The Psychological Thriller Everyone's Watching On Netflix Right Now

An unexpected thriller is heating up Netflix's Top Ten.

Offering to the Storm, a Spanish-German production, recently made its way onto the streamer's list of most-watched movies. The atmospheric, supernaturally tinged Spanish-language thriller managed to crack the list during a weekend dominated by the high-profile Netflix originals The Kissing Booth 2 (which proved so popular that it dragged the original movie onto the Top Ten as well) and the Charlize Theron-starring comic adaptation The Old Guard.

While Offering to the Storm doesn't feature a ton of faces that would be super familiar to American audiences, that only helps to ground the creepy action — as do the naturalistic performances of its cast. Marta Etura, a veteran Spanish actress who has been a fixture on the big screen in that country for the better part of two decades, leads the film as Police Inspector Amaia Salazar. Amaia returns to her hometown of Baztán in the Basque Country (an autonomous community in Spain) to get to the bottom of some strange goings-on. There, Amaia also confronts demons from her own past. 

The movie benefits from the fact that the Basque Country, which straddles Spain's border with France, is an incredibly scenic region with rolling hills and picturesque villages. Offering to the Storm suggests that the area's old-world charm hides the kind of dark secrets that may have to do with the ancient, supernatural entities of local folklore that are said to inhabit the region's many forests. The area can practically be seen as another character of Offering to the Storm in its own right — which certainly seems to be the intention of author Dolores Redondo, who wrote the novel upon which the film is based and who grew up in the area.

If you're taken in by Offering to the Storm's brooding atmosphere and twisty narrative but find that some of the plot points seem to come out of nowhere, well, there's a reason for that: The movie is actually the conclusion to a much longer story.

Offering to the Storm is the third and final film in the Baztán Trilogy, all based on Redondo's novels, which began with 2017's The Invisible Guardian. That flick tells the story of Amaia Salazar's first return to her old stomping grounds to help solve the ritualistic serial murders of several local teens, while also locking horns with her sister and her abusive, nursing-home-bound mother. The film ends with the revelation that Amaia and her American husband, James (Benn Northover), are expecting a child.

The story continued in 2019's The Legacy of the Bones, which begins after Amaia has given birth to a baby boy. When a number of people in Baztán begin dying by suicide, Amaia returns to investigate — quickly finding that the deaths seem to be suspiciously linked to the series of murders that she had solved in the first film.

While Offering to the Storm certainly works as a standalone movie, some of its character interactions that seem laden with meaning and callbacks to previous events will make a bit more sense if you've seen the first two flicks. Fortunately, they're both available for streaming on Netflix, so you can binge-watch the entire trilogy ASAP.

Based on the fact that Offering to the Storm is amongst the ten most-watched movies on Netflix in the U.S. as of late, it's clear that there are many things to love about the film. However, some may still be skeptical about Offering to the Storm — especially if they're considering watching the first and second installments in the Baztán Trilogy as well. After all, popularity doesn't always equal quality. But in the case of Offering to the Storm, there's a connection. 

Reviews for the film have been quite positive, with a number of critics noting that fans of the genre will want to check it out — and stream The Invisible Guardian and The Legacy of the Bones beforehand so they get the full picture. That said, critics have also pointed out that viewers may be able to predict some of the twists and might be hesitant due to the movie's 139-minute runtime, but that shouldn't deter them from tuning in. 

As Techquila's Archi Sengupta wrote in his review of the flick, "With ritualistic infant murders as the main theme and lots of blood, Offering to the Storm is a thrilling ride with enough to make it a good and horrifying watch. If the runtime does not daunt you, I'd suggest giving this one a go. But do check out the previous installments — a movie marathon might be a good idea. [...] You can figure stuff out before the big reveal is made though, and the police, as per usual, make some flawed decisions. However, all in all, [it's] a decent and thrilling watch."

If you're sold on Offering to the Storm, stream it (and its predecessors, too) on Netflix now.