Here’s another great review from our friend Teahead – this time she takes on True Blood and its place in the current vampire mania.

Joanna ‘Teahead’ Bogus?awska is a published writer, college instructor and lecturer living in Gdynia, Poland.

Recently, especially since the release of “Twilight,” an incredibly popular saga, written by Stephanie Meyer, in the pop culture around the world a phenomenon of vampire-mania is visible. It is safe to assume that the bloodsucking creatures have never been so popular since “Dracula” or Anne Rice’s novels. In this genre there are three projects that are particularly popular and successful; the already mentioned “Twilight” saga, a TV series “Vampire Dairies” based on L.J. Smith’s work and a smashingly popular around the world show called “True Blood” on HBO that is based on novels written by Charlaine Harris.

“True Blood” is beyond doubt one of the most successful shows made by HBO. The brilliant title sequence showing a discord in Southern American mentality, colored by a great song, “Bad Things” by Jace Everett, makes it clear that we are about to get to know something above-average and non-standard. Based on the worldwide vampire-mania (it is worth to mention that Charlaine Harris’ novels were published some years before Stephanie Meyer’s novels), the show revolves around the pastiche of the horror genre and well-known schemes (such as the love triangle), but winks an eye to the viewer and serves all this with a completely new quality and a deliciously fresh arrangement.

Great script, fantastic cast, the dynamics of the plot and episodes which you simply cannot stop watching as every of them ends in such way you just have to put yet another DVD disc into your player, made “True Blood” highly popular, but it would not be enough to call it a pop culture icon, which the series has become without any shadow of doubt. So what makes this another vampire story so special? Let’s take a closer look at the phenomenon of “True Blood.”

The Japanese invention of a synthetic blood drink called Tru:Blood, allows the vampires living outside the human world to “come out of the coffin.” They do not need to hunt people anymore, they can live among them and drink their favorite blood type heated to the preferable 36.6 C (98.6F). Not everyone is thrilled with such vision, though. After all, who, when having to choose a pizza potion or ice-cream pills, would decide to replace the real food for it? On one hand, they pay taxes, they have their own pubs, airlines and chain of hotels, they even start the American Vampire League that fights for the Vampire Rights Amendment to the U.S. constitution. It is an obvious metaphor for the minorities’ struggle for acceptance and equality; a homosexual person, a representative of religious minority, now also a vampire. “Coming out of the coffin” is an allegory for “coming out of the closet,” a situation when a person who is bisexual or homosexual decides to reveal his or her orientation. People who are scared of vampires are called vampophobic. It is a very clear and universal message.

Please read the rest of Teahead’s review on our Filmography page under the “Review” button!