Firebite

When a movie has great Australian scenery AND Rob Collins, I have at least give it a watch. I had no idea this was about vampires. I don't "do" vampires. I watched the first season of "The Walking Dead" and when the second season came around, it was literally the same as the first. That was that. The Twilight Saga cracked me up with all the pale "beautiful" people. Can't look at Robert Patterson to this day without cringing at exactly how white white can be (and I am Scottish white, so...). He makes my skin crawl. But back to Rob Collins and Shantae Barnes-Cowan and the rest of the amazing native Australian actors in this series. What a breath of fresh air! If not a bit dusty, but you know what I mean. Reviewers who say it's all old stuff, well, what vampire movie isn't. From what I've read, this actually is a new take on vampires and their hunters. Come on now - Vampires brought over with the first convict ships!? Who thought of THAT before!? And while they are just turning people in Episode 3, at least they aren't sleeping with them ad nauseam. Reviewers who say it's all about "me too" and "racism" are right. It's part of the story. It's part of Australian (and American and any where else) history. Don't get your panties in a twist over it when it's part of the story. Geeze. And you call yourselves woke. Wake up and just enjoy the ride in the outback!! Yes, it's bumpy. If you don't like it - don't watch it.

I like the premise of Firebite - its a great take on an old and well exploited trope - and no doubt a useful way to make use of old opal mines to boot.

There is a BUT though, and that relates to script development, which for me doesn't make the most of either the setup or characters. There is also an air of predictability, but I can forgive it for that - mostly.

With more work this show could have easily been an 8, but for me the script limitations hold back and compromise it - that being said I'll keep watching to see how it might improve.

I thought television land had moved on from the plethora of Vampire series that we, the viewers, were bombarded with a few years back; I think about a quarter of all TV series back then were Vampire programs. So I was surprised when I saw that this was yet another one but, after the first episode it was obvious that this was NOT just another one.

So when I see namstonk rambling on about his 'Woke rubbish' and 'Lefty Wokes' (a truly numb-nut stupid word used by wannabe trendy peeps these days that I cannot stand) and calling it boring and unoriginal its a shame! Its not at all the same old vampire stuff (as they mention) that has been regurgitated for 2021/2022. It has taken a whole new approach to the old legends (especially with it being based on Aboriginal tales of England sending vampires over to wipe out the indigenous people of Australia to prepare for their take over).

They don't live in the cellars of old houses or crypts etc but in the old opal mine shafts, caves and tunnels. They are more or less feral animals and live aimlessly...until we see the new elder (or King as they are known in this series). The vampire killers are utter amateurs in their badly executed but lucky exploits and as a father and daughter, they are nothing like any well organized van Helsing's of the old world...and they are not called van Helsing by the way.

I think I would be absolutely correct that the likes of the negative reviewers - who say its the same old seen before stuff - have NEVER seen vampire hunters using boomerangs and power drills. Its great to see an almost all aboriginal cast spearheading this new wave of bloodsucking TV. The acting is good and very laid back but not too slow and I cannot wait for the next 4 episodes of the current season 1.

Caveat - I've only seen one episode, so please take that into consideration when reading this review.

The show focuses on an Indigenous Australian father-daughter team of vampire hunters operating in the area of a series of abandoned opal mines in the Outback. And we have all the usual clichés: dad is a ne'er-do-well who loves his kid but leaves most of the parenting to her, the over-achieving daughter is openly bullied because of her race, the tough-but-kindly ex-girlfriend is picking up the slack, and the vampires were brought to Australia (along with guns and smallpox) by the evil British "colonizers" to subdue the indigenous population. It's a simplistic world view, but since the target audience for this show appears to be young adults, we shouldn't expect Tolstoy.

On the plus side, the acting is competent, the Outback is stunning and the show is at least as good as any of the other vampire-zombie-demon hunting shows out there. And this one has one big plus - it's not one of those shows aimed at young teenagers but peppered with f-bombs and sex scenes that would be inappropriate for the said-same audience.

I will probably update this review after I've had a chance to watch a couple more episodes. But so far I have to say that though it's not great, it's not terrible, either.

Visually great, and an interesting setting, but it sort of comes across as ultimately, your cliche bad guy vampires vs some good guy underdogs... not too different to the many straight to video vampire movies.

There's some very heavy handed politics tossed in from the start, (the white people that came to Australia were all vampires apparently) which is clumsy and really, may be of interest to some people, but seems to be oddly shoehorned into the whole thing and is a bit obvious. The messaging could of been done, but may be a bit more subtlely.

The photography and setting is great, and it has a mad max feel.

Storyline wise, its nothing special. Some of the acting isn't great, though overall its ok.

Vampires are a bit cliche.

Overall, could have been better if the villains were a bit less 2D, and if more importance was given to the story than the political messaging.