Review: Firebite Imaginatively Likens Vampirism to Colonialist Bloodlust

Australia Day commemorates the 1788 landfall of a British ship at Sydney Cove and the subsequent raising of the Union Jack by its captain. Some, like indigenous teenager Shanika (Shantae Barnes-Cowan) in Firebite, call it “Invasion Day.” As she explains in a school project, which the series depicts in a gorgeous sequence of animated paintings, the renaming of the national holiday recognizes two cataclysmic outcomes of that voyage: not only the colonialism that it catalyzed, but also its carriage of 11 vampires sent to Australia, seemingly by the English powers that be, to eradicate the land’s native population.

With this origin story, Firebite creator Warwick Thornton, director of the acclaimed films Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country, attempts to refresh a tired mythos. The show’s vampires aren’t the tragic, romantic beings familiar from recent pop culture, but a bestial species: Having come to Australia stowed below deck, they now live in subterranean dwellings reminiscent of ant hills, emerging at night to feed on Opal City’s indigenous communities. The “Blood Hunters,” a fabled order of vampire slayers, are nearly all gone, so killing the ghouls falls to the few brave souls—like Shanika and her guardian, Tyson (Rob Collins), who rove the South Australian desert in Tyson’s souped-up Subaru—willing to risk fangs to the neck.

Shanika and Tyson, brought together long ago by devastating circumstances, have created a found family united by their night job. Tyson often stumbles and bumbles as a relatively young father figure, but he’s less immature than he is in over his head. The stakes of vampire hunting and childrearing feel similarly overwhelming to him, as he’s figuring both out on the fly. Shanika, meanwhile, tries to balance vampire-related work with school, where she’s harassed by racist students, bringing a hint of teen melodrama to Firebite. Underlying themes of loss and legacy come into sharper relief when the duo crosses paths with Jalingbirri (Kelton Pell), the last of the Blood Hunters, a headstrong older man with whom Tyson shares a murky past.

Brawls with vampires led by the so-called Vampire King (Callan Mulvey) break out before long, but the fights in the three episodes provided to press are hamstrung by stilted choreography and weightless blows. Zoomed-in slow-motion shots and freeze frames highlight the sensations that the participants experience—namely, the pain that vampires suffer and Tyson’s exultation in inflicting it—but reach for a pulpy style with little payoff. At times, the images evoke found footage, and at others they’re infused with the inkiness and sense of depth of a comic book panel, but their inconsistent aesthetics feel haphazard rather than considered.

Firebite more assuredly captures the landscape of South Australia, including stunning shots of the setting sun, flanked by dunes and stones, that relay the significance of light in an isolated space haunted by nocturnal monsters. Conversely, the darkness at night is suffocating: The sole source of illumination tends to be the headlights of Tyson’s car that cut through the pitch black, and in ways that convey his ingrained connection with the land. Elsewhere, massive lights flood the mining rigs that pockmark the desert. The operations are staffed by white miners who fill the bar that Tyson frequents, taking loads off after long days spent serving masters who, like vampires, are driven by endless, extractive appetites.

Tyson exhibits a creeping drinking habit, and spends a fair share of time at the bar, where he flirts with both his ex, Kitty (Ngaire Pigram), and the generous bartender, Eleona (Yael Stone). This watering hole, like Firebite’s other locales, achieves authenticity through idiosyncrasy. Carved into rock and surrounded by a sea of sand, it’s an oasis that attracts indigenous locals, miners, tourists, and, eventually, vampires. The bar provides a stage for an early standout sequence, in which Tyson, with a confidence that’s only partly inspired by alcohol, performs a crowd-pleasing song by the aboriginal band Coloured Stone, swaying his hips while awash in neon lights. It’s a mesmerizing number, fueled in large part by Collins’s easy charm.

That joyous routine follows a blow-up between Tyson and Shanika over the nature of family, responsibility, and death. It doesn’t smooth over the spat so much as examine, with subtle melancholy, the wounds that Tyson suppresses: his fundamental loneliness, his need to be seen and adored, the invisible burden of his all-important work. In contrast to the strained physicality of the fight scenes, the sequence bottles not just Tyson’s grace, but the acuity with which Firebite explores the dangers of monsters real and imagined.