Four Netflix TV Shows for Vampire Fans You Might Not Have Seen

As you may or may not know, vampires are my favorite supernatural creatures. I love them, so I’m always on the look out for another series focusing on vampires. You’ve got the classics, like Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (still the best TV show ever made) but there are also some less known shows that are still pretty good and that are great entertainment for vampire fans.

These shows are all available on Netflix, and they all feature vampires.

From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

Do you remember that Tarantino classic from the nineties featuring two bank robber brothers who had to fight against vampires? Well, if you don’t, it’s time to freshing up on those classics. If you do, then this TV series is for you because it’s based on that movie, and stays true to the original script in a lot of ways. Season One is basically a more detailed version of the movie, with a slower build up (which works surprisingly well) and more background story on the characters.

But Season Two is where it gets really interesting. Leaving the movie behind, the series moves on, delves deeper into the world briefly explored in the movie, with Aztec and Mayan Gods and ancient rituals and the end of the world. Season Three is even better, offering various demons from hell (in some kind of monster-of-the-week kind of sequence) that are very original. When you’ve seen a lot of supernatural shows, you get tired of the usual monsters: witches, banshees, harpies, ghosts, you name it. But here, we get a demon who can control people by holding their skull, some kind of butterfly of death, and a lot more.

The characters and plot are outstanding. It’s brutal, but it’s very good, and the use of Aztec and Mayan mythologies add a whole new spin to this series.

Number of seasons: 3, with 10 episodes each

 

Penny Dreadful

Penny Dreadful isn’t all about the vampires, but they’re a huge part of the series anyway. This series is basically a mix of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray and many of the other classics, and vampires run wild in this Victorian London where the supernatural hides around just about every corner.

Sir Malcolm Murray, gunslinger Ethan Chandler, Victor Frankenstein himself, and charismatic but tormented Vanessa Ives must battle the powers of darkness in this outstanding, superb series with an original, clever plot and excellent acting work.

The build up is slow, the suspense palpable, and this series really turns your moral belief system upside down. The monsters may not be that original, but that’s the whole point: this mixes all the classic monsters and puts them in a new light. It has an 8.2 rating on Imdb, and you don’t just get that for nothing.

Number of seasons: 3, total of 27 episodes

Hemlock Grove

Perhaps the darkest in this list, Hemlock Grove delivers on the horror element of the supernatural, but doesn’t always deliver on all the rest. Set in the small town of Hemlock Grove, the series sets out to be a darker version of Twin Peaks. The plot is pretty straightforward: someone is killing teenage girls, and the person doing it is probably a supernatural being. The suspicion falls on the gypsy family who just moved to town, but in fact, everyone in town is strange and eerie enough to be added to the suspect list.

You get a lot of monster archetypes here, including vampires, and the suspense is really well down. The writing could maybe be a bit tighter (some episodes seem to lead to nowhere, not adding much to the overall plot) but overall, it’s an impressive whodunit with vampires, werewolves, and other monsters in the main roles.

Number of seasons: 3, total of 33 episodes

Van Helsing

Van Helsing is one of the newest Netflix series focusing on vampires. It only has one season so far but already, it’s pretty good. It has unique vampire lore, and it’s basically like a zombie apocalypse series but with vampires instead of zombies (and trust me, the vampires are more dangerous).

It’s 2019, three years after a volcano exploded in Yellowstone, covering the world in ashes that obstructed sunlight, and allowed vampires to walk the earth even in the middle of the day. Vanessa, our main character, wakes up in a hospital after having been asleep for three years. Her blood has strange healing abilities and can reverse the vampire bite – turning vampires human again.

This series is harsh. Very harsh. You have a lot of dead people, and not all of them are vampires. The series is not afraid to kill off characters, or to show the moral decline people go through when the end is near, how morality is thrown out of the window for survival.

You might call this The Walking Dead with vampires, and that would be a good comparison. It’s dark, there are complicated moral choices, and survival is at stake. While not that compelling at the start, the series gets interesting as you start to relate more to the characters in the next few episodes.

Number of seasons: 1, total of 13 episodes