Black Spot

Villefranche is a small town without phone reception on the edge of a mysterious forest. The number of inhabitants is dwindling but there's a sharp rise in crime. Police inspector Laurène, once the victim of a crime herself, keeps on discovering fresh corpses.

Think crime drama with more than a little Blair Witch, Pan's Labyrinth and Twin Peaks thrown in.

This series came as a nice surprise. It has that catchy mix of dark, mystery ,fantasy, horror and drama set in a back woods French town. The old lore that keeps you tangled in Villefranche's stories. One not to be missed by fans of the genre!

I'm not sure they understand how to protect anyone, especially themselves. However, they are great at following the clues, most of the time. It does have a great supernatural back drop that succeeds in not swallowing up the actual crimes and character development. But again, wow, do they make some dumb fn decisions. lol " Hey lets go over into this massive creepy fn forest, where people are dropping like flies and poke around with no back up....Should I bring my gun, I don't know...maybe, maybe not." -not actual quote.

Quite enjoying this. Good acting and holds your attention.

To the person complaining about the title translation, "white zone" refers to an area with no mobile reception. In English, this area is called a "black spot". Titles aren't always literal translations.

This French series is set in Villefranche, a remote village where the crime rate in noticeably higher than the national average. As the story begins prosecutor Franck Siriani arrives in town to investigate what is going on; he finds himself working with Major Laurène Weiss of the local Gendarmerie and her small team. They are very different characters; Siriani is allergic to just about everything and Weiss is a tough woman who, when eighteen, cut off two fingers to escape after being chained up, in the vast forest that surrounds the town, by an unknown kidnapper. Each episode tends to include a 'case of the week' as well as ongoing investigations into the disappearance of the mayor's daughter, who went missing six months before the series started, and Weiss's attempts to discover what really happened to her in the forest all those years ago.

I really enjoyed this series; early on I got a real 'Twin Peaks' vibe but thankfully this didn't turn out to be a Gallic rip-off of that great show. Yes we have a town in a heavily forested part of the country where weird, possibly supernatural, things are happening but they are dealt with in a very different way. There is a great sense of mystery in the longer term story lines as well as the episodic stories. The location provides a great atmosphere; especially the forest scenes. The characters are interesting and nicely varied and the cast does a fine job bringing these characters to life. Season two closes with questions unanswered so hopefully we will get a third season some time. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of intriguing and slightly strange mysteries.

These comments are based on watching the series in French with English subtitles.

Danish television compiled this into 4 episodes. 4 long, but somehow just not long enough when yearning for more after each episode. Intriguing, dark, mysterious, obvious - yet not at all - leaving you with more questions than answers after each episode. I certainly recommend binging the series. Adding to all this, its filmed in a clever and mind blowing way, with gorgeous scenery. This is some of the best I've watched in a really long time. Mostly watching American or British in general (content, somewhat), this was a mind blowing- and extremely positive - surprise. It's weird, but certainly in a good way. This is actually my first review in here, created the profile as I simply had to tell everyone about how good I thought this actually is.