Is The Horror of Dolores Roach based on a true story?
With the release of Amazon Prime Video’s new comedy-drama series The Horror of Dolores Roach, fans are wondering if the show is based on a true story.
Amazon Prime Video‘s latest comedy-drama series is here to both horrify and get you in the mood for a homemade empanada.
The Horror of Dolores Roach may sound like a dark, horror series that will keep you up at night, but it’s the complete opposite: it follows a woman who was just released from prison as she becomes a masseuse in the basement under her friend’s empanada shop.
The show has a lot of twist and turns as her new life quickly spirals out of control due to the numerous murders that start occurring. And now fans are wondering if this bloody comedy show is based on a true story or not.
Is the plot of The Horror of Dolores Roach based on real events?
The Horror of Dolores Roach is not based on a true story, but does take inspiration from a popular murderous Broadway musical.
The official plot of the show reads: “Dolores Roach is released after an unjust 16-year prison sentence, and she returns to a now-gentrified Washington Heights neighborhood. She reunites with an old stoner friend, Luis, who lets her live and work as a masseuse in the basement under his empanada shop. When the promise of her newfound stability is threatened, she must go to extremes to survive.”
If that plot sounds familiar, that’s because it’s incredibly similar to that of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The only difference is that Sweeney Todd was a barber above a meat pie shop, where he and the shop owner turned his victims into food for her customers.
In an interview with Den of Geek, Aaron Mark, the show’s creator, explained that he has “loved Sweeney Todd for as long as [he could] remember” and that he considers it to be “one of the great cannibalism stories that our species has ever produced.”
Mark went on to say: “I was living in Washington Heights ten years ago and watching this amazingly rich neighborhood gentrify, and I was struck by the idea that the neighborhood was feeding on itself. I felt like I was watching a neighborhood cannibalize itself and I thought ‘Oh! Cannibalism!’
“I wanted to find characters we think we know and think we’ve seen enough of and find something new to say about them. So it felt very natural to me to have a contemporary Sweeney Todd set in Washington Heights facing this gentrification.”
The Horror of Dolores Roach is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video which you can sign up for here. Please note that if you click on a product link on this page, we may earn a small affiliate commission.
You can check out our other true story articles below:
Oppenheimer | Take Care of Maya | Dumb Money | No Hard Feelings | The Playing Card Killer | The Crowded Room | Beef
