Destroying the school gym – or at least attempting to – is something of a motif when it comes to the darkest teen movies. Kristy Swanson burns down her school’s gym to wipe out vampires in the OG version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Heathers, Christian Slater tries to blow it up in the middle of a pep rally. The gym is also where the titular Carrie takes telekinetic revenge on the classmates that humiliated her, killing them all in a massive fire. So while the idea of a school gym as a hotbed of violence isn’t new, it does say a lot about the kind of show Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin wants to be.
Original Sin – which is streaming in the US on HBO Max – ultimately has more in common with teen slasher flicks than it does the original Lucy Hale-led Pretty Little Liars, about a friend group that disintegrates when its Queen Bee goes missing. That version from ABC Family (now called Freeform) only wrapped five years ago, so it’s possible you can still hear the inappropriately chirpy theme song – “Got a secret, can you keep it?” – playing in your head. The new Pretty Little Liars – from Riverdale’s Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – opens with a slowed-down, discordant remix of the track to announce its more sinister identity.
