Firebite

Australia, awesome sound track, vampires, and vampire-hunters... who could ask for anything more?!?

The acting is fine and the sets are really pretty well done. So it's a little slow or odd here and there and so the "special effects" aren't the kind that cost $3 million--who really cares? It's not that kind of show (which the low-raters would realize if they were cool, but they're not, so don't even worry about their comments).

Did i mention the music? I'd watch it for the interesting and compelling soundtrack alone and want to specially thank Dan Luscombe, Gareth Liddiard, Michael Darren, Jemma Burns, and Leyla Varela (who most likely go unnoticed or under appreciated but who matter hugely): THANK YOU!!! (No, I have no connection with/don't know them, it's just hard to find new shows that feature sounds that are appealing and when I do find one, I very much appreciate it).

I predict this will be a cult classic (if it isn't already), so if you're down with that sort of thing, go make some popcorn and check it out.

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.

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.

The Alt-Right idiots are spewing fake reviews, and the lefties will praise the 'indigenous content' without even watching.

And, this is one to watch. Yes, there is a bit of 'hard done by' in the writing for the Koori characters, but it's not over done, and it's there to show the characters have depth and feeling.

Some of the characters have a little too much cliche - the white cop implying the witness to an attack was drunk in episode 3 for example - but on the whole, it's no more then you'd expect to hear if you were privy to private conversations, and that's situations you see the characters in, private places, or where they thought they weren't being heard, or just school bullies being dickheads,..

Some of the acting is stilted, no doubt due to the experience level of some of the more local actors, with this show being the only experience listed on their credits pages.

Rob Collins, Shantae Brown-Cowan, Tessa Rose and Ngaire Pigram all stand out as actors to watch, here and in the future.

As for the technical arts, the sound is crisp and dialog clean, the visuals are fantastic, and the editing keeps the show paced along just fast enough, all working together well to keep the view in the story, rather then noticing the hard work done to get this level of production quality.

It's well worth a watch, even if just to form your own opinion, rather then follow the political effluencers comments.

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.