"True Blood" directed by Alan Ball et al. [review]

Abstract

The obsession with Vampires continues here, in the shape of this enormously popular HBO production, which has just hit our shelves on DVD. With the Twilight phenomenon by no means over, and with the second and third films for that series already in production, the 21st-Century vampiric cycle, it would seem, is going to be running strong for some time. HBO has joined the league of studios busily resurrecting this genre (if you’ll excuse the pun) and it seems like just the right kind of television studio to make a vampire series, as it’s a cable-based enterprise, and is not bound by the kinds of censorship restrictions that govern free-to-air shows. This fact explains that the first thing viewers will discover about True Blood: it is very, very confronting indeed.