Famous for his roles as creepy serial killer Eugene Tooms on The X-Files and as sadistic prison guard Percy Wetmore in The Green Mile, character actor Doug Hutchison has added a new notch to his impressive resume by creating the new horror/action web series Vampire Killers. “I’ve always been intrigued by vampires,” Hutchison told Tubefilter. “Every year on Halloween, I dressed as Dracula! Now, in my adult life, I find myself continually turned on by vampires.”
The series is about a team of five slayers (played by Tim Fields, Nick Heany, Marco Mannone, Kit Paquin and Ginger Pullman) hunting decadent vampiress Charlotte Ross (Ania Spiering) and her growing pack of sexy “Vampire Gurls” through Los Angeles. Hutchison explains: “I originally conceived Vampire Killers as a TV series and then a good friend of mine suggested I consider it as a web series, instead. My hope is that we’re taking the whole web series thing to an elevated level. We’ve shot a gritty, dirty, sexy, dark, violent, urban vampire series: a cut above the rest.” With enough gore and half-naked lesbian bloodsuckers to satisfy your daily quota, Vampire Killers is a great way to spend 15 minutes.
The show is directed, edited and shot by Tim Baldini (The St. Francisville Experiment), who also co-writes along with Hutchison and Mannone. While Vampire Killers is produced on a small budget, you wouldn’t be able to tell from the show’s slick look. Regarding the show’s cinematic style, Hutchison says, “I viewed a plethora of existing web series and – with all due respect – was, frankly, floored by how amateurish most of them were! I thought: what if we created a web series that was episodic/filmic/professional? Kinda like Buffy shot Shield-style.” Clever vampire slayer drama meets gritty police procedural… not a bad way to rejuvenate the tiring genre, if you ask me.
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The six, two-minute episodes currently available on the website serve as a prologue to the series and feature a couple of neat twists on the usual vampire lore. Hutchison sees the show’s diminutive running time as a welcome challenge. “To tell a story in 2-3 min demands a lean-mean-story-telling-machine. If I can seduce viewers to WANT MORE after the 1st episode, then I’m hitting a home run.” Though there is no mention of a release date for the next installment, you can personally help “keep Vampire Killers alive” by donating money in return for, among other things, a chance to act in or direct a future episode, or a drink with your favorite Vampire Gurl (beware, she may be drinking you!!!).
So what does Hutchison, an actor known for his television and film roles have to say about the future of web shows? “This is the burgeoning Wild Wild West of the 21st Century. Everyone’s jacked into the web. We’re on the fringe of the transformation of entertainment at large. At some point, maybe even in our lifetime, television will become obsolete. Internet programming is the wave of the future.”
