Is you child feeling left out of the vampire craze? Are they looking for something in a jugular vein? Teletoon has commissioned their first live-action TV-movie and series: My Babysitter’s a Vampire. The movie, which was shot this past April in Toronto and Dundas, Ont. (mmm, tax credits), premieres tonight at 7 p.m. on Teletoon. (Teletoon? I hear ya–they justify this foray into live-action by saying some of the special effects in the movie are computer animated. Hey, if Vision-TV can show old episodes of Ab-Fab, clearly anything goes.)Thirteen episodes of the follow-up series have also been shot and they’ll debut sometime in 2011.
Ran into writer Tim Burns on Monday and got the scoop on this whole deal. Burns has penned shtick for Crank Yankers and Puppets Who Kill so knows the funny and co-wrote An American Werewolf in Paris so he also knows scary stuff. He’s also written for Star Wars: The Clone Wars so he’s on the kid curve, too. Having an eight-year-old daughter at home also keeps him honest on the writing-for-‘tweens front.
He thinks this new wave of sexy vampire teens has pretty much driven a stake through the classic horror genre mythology. It seems like anything goes on shows like Vampire Diaries and True Blood, with vampires bursting into flames in sunlight here and out walking around during the day over there. “They’ve really lost the lore,” says Burns. “When I watch True Blood, I think they’re just people with different drinking habits.”
The movie was directed by Bruce MacDonald and stars young Canucks Ethan Knight, Vanessa Morgan and Atticus Mitchell (above). Read more about Burns and My Babysitters’ a Vampire here at this story I wrote this week for The Canadian Press.
