Television has been flooded with 100 years of terrifying nighttime programming this month, as a potentially pandemic-fueled horror boom and a strong Halloween tide combine. Witness the heap of vampire shows this week, with three notable new series premiering over six days.
“Ann Rice Interview with the Vampire” It premiered at AMC on Sunday. “Reginald the Vampire” Syfy on Wednesday.When “Let in the righteous” Fridays on Showtime’s streaming platform have more in common than retractable fangs. They pay attention to the basics – blood nourishment, sunlight burns – but none of them are primarily concerned with the vampire arcana, the bush of abilities and limitations that plagued early generation shows. I don’t have
Instead, the focus of the new series is vampires as outsiders. Each show has a few vampires. They are endangered, marginalized outcasts. They’re not threatening to take over the world — rather, they should lobby Congress to designate them as a protected class.
The first show AMC hopes to be in a franchise based on Anne Rice’s vampire novels, “Interview” tweaks the author’s fictional world in several ways to create her vampire heroes. It’s even more threatening than before. The human Lewis (Jacob Anderson), turned into the vampire Lestat (Sam Reed), is now a black man in the Jim Crow South instead of a slave owner. And Louis and Lestat are partners in love and sex.
The change fits well into the existing dramatic arc — the two god-like aesthetics (played by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in the 1994 film) are immersed in broader American bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Seeking transcendence of Transcendence in this case takes the form of period-dressed Eurotrash debauchery in 1910s New Orleans brothels and speakeasies.
The TV ‘Interview’, created by Rolin Jones, has the virtue of not taking every gothic folderroll seriously more than a loud and bombastic movie. The first few episodes of the show have a lot of energy and a sense of humor, with scenes where Louis and Lestat have sex for the first time and either float to the ceiling to the sound of violins or ripen like whores. Like, could be rococo. A stunningly graphic description of where the client has failed.
However, that momentum soon fades. (Five of the seven episodes were available for review. Louis and Lestat talk endlessly and tediously about family, race, sexuality, power, and vampire ethics. The problem with the film is that it It was to make you laugh.The problem with this series is that as the series progresses, it makes me think about checking my email more and more.
The sense of alienation felt by the protagonists of “Reginald the Vampire” is something very different from the existential malaise of Louis and Lestat, and one of the go-to moves of this often-engaging series is It’s about making fun of the sexy vampire cliché. “Reginald” is based on the book by Johnny B. Triant, known as Fat his vampire novel, and its protagonist is doubly alienated.
“A fat vampire?” says Maurice (Mandela Van Peebles), Reginald’s catwalk-ready maker. “It will cause some problems within the vampire community.”
A good-natured and geeky fast food employee, Reginald is horrified and excited by his new undead status, played by Harvey Gillen in FX’s great comedy What We Do in the Shadows. Reminds me of the familiar Guillermo. And in its depiction of a deadly vampire feud involving the Ohio branch of what is called the Vampire Council, “Reginald” also evokes, ironically, HBO’s vampire soap opera “True Blood.” But it’s based on the aesthetic of his B-picture, which is dramatic on the Syfy channel. It shares the vibe, but it’s not as fun as Syfy’s other current out-of-water fish series, “Resident Alien.”
Reginald being played by Jacob Batalon is as endearingly puppy-like and courageous here as he is playing the second banana in the latest “Spider-Man” movie. Much of the show’s humor comes from Nice Guy’s bumbling and apologetic attempts to use his new powers to romance co-worker Sarah (Em Haine, adorable in a quietly off-kilter way), Batalon can convey embarrassment with every shift on his face and the trembling of his body. Reginald’s fangs pop out when he’s in Sara’s presence, and Batalon’s eyebrows do their own gymnastic routines.
Unfortunately, like “Interview,” “Reginald” starts strong and then sluggish. (5 of the 10 episodes were available.) The show is notable for having written 12 episodes of the original “Twin Peaks” (including his 2 in the first season). Created by Harley Payton. He wrote his first two episodes of “Reginald”. But as the season progresses, Reginald’s romantic and workplace misadventures make room for Maurice’s revenge against his own maker Angela (Savannah Basley). Balance may return before the season is over, but soap operas have a way to win.
“Let the One Right In”, developed by Andrew Hinderaker (Netflix’s “Away”) from a novel by Swedish author John Ivide Lindqvist, is less obtrusive than “Interview” but more prominent. I have a movie genealogy. The series consists of two very well-done films, the 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In by Thomas Alfredsson and the 2010 American film Let Me In by Matt Reeves. Follow the movie.
The movie was notable for the way it distills the vampire story. Focusing on his bullied 12-year-old boy and the undead girl who moved in next door, he used the physical and emotional extremes of a vampire to complicate and enrich the fable. A story of first love.
For a 10-episode season and counting, Hinderaker has opened up stories and reworked them in many different ways. In addition to less-than-teenage romances, it’s now a procedural mystery (Annika Noni her Rose is a boy’s mother, a New York homicide detective) and a medical drama (Grace Gummer as a scientist trying to find a cure for an illness). is). what is believed to be a vampire epidemic).
It draws on references to the Covid-19 pandemic and opioid abuse.Gummer’s character is the daughter of a pharmaceutical executive, played by Zeljko Ivanek, a thinly disguised stand-in for Purdue Pharma’s Sacklers.
The move to television also means some softening and emoting. An enigmatic and unsettling presence in the film, the girl’s father is humanized and exalted (although he can commit ruthless killings to protect and feed her). More than just a protector, once an accomplished cook, he is now a nurturer. The girl herself has been a vampire for 10 years instead of hundreds of years, and the boy is an irresistibly cute moped that performs magic tricks.
All that may sound like must-watch TV, but “Let the Right One In” is actually the winner of this vampire trifecta. Sequentially executed with sophistication, you can miss a few gaping coincidences that keep the plot moving. Most important is its strong cast, which includes Rose, Demian Bichir as her father, Kevin Carroll as a family friend, and Ian Foreman and Madison Taylor-Baez as the children.
Like any vampire show, “Let the Right One In” is a fable about finally finding family, and its strong ensemble gives it an edge.