OBS SPEAKS OUT: TRUE BLOOD BITES BACK

Dawn

From Scarlett Philps at t5m.com:  TRUE BLOOD: How these Vampires bite back.

This season, Vampires are clawing their way into every corner of our lives, a kind of “glamour-gore” saturating everything from fashion to film, but rather than bathing in garlic and chaining ourselves with crosses, we welcome their influence onto our high streets (namely from a new TopShop range inspired by the Hammer House of Horror series) and into our homes, willing them to make an impact on us, and boy have they done so.  A flurry of recent television programs whose protagonists’ dabble in the supernatural have hit our screens this year, and most recently Alan Ball’s True Blood has aired on terrestrial much to the delight of blood-hungry viewers.  But what is so enchanting about a topic already so widely covered by other media genres, and how does it plan to out-do its contenders?

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At the end of the article the author posits that the media has run the supernatural genre dry. I’m not so sure I agree with this. Vampires? Yes. The Supernatural? Not yet. Why do I say that? Because at the moment the supernatural well runs deep and there is much to choose from that could benefit from further exploration (werewolves for instance).

The media is, however, being overrun with vampires and these days I find myself waffling between being excited at their resurgence and getting sick of seeing them which if you knew me you would know that is saying something as I am fairly obsessed with vampires.
But I will agree with the author’s sentiments on True Blood creator Alan Ball whose work also includes Six Feet Under and American Beauty. His work is indeed daring and thought-provoking in ways that can only come from a personal encounter with death, something Mr. Ball knows all too well. In an interview earlier this year with Entertainment Weekly he said the following:

“When I was 13 years old, I was in a car accident with my sister. She died in front of me. She died all over me.”

He later goes on to say:

“(Death) stuck its big old ugly face in my face and my life changed. That’s why death seems to be a theme that appears in all my stuff.”

But death isn’t the only theme prevalent in True Blood. Sexuality also runs rampant much to the delight (and dismay) of many. But that’s a post for another day.

 

 

So what do you think? Are vampires biting back? Or are they sucking us dry? And is the supernatural genre drowning in too much of a good thing or is it just getting started?