Freud: Netflix ~ A Bite-Sized Review

Reading Time: 2 minutes

🇦🇹 FREUD 🇦🇹

Freud (2020) is an Austrian crime, history, mystery, horror miniseries on Netflix. 8 x 44-57 min episodes. German with close captioning and available with dubbing. A firm 18 Cert U.K.

Premise:

“Young Czech-Austrian psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, investigates a murder conspiracy in 1880’s Vienna.” IMDb

Main Cast:

Robert Finster as Sigmund Freud

Ella Rumpf as Fleur Salomé

Georg Friedrich as Alfred Kiss

Christoph F. Krutzler as Franz Poschacher

Brigitte Kren as Lenore

Anja King as Sophia von Szápáry

Philipp Hochmair as Viktor von Szápáry

Bite-Sized Review:

I really liked Freud a lot. It is firmly in the horror genre and dark, disturbing, violent and genuinely frightening in places. It is also very sexually charged, this is Freud after all… and there is drug use… so the full house really.

The cinematography, costuming and sets are outstanding. I loved that it tied in so well with psychoanalysis (including the episode titles) and the actual history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the time.

Be sure to watch the opening credits every time as they change and match the title and focus of each episode. Each episode title and focus relates to an aspect of Freud’s psychoanalysis.

The cast are excellent, especially the aptly named Robert Finster (finster=dark) Ella Rumpf and Philipp Hochmair (Viktor) who never disappoints.

The atmosphere of this is somewhat Penny Dreadful. If you go into it expecting something biographical, or more typically “period drama” you’ll most likely hate it, and/or be disappointed, shocked or quite possibly horrified because this is definitely NOT Jane Austen. Freud is very Central European and “Art House”. Highly recommended.

Reel2ReelTalk rating (max 5 ⭐️)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2

Trailer (with subtitles):