Shanika is determined to find her mother whether Tyson likes it or not.

I fully intended to drop these reviews two or three episodes at a time, but with episode four of Firebite still short circuiting my synapses, I think this one deserves some attention all of its own.

I’ve been enjoying Firebite as an 8/10 punchy dust-in-your-sinuses Australian re-imagining of vampire mythology, but as the series hits its midpoint, creator, writer, director and cinematographer Warwick Thornton has taken the whole concept up a gear. Up several gears.

‘Vampire Mythology Bulls**t’ sees wayward Shanika, determined to find out what really happened to her mother, cutting loose from her unreliable guardian, Tyson, and venturing solo into the vampire labyrinth in the deserted opal mines. Of course, despite their love/hate relationship there’s no way Tyson will let her brave mortal danger alone.

What makes this such a white-knuckle ride is that the forty minutes plays out with virtually no dialogue – ten short lines at the very most. With a twanging electric soundtrack ratcheting up the tension, peril lurks around every corner – along with some striking visual moments, executed with a low-fi tactile realism, that are all the more powerful for their eschewing of lazy CGI clichés. There’s something of the stripped-down quality that makes Black Summer such a striking addition to the zombie canon, but here, similar techniques are employed with a far more involving grasp of heartfelt story telling.

The truth, when Tyson and Shanika discover it, packs a real emotional punch, but if the episode climax does have one or two moments when the production values are slightly underwhelming, the final scene is genuinely heart breaking in a way that vampire drama rarely achieves.

Verdict: Firebite is a top-notch re-invention of the ‘Vampire Mythology Bulls**t’ we thought we knew before. It’s gutsy, cheeky, irrepressible, fangy fun – but it’s also truly exciting, excellently crafted, and most importantly it’s very, very human, with something important to say along the way. 10/10

Martin Jameson