Netflix Original (2023)

Trailer available here (Season one) with the recently announced season two trailer available here

Original soundtrack available on Spotify

How torn I am with Castlevania Nocturne season one. After absolutely adoring Castlevania it was obvious it would have a lot to live up to for me to not feel some level of disappointment and sadly it just did not quite hit that mark.

Focusing on the French Revolution, it having a lot of gothic architectural features in the design, there is something about it that just feels a little bit too ‘cliche vampire’ and I am not a big fan of vampires in the first place. Whilst we often think of Dracula and Romania for vampires the second place that often springs to mind is France during the revolution (it is mentioned in things like Buffy during conversations with Spike) and it could have given a really clever twist on all of that somehow but instead it just played into the “basic bitch” version of it all.

It focuses on the rise of Richter Belmont (voiced by Edward Bluemel and Benjamin Plessala), somebody that people that have encountered the franchise previously will already be familiar with, and where his ‘skills’ as a vampire hunter first truly seemed to awaken to allow him to harness such intense strength. It provides some franchise and Belmont family lore so if you are new to the franchise it works as a stand-alone and you can go in without feeling lost or muddled; at least in that regard it works.

The writing is good and the graphics are certainly pleasing, there is in itself nothing wrong with the show, just season one really lacks that special spark. In fact the best thing for me is the music and several of the pieces have made their way onto a variety of playlists for me but that is often the case for things involving the French Revolution (think several songs from Les Misérables too) because again they have such a distinct beat, undertone and grabbing meaning that you can resonate with on a personal and political level. It still is nothing truly mind-blowing or unique and continues to play safely into the hands of over-loved and over-used tropes of the revolution and/or vampires.

Honestly, this entire show just further proves to me that we need to leave this obsession and yearning of vampires behind. They have plagued our cultural landscape for far too long and they continue to seep into society as an identity of interest and erg… it just isn’t something that I can at all really get behind especially that they are becoming so homogenized now (once upon a time perhaps I could but even at the time of Twilight I never read it or watched it because the tropes involved were eye-rollingly simplistic and grotesque).

With season two of Castlevania Nocturne having recently been announced as a work in progress I do look forward to giving it a shot to see how the series develops. There is true potential for them to really create an incredible series here but right now that is not what we have in front of us.