Arresting in an educational TV kind of way, this series exists in the place where the Venn diagram for "creepy," "historical," and "interesting" intersects. New viewers may not even realize the show is built on the bones of a podcast, also named Lore, also hosted by Mahnke, who narrates here (in a slightly robotic tone that may make more than one viewer question whether it's a person or AI giving the skinny on Houdini and lobotomies). And the show's subject material translates well to a visual medium, particularly when historical images make Mahnke's anecdotes come vividly alive.

The show is a little less effective during some of the reenactments, which have the same slightly cheesy air TV reenactments are generally known for. They also drag on in some episodes: A man's family members each die slowly of tuberculosis before we get to the point of one episode, that corpses were exhumed in order to check if they were undead. Did we really need to see each member coughing bloody messes into handkerchiefs to get the point that he was grief-stricken? No matter -- Lore is great viewing for people who like to mesmerize (or alienate) people at cocktail parties with sinister chatter about weird happenings, even if it drags at some points.