Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my beloved tribe! The other day, I was watching the show finale of The Strain, and I thought, ‘hmm, I wonder where I’d rank this amongst all the vampire shows I’ve ever seen?’ And so, in my official capacity as an obsessive list maker, I had to immediately sit down and write this list.

As it happens, I’m not able to include the show that would top this list, because revealing that there are vampires in it is a spoiler, and I won’t do that to you. I’d like for you to just stumble into that one unawares and then be delighted by the surprise. For the sake of not having to rank every show in the world, I’m also not including shows that – though they feature vampires – are not actually about vampires. Things like Supernatural, Being Human, and Grimm have been booted for the sake of my list-making sanity. It should go without saying that I haven’t watched EVERY vampire show (yet), so if I’ve missed one of your favourites, let me know!

In order from worst to best (in my humble opinion), here is every Vampire TV Show I’ve Seen, Ranked:

This is the TV adaptation of the (excellent) film.

I watched only the pilot and thought, “oh I see, they’re just breaking down the movie and extending every 5 minute scene into an entire episode.” I couldn’t be bothered with a full series of that so I bailed. Let me know if I jumped to the wrong conclusions and it changes direction though!

After being in the Arctic, a scientist and pal are quarantined with a weird illness, and then of course, things escalate quite dramatically.

If memory serves, I got about 3 episodes in and, truth be told, Ian Somerholder was a huge part of the draw. He’s just so pretty. I can’t remember why I bailed but something must have really annoyed me because I’m a bit compulsive about seeing a show through to the end once I’ve started it.

Dracula (Nickelodeon) – I’m not sure if that was even the title of the show but it definitely existed! It’s Dracula light – for preteens.

Don’t remember a thing about this one except that the main vampire was called A. Lucard, and when I was a kid I thought that was soooooo clever. I’ve ranked it higher than the last two though because what I do remember is that I excitedly always watched it, right after Are You Afraid of the Dark.

A spin-off of The Vampire Diaries, mostly about Klaus.

Once again, did not finish. I found that, for me, it was either really repetitive, or overly convoluted, and I didn’t care for any of the characters enough to see their stories through to the end.

Vanessa Helsing, descendent of THAT fabled vampire hunter, is resurrected when a volcano spews so much pollution into the air that vampires are free to roam during the day.

Yep, I bailed on this too, but I definitely got at least 3 seasons in before I admitted defeat. I think I started to find the storylines a bit… stupid? I liked the initial concept but think they ended up stretching it too thin and I lost interest.

A teen girl is the object of affection for two hunky vampire brothers. She has sidekicks. They sometimes have love triangles too.

Ah, the first on this list that I finished and yes, I’m ready for the inevitable mocking. Way too “teen melodrama” for me these days, but I was invested after watching the first season as part of a group, so I just had to continue on alone! But it is ridiculous and just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. If you’d like to be extremely entertained by an unnecessarily detailed deep dive into the entire show and everything wrong with it, I highly recommend THIS VIDEO by Jenny Nicholson. I recommend it even if you haven’t seen the show, in fact. Oh, how I laughed.

A Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, starring her vampire ex, Angel, and his exploits in LA as a supernatural PI.

As spin-offs go, I think Angel was really decent. Angel himself was never that interesting of a character to me but the ensemble cast (assembled from new characters, and a few plucked from the main show’s cast) worked really well together. Never did I think that of all people, Wesley would become beloved to me, but there you have it. Didn’t much care for the total assassination of one character though, it’s got to be said. She deserved better.

But, in terms of greatness… that puppet episode. That puppet fight! Still absolutely cracks me up.

A plane lands and mysteriously goes dark, and upon investigation, it’s discovered the everyone on the plane is dead (well… almost), but there are no obvious or visible reasons. Also, a mysterious box of dirt is found in the cargo hold.

Took me two attempts to get past the first episode, only because I couldn’t stand the CGI, and the main villain just looked so ridiculous to me. However, I ran out of shows to watch so I pressed on, and ended up invested. The concept and how it’s introduced is pretty scary. By far, the most interesting and enjoyable part of the show for me is the relationship between Setrakian and Eichorst, which we learn about through some very distressing WW2 flashbacks. Eichorst might not be the show’s main villain, but he was it for me. An absolutely detestable piece of work, and a standout performance from Richard Sammel, who plays him.

Love love love. Welcome to the incredibly dark fantasy world of Joe Hill. Charlie Manx picks up kids from households that he deems unacceptable, and drives them off to Christmas Land. Wholesome, right?

Love the book and love the show. All the performances are great, the characters are all pretty deep, and there are a lot of stories being told under the umbrella of the main plot. And Christmas Land makes me shudder.

In true AHS fashion, Red Tide is a love or loathe divisive offering, and I personally love it. A screenwriter moves to a remote seaside town in the off-season to work on a script, and takes his talented musician daughter and his not-so-talented aspiring interior designer wife with him. But things in this town are totally effed up.

This appeals to me because yay vampires! Also because our protagonist is a writer desperate to succeed, which is relatable content for me. And the cherry on top is Evan Peters – my favourite staple AHS actor – being fabulous in his role as always. And even better… Macaulay Culkin.

Macaulay Effing Culkin.

I was delighted to see him, and even more delighted that he was excellent. I never realised before how much I wanted to see him acting as an adult, and in a role so dark. He was the standout highlight of this season for me.

A group of co-habiting vampires, and their familiar, show us their dark world, and hijinx ensue.

I was reluctant to watch this initially because I love the film and I’m really resistant to change, and a new cast of characters put me off. But I needn’t have worried, because it satirises the subgenre in a way that’s no less than genius. I can never decide who my favourite character is because it changes episode to episode (although I think, overall, it’s Guillermo). Vampire comedy at its finest.

I agonised over which way around the Top 1 and 2 spots should go, but here is where I settled. True Blood is the story of Sookie, a sun-worshipping regular woman, except for the slight matter of her telepathy. It’s set in our world, but in this narrative, we join our characters right as vampires have “come out of the coffin” – outing themselves and their existence to the world. It might be because of the level of sexiness of the entire cast that for some unfair reason, a lot of people assumed this show was like The Vampire Diaries, or Twilight. I can assure you that it is not. The vampires are poop-your-pants savage and scary, and there are scenes of horror throughout this show that are absolute nightmare fuel.

The best thing about it for me is that it handles many social issues without sugar-coating the ugliness of them. The cast is way more diverse and the characters far more developed than they are in the books the show is based on, and to me, this is still one of the most progressive shows of the last twenty years.

Also, Pam and Lafayette are TV royalty and I worship them both.

Buffy is The Chosen One – a teenage girl “gifted” with super-strength and heightened reflexes and intuition, so that she alone can fight the dark forces. She is the slayer. The intro goes something like that, anyway.

The first season is a bit cheap and corny, but after a recent rewatch, I have to say that I still stand by my opinion that this show is just simply amazing. It’s not without its issues, obviously, and there are some infuriating and unfortunate details about the behind-the-scenes stuff that has pissed me off in recent years. Some things haven’t aged well.

However, the writing, for the most part, is solid gold. The characters have great chemistry and great relationships and great arcs. It’s 7 seasons of escalation working towards the final episode, 7 seasons of increasingly heinous villains and issues. It has some dips, story-wise, but overall I wholeheartedly recommend it and think it’s wonderful. It’s one of the very few shows that didn’t disappoint me with how it wrapped up.

I absolutely hate that musical episode though.

How would you rank the shows I’ve listed? Are there any awesome ones that I need to watch immediately? PLEASE let me know – I love a good vampire show!