10 Unexpectedly Awesome Netflix TV Shows That Need Binge Watching
1. Castlevania
Castlevania has absolutely no right to be as good as it is. Based on an incredibly successful video game franchise harking back three decades, this stunning animated series sounds like it should be a turkey - required viewing for arrested adolescents and only.
Originally intended as a feature film, the project took on legendary comics writer Warren Ellis in 2007 and slumped straight into development hell until galvanic uber-producer Adi Shankar revived it in 2015 and Netflix committed to a four episode mini-season.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Count Dracula’s human wife is falsely accused of witchcraft by a corrupt Church and burned at the stake, bringing the griefstricken vampire out of retirement with a promise of vengeance against the whole of Wallachia - and the only ones who can stop him are excommunicated vampire hunter Trevor Belmont, the sorceress Sypha Belnades and Adrian Fahrenheit Țepeș, dhampir son of Dracula Vlad Țepeș… better known as Alucard, the demon lord’s mirror image.
The result is extraordinary horror television, animated or not. The blood-drenched design is flawless, creating a hellscape heavily influenced by anime, while Ellis’ script, witty and self-aware, gives the brilliant voice cast - featuring genre mainstays Graham McTavish, Richard Armitage and James Callis - plenty of grisly meat to chew on.
The expanded second season ups the ante in every respect, and with a third season in production, it looks as though Castlevania - the first video game adaptation to ever receive a ‘fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes - might run and run.