for us to follow in this story.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: We again see the old woman facing the camera.

Sleeper Star: We like Jasmina Polak as Justyna; she seems to be a steadying influence on Mikolaj, even if she is keeping secrets from him.

Most Pilot-y Line: For some reason, we see a shot of Justyna’s feet as she gets out of the car and sees what she and Mikolaj almost ran over.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The small-town mystery aspect of Hound’s Hill is enough to keep us watching, but the first episode needed to convey a little more information about its main characters.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.