DVD reviews: True Blood Season 2

After the terrible reputation vampires began to get for themselves as sparkly, vegetarian Mormons thanks to the unfathomable popularity of that pap Twilight, some serious public relations activity was needed to restore the balance. Thankfully, True Blood was up to the task, with its first series opening the lid on a grave full of nasty, hungry, horny vampires that weren’t too shy to bite.

Based on the Southern Vampire series of books by Charlaine Harris, True Blood reimagines the deep South of the USA, where vampires, freed from killing people thanks to the development of artificial blood, decide to live openly among humans. Of course, there are plenty of fangs still hungry for the real thing, and the general population is less than impressed with their existence.

Joining the central couple of telepath Sookie Stackhouse (New Zealand’s own Anna Paquin) and vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) is a band of shapeshifters, zombies and demigods.

True Blood series two sees the show really hit its stride. While the first season suffered an identity crisis as it wondered whether it was allowed to be funny or not, the second knows that vampires are essentially camp. Lightening up enables True Blood to be a better satire, riffing on the idea of vampires ‘coming out of the coffin’ to get down and dirty with drugs, race, religion and sexuality. Its depiction of the evangelical vampire-hating church, the Fellowship of the Sun is especially cutting.

The second season is a definite technical advance on the previous year’s effort. The DVD edition of the first season was marked by serious signs of compression, a flaw made doubly apparent by being shot almost exclusively in the dark. There’s no such crunching on the latest Blu-ray, which showcases seamless transfers between fine gradients of darkness; delicate film grain interspersed with occasional super-sharp HD video; and rich, fleshy colour saturation.
Definitely one of the better shows on the box, True Blood is even better on Blu-ray, and will have no trouble devouring one of your weekends. TG

Sound: 4

Vision: 4

Movie: 4