‘True Blood,’ ‘Angel,’ & 9 bloody good vampire TV shows, ranked

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS -- "Pilot" -- Season 1, Episode 1 - Pictured (l-r): Kayvan Novak as Nandor, Harvey Guillen as Guillermo, Matt Berry as Laszlo. CR: John P Johnson/FX
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS -- "Pilot" -- Season 1, Episode 1 - Pictured (l-r): Kayvan Novak as Nandor, Harvey Guillen as Guillermo, Matt Berry as Laszlo. CR: John P Johnson/FX /
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vampire TV shows
True Blood. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO /

What are some of the best, bloody good vampire TV shows to watch on Halloween?

Vampire TV shows used to be all the rage. You couldn’t turn the channel without seeing an advert for something like True Blood, The Vampire Diaries or Twilight. While vampires are still rampant in horror, they’re not usually the main characters nowadays.

They pop up on supernatural series like Supernatural or American Horror Story, but their time in the limelight has mostly ended, at least for now. Still, there are plenty of older vampire TV shows available on streaming to check out, and what better time to do just that than on Halloween weekend? The following is a list ranking some of the best vampire TV shows.

9. Bloody good vampire TV shows: True Blood

I love True Blood. It remains one of my favorite horror shows even years after it concluded. Unfortunately, the last few seasons of True Blood lost the charm of the early days, hence why it ranks so low on this list. True Blood was a fantasy horror series based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries, written by Charlaine Harris. It was created for Alan Ball, best known for his previous work on Six Feet Under, and ran for seven seasons on HBO.

Anna Paquin starred as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in the fictional rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Everything in Bon Temps changes when they get their first vampire visitor, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). In the world of True Blood, vampires have “come out of the coffin,” so to speak, and now live among humans. They’re supposedly able to get by on synthetic blood — aptly called TruBlood, but of course, some vampires are more willing to embrace the fake diet than others.

If all you want is mindless camp, over-the-top gore and hot vampire sex, then True Blood is perfect. The first few seasons are genuinely good and then things take a turn for the worse, but I’d still recommend it.

True Blood is streaming on HBO Max.