"Yaga" Reimagines Baba Yaga as a Small-Town Witch Hunt

A centuries-old Slavic folk legend just moved into a fishing town, and it's bringing Carrie-Anne Moss with it. "Yaga: A Witch Hunt," the new Crave Original premiering October 23 on AMC+ in the U.S., takes the myth of the chicken-legged witch and drops her into a contemporary mystery thriller — no CGI hut required, just a town full of people who might be lying to you.

From Stage Play to Small-Screen Mystery

"Yaga" started life as a 2019 play by Kat Sandler that premiered at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre, and Sandler carries that same voice into the series as creator, showrunner, and writer. The folklore is old — Baba Yaga is one of the most enduring figures in Slavic storytelling, a witch who lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs and deals in favors no one really wants to owe her — but the setting Sandler builds around it is new: the fictional coastal town of Whittock, where a commercial fishing empire holds most of the power and most of the secrets.

The series was shot on location in Victoria, British Columbia, over February and March of this year, and it shows in the finished footage — the fog, the docks, and the tree line all do a lot of quiet work before anything supernatural even enters the frame.

A Disappearance, a Detective, and a Woman Who Knows Too Much

The plot kicks off when Henry Park, the young heir to Whittock's fishery empire, vanishes under circumstances nobody in town wants to explain. Private investigator Rapp, played by Noah Reid ("Schitt's Creek"), arrives to dig into it, quickly finding himself working alongside — and occasionally against — local detective Carson, played by Clark Backo ("Letterkenny").

The wrinkle comes from Carrie-Anne Moss's Katherine, a university professor whose academic expertise puts her uncomfortably close to the investigation, and from Hudson Williams, who takes on a dual role as both the missing Henry Park and a second character, Logan. Williams — fresh off his breakout in "Heated Rivalry" — has been one of the show's most talked-about pieces of casting since it was announced, and the first teaser leaned hard into the dynamic between his characters and Moss's.

Rounding out the cast is Sheila McCarthy as Olena Yaha, a Ukrainian-born local woman whose name is about as subtle a hint as this show gives you, alongside Megan Follows and Katharine Isabelle in supporting roles. The series is directed by David Frazee and Rachel Talalay, and produced by Front Street Pictures and Blink49 Studios.

TIFF Buzz, Then a Binge-Friendly Rollout

"Yaga" had its world premiere in the Primetime program at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, screening alongside high-profile titles like the new "Carrie" adaptation and "Crystal Lake." That kind of festival placement is a strong signal for a genre series — TIFF's Primetime slate tends to go to shows a network is willing to put real weight behind, and Crave clearly sees "Yaga" as one of its flagship fall originals.

The rollout itself splits the difference between a binge and a weekly watch: the series launches October 23 with two episodes, then drops a new half-hour episode every Friday, building to a two-episode finale on November 27. Eight episodes total, which is a tight, confident runtime for a show that's betting on atmosphere and slow-burn dread over sprawl.

Why This One's Worth Watching

Folklore adaptations live or die on whether they trust the source material enough to let it breathe, and "Yaga" seems to understand that the scariest version of Baba Yaga isn't the one with special effects — it's the one where you're not sure which of your neighbors she actually is. Pairing that with a cast this stacked, a director with Rachel Talalay's horror pedigree, and a mystery structure that gives the folklore room to unfold slowly instead of all at once, makes this one of the more interesting horror-adjacent swings of the fall TV season.

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