Firebite debuts on AMC+ on Dec. 16.
“Pest Control,” the first episode of AMC+’s new limited-run series Firebite, can’t quite settle on a tone. Warwick Thornton’s show about indiginous Australian vampire hunters strives to be a dark tale about the evils of colonialism, where imperfect characters do their best to protect their community, yet it also features beats that are cartoonishly absurd, undermining the scariness of the bloodsucking threat. While the show might figure out its equilibrium in later episodes to become a low-stakes supernatural drama, it’s going to take some dedication to get past the awkward premiere.
As the voiceover at the beginning of “Pest Control” explains, the European miners who displaced indigineous Australians and tore up their land left behind a network of tunnels that have become home for a nest of vampires. An ancient aboriginal order dubbed Bloodhunters are dedicated to fighting the undead, but that’s not who this show is about. Instead, Firebite primarily follows amateur vampire hunter Tyson (Rob Collins) and his teen ward Shanika (Shantae Barnes-Cowan), the self-appointed guardians of the rundown mining town Opal City.
Firebite follows the same example of Black Panther and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One in using animation to give its worldbuilding backstory a mythical feel. Here, it comes in the form of Shanika’s ill-conceived Australia Day presentation, where she starts by understandably critiquing the celebration of the Union Flag being raised in Australia as erasing indigenous culture, then moves to accusing Europeans of bringing vampires with them as bioweapons. While the section looks cool, it feels redundant with the intro voiceover.
There’s certainly value in subverting the chosen one trope, with Firebite essentially being set in the alternate universe within Buffy: The Vampire Slayer where Buffy never showed up to save Sunnydale. In fact, there appears to be a lot of Buffy DNA in Firebite. The vampire actors use similar prosthetics when showing their monstrous form and the intro of Callan Mulvey’s swaggering new vampire is extremely close to Spike’s first appearance in Buffy Season 2. But Spike earned his status as a Big Bad by showing up and violently ending the first season’s plot. It’s impossible to tell how tough or competent Mulvey’s so far unnamed character is considering killing individual vampires doesn’t seem particularly challenging.
That’s good for Tyson and Shanika, who are introduced driving around with an old lady strapped to their hood who fortunately turns out to be a vampire. There’s so much silliness in the opening, from Tyson complaining his captive isn’t wearing underwear to the way that the vampires crawl out of the mining pits like undead gophers, that it makes the gritty tone shift of the rest of the episode extremely jarring.
Most of “Pest Control” is devoted to how vampires are really just one of the big challenges facing Tyson and Shanika. While Tyson is ostensibly the adult in the relationship, Shanika is constantly reminding him that she needs vegetables and sleep. Tyson clearly cares deeply for Shanika, and the two performers have a tender chemistry together, but Tyson also has problems with alcohol and gambling. The fiercely stubborn Shanika’s in danger of being both expelled from school and turned over to child protective services. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for American audiences to make out much of the dialogue explaining how Tyson and Shanika fit into their fractured community thanks to a mix of thick accents and Australian slang.
The biggest problem with Firebite might be that everything it sets out to do in its first episode has already been done by better works. The CW’s Canadian import Trickster delivered a poignant supernatural drama about how broken systems and racism can create self-destructive cycles in indigenous communities who struggle to reclaim their own powerful legacies. In Oz Rodriguez’s Netflix film Vampires vs. The Bronx, vampires are a force of gentrification, literally sucking the life out of a diverse community. Their enemies are even less competent than Tyson and Shanika — teens who learn everything they need to know about vampire hunting by watching Blade.
Firebite doesn’t start as poignantly as Trickster or deliver the laughs of Vampires vs. The Bronx, and its attempts to instead lean on action come off looking cheap. The pilot’s major combat is punctuated by shots that provide a strobe-like effect that are seemingly meant to show the chaotic nature of the fight, but instead just emphasize the mediocre-looking vampire makeup. The setting does deliver beautiful images of the Australian desert, mostly shot at sunrise, along with purposefully shabby sets that establish Opal City as a place that the rest of the world has forgotten.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/3yyy2RV
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