The vampires take their first step towards the domination of Staten Island by attending a council meeting.

Having established the main characters in the pilot episode, the show now pulls away from reprising jokes from the source movie, and is all the better for it. Directed by movie co-writer and co-director Jemaine Clement, he hands over writing duty to Flight of the Conchords scribe Paul Timms, and it’s another charming half hour of fish-out-of-water comedy as the undead try to make sense of modern life.

The vampires are on the prowl for virgins and understandably seek them out at a role-playing club, where Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) takes pity on a young girl and turns her. It’s good to see her getting more screen time away from the others, although her scenes with Matt Berry are hilarious. The special effects of the vampire to bat transformation and the levitation gags are well done, as is the bloodletting and scary eyes.

Favourite scene is Lazlo leaving the bodies of around 100 raccoons on the porch of a city councillor – he genuinely sees this as an altruistic act – or maybe when an energy vampire sucks the energy out of the council meeting on zoning ordnances, making it even more boring (as if that could happen).

Verdict: The vampires are each carving their niche in this witty mockumentary and it’s fun to witness the success (or otherwise) of their powers as they try to subjugate their human neighbours. Bloody good fun. 9/10

Nick Joy