Honourable Mention: Vampirism Bites

This is a web serial created and directed by James Fernandez. This is a serial that shows a lot of love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer though it creates its own lore along the way.

It follows a newly turned vampire called Belle (Natalie Baxter), a girl who was always obsessed with vampires and is now one of them. In fact, as the series goes along we discover that she was turned by the third vampire ever and is also part of the Dracula’s human line… she discovers she is special.

Belle checks her teeth

When we meet her, however, she is checking her teeth for signs of elongation – in this a vampire gets his/her fangs after 10 years. She is hanging around with Kristy (Lindsey Black) who is (or at least was) her best friend. Belle ate Kristy’s boyfriend and Kristy swore revenge and trained as a vampire slayer. After they were both double crossed they were thrown back together. Neither have brilliant fighting skills and, despite Belle preying on criminals who never seem to feed her eternal hunger, they are both pretty much lame. In the first episode we see just how much Belle sucks at glamour.

the Litagator and Polidori

Whilst we watch Kristy and Belle we also get to see the machinations of the hunter Simon Polidori (Jesse Dunmore) and the executive part of the hunters, the Litigator (Jason Cale) along with, for the vampires, Vincent (Ryan Falcheck) – the second vampire – and Erica (Adiva Wayne). All of whom are awaiting the rebirth of the Dracula and, it seems, that when Dracula is reborn the first hunter (known as the Holy Bulldozer) will be reborn also – and he does more damage than the vampires by the sounds of it.

fangs

Belle and Kristy are taken under the wings of boyfriend and girlfriend Pierce (Dan Hiebert) and Syd (Miranda Tully) – a hunter and vampire respectively, who are in a similar boat to Belle and Kristy. During one of their training spars Belle’s fangs appear – over 9 years early. Syd files them (as per Dracula’s law; hide your fangs) but the next day they have regrown. Belle is special.

blood at mouth

Lore-wise vampires have reflections and can walk in daylight. They have the ability to glamour (as mentioned) but can be knocked out by an anti-vampire liquid called the punchline. Both sides are watching the Dracula clock for the return of the Dark Lord but – and this is not much of a spoiler as the homepage of the series already spoils this – the hunters are unaware that the Dracula is not a Romanian warlord but a woman, played by Jacquie Floyd.

So there we have it, Vampirism Bites, a show that packs a whole lot of story into its running time. There was a season zero – test pieces with canon lore, from what I can gather, but these seem to have vanished from the YouTube channel at the time of writing. The show looks to start a season 2 during 2011. At the time of writing there is no imdb page.