‘Dead Boy Detectives’ Trailer: Meet the Team in Netflix’s New Mystery-Horror

Proma Khosla

April 3, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.·2 min read

Sometimes the past just won’t let you go. In Netflix’s “Dead Boy Detectives,” ghosts wreak havoc and reckon with unfinished business, and it’s up to Edwin Payne (George Rextrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) to help them move on. The best friends are also a formidable detective agency where Edwin provides “the brains” and Charles provides “the brawn.”

And by the way — they’re dead.

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The graphic novels from Neil Gaiman come to life courtesy of co-showrunners Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz, Yockey known best for his work on “The Flight Attendant” and “Supernatural” while Schwartz hails from the worlds of “Sweet Tooth” and “Arrow.” All of that experience — crime, action, the supernatural — comes handy in adapting Gaiman’s fantastical mystery series. Yockey wrote the first episode and the duo executive produce along with Greg Berlanti, Jeremy Carver, Sarah Schechter, Leigh London Redman, and Gaiman himself. Lee Toland Krieger directs the first episode.

“The bittersweet nature of Edwin and Charles having only become friends because of their tragic deaths is what makes their friendship such a unique story to explore,” Schwartz told Tudum out of Geeked Week. It’s that relationship that grounds the series even as it gets “as psychedelic as possible while still honoring the mystery-horror tone.”

The full-length trailer (set to My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade”) shows the best friends teaming up and taking on cases while making dangerous and intriguing alliances among both the living and the dead (including witches and demons in addition to run-of-the-mill ghosts). Those include Crystal (Kassius Nelson), a clairvoyant human, and her best friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), both of whom help the boys take on paranormal mysteries and a larger puzzle that stumps them all. The series also stars Jenn Lyon, Briana Cuoco, Lukas Gage, David Iacono, and Ruth Connell.

Gaiman and Matt Wagner developed the characters for DC as part of the Sandman universe, which also found a home on Netflix with the 2022 series starring Tom Sturridge. The full eight-episode season launches April 25 on Netflix.

Watch the full trailer for “Dead Boy Detectives” below.

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