Is SyFy’s New Vampire Flick Ripping Off True Blood?
Premiering Saturday, July 14th, is SyFy’s new Original Movie, True Bloodthirst. The moment I read the title, saw the title image (above) and watched the trailer for this flick I instantly thought of HBO’s hit show True Blood. From what I am seeing so far, it looks like SyFy is mimicking True Blood in a big bad, probably illegal, way.
First, the title of the movie has True Blood right in it, just with "thirst" thrown at the end. Is that a huge deal? Not really, but when you look at the title image next to True Blood’s, it becomes a problem. They are almost identical. See for yourself when they’re up against one another:
Yeah, that’s very close to being identical.
The really big issue though is the plot description and trailer – from the looks of it they took True Blood’s exact storyline and simply moved it to the future.
True Bloodthirst description:
"Bucharest, Romania. The not-too-distant future, but an entirely different city. The human population is dwindling. The vampire population, meanwhile, is exploding. Having emerged from the shadows a decade earlier, vampires now walk openly amongst the human population, as a precarious peace exists between the two. A peace made possible by the introduction of a synthetic blood substitute, dispensed by the Romanian government, making traditional vampire feeding, and preying on humans, no longer necessary. But even so, it's not a peace that everyone is entirely comfortable with..."
And the trailer…
Know what's really interesting about the tainted blood storyline in this film? The fact that it already happened in the True Blood comics (which are based on the show), in a series titled "Tainted Blood." Yea... bad bad SyFy.
I don’t think I am being paranoid when I say they are ripping off True Blood here. When you combine the title, the title image and the movie description, you have an entire film based on the HBO’s True Blood. I wonder if they did it on purpose for some reason. Hmmm...
But what do you think? Do you believe that True Bloodthirst is a rip off of True Blood? Let me know in a comment below.
- Moonlight
It is pretty lame to copy TB’s name and logo for something that is not a parody. While the premise seems largely borrowed from True Blood, the future and action themes remind me of The Breed (the release of which coincidentally nearly coincided with Dead Until Dark, in mid-2001). And in this urban action context the bat-vamps remind me of Blood’s chiropterans or Daybreaker’s subsiders.
I have the same reaction few days ago : the pitch is very inspired by TB, the logo and title too. Is Syfy doing an Asylum (http://www.theasylum.cc/) job for this movie ? Only the future will tell us.
It’s close.
Looks like a ripoff to me. BTW, True Blood is based on a series of books by Charlaine Harris, not a comic series
Yes, I know that. The show is based on the books and the comic series is based on the show. The creators of the show made the comics.
Well, I didn’t get to see it, but I think I will comment anyway…lol. It’s quite obvious that they ripped off the title of the tv show, True Blood by slapping the word “Thirst” in there. However, the movie, to me, doesn’t look anything like the show. No it looks more like a rip off of the movie Daybreakers , what with the regular vampires hunting down the “Man-Bat” vampires, etc. Daybreakers is an awesome vampire film by the way in case you haven’t seen it. Anyway, that’s what I think they are doing. Usually I will devour anything vampire related (well…almost), but that just looks reallyreally really cheesy! I don’t think I’ll be watching it.