“What We Do in the Shadows” has risen from the coffin.
With the vampire-centric FX series returning for its fourth season this week, here are nine other fang-tastic shows to sink your teeth into.
'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel,' Hulu
“Buffy,” starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as a teenage girl fated to fight the world’s demons, and its spinoff, “Angel,” which focused on the brooding vampire (David Boreanaz) and his motley crew of sidekicks, are the go-to in vampire shows.
They’re dramatic in the most ‘90s high school drama sense and feature different villains, with a “Big Bad” to carry each season. A forbidden love? Oozy, evil, creepy monsters? Lawyers more evil than the monsters? More apocalypses than you can count? “Buffy” and “Angel” had it all.
'True Blood,' HBO
It’s a tough competition, but “True Blood” takes home the trophy for the horniest of all the vampire shows. A Louisiana waitress (Anna Paquin) who can read minds suddenly finds herself in the middle of the war between vampires who want to assimilate into society and those who still prefer to hunt humans, even when synthetic blood means they don’t have to. But don’t let the fight for equality fool you: “True Blood” was also about love and lust.
'Vampire Diaries,' Netflix
“Vampire Diaries” was more about teen drama than bloodsuckers. But a love triangle gets messy when two sides of the triangle are vampires — and also brothers. As the seasons went on, and more so in spinoff “The Originals,” the supernatural came out in full force in Mystic Falls, adding werewolves, witches and who knows what else to the town roster.
'Chapelwaite,' Epix
The TV adaptation of Stephen King’s “Jerusalem’s Lot” took a while to get to the vampires, instead letting Captain Charles Boone (Adrien Brody) and his children face their internal demons first. By the time the vamps show up to ruin the lives of the Boones and governess Rebecca Morgan (Emily Hampshire), there’s a Gothic, bloody showdown to make it worth the wait.
'Dracula,' Prime Video for purchase
The short-lived NBC series starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers saw Dracula moving throughout London society pretending to be an American entrepreneur who wants to bring modern science to Victorian England. But his real motivations are more sincere: taking down a mysterious, power-hungry organization that ruined his life back when he was alive. But gasp! A woman gets in his way! “Dracula” was melodrama at its finest, for all 10 episodes it lasted.
'The Strain,' Hulu
“The Strain” was a stomach-turning nightmare that’s even more nightmarish after a global pandemic, truly a Guillermo del Toro special. The series kicks off with Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll), the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s New York-based Canary Project as his team begins an investigation into a viral outbreak that looks a whole heck of a lot like vampirism. By the end, there’s a full-on war between humans and vampires for the supremacy of the world.
'Dark Shadows,' Tubi
“Dark Shadows” was one of the first truly popular TV shows, a daytime soap opera that began in black-and-white and moved into color. But that wasn’t the biggest change to the series: 10 months after its premiere, “Dark Shadows” added a vampire to its wealthy Collins family, the fan-favorite Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid). With Collins’ awakening, the show opened up its world to all sorts of supernatural occurrences and it went on for more than 1,200 episodes, spawning (mostly failed) film, novel and TV adaptations.
'Preacher,' Hulu
A preacher-in-training merges with the spawn of an angel and a demon, then teams up with his ex-girlfriend and his best friend, who just happens to be a vampire, to find God. “Preacher” was bizarre in the best way and gorier than you could imagine, pulling off its comedic elements without forgetting the supernatural and vice versa.
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