Firebite

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.

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.

Structurally quite flabby and endearingly cheap at times but Firebite is a genuinely interesting new take on vampire lore aided by some strong central characters (and performances) that really make it worth sticking with. A potential cult classic in the making.

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.