VAMPIRE HIGH
 Credits:
Creator and EPs: Mark Schekter and Garry Blye
Music composed by: Simon Carpenter
Produced by: Productions La Fête
/ Microtainment in association with YTV (Canada)
Category: Live-action teen comedy; 26
half-hour episodes. Aimed at teen and family audience. Produced
in Canada, first shown in Spring 2001 (this is probably why
hardly anyone has heard of it: it is not due to be shown in
the USA until September)
Regular Cast:
Jeff Roop (Drew), Meghan Orry (Sherry), Karen Cliche (Essen),
Ilona Elkin (Merrill), Paul Hopkins and Joris Jarsky. David
McIlwraith stars as Doctor Murdoch.
Scenario:
After centuries of being portrayed as evil, vicious predators,
the grand council of vampire elders determined that the new
generation needed a make-over and learn how to fit in. Albeit,
after hours. Welcome to Mansbridge Academy, a normal high school
by day, but home to a group of teenage vampires when the sun
goes down. Here they learn how to juggle math, history, and
science with their need to rebel and break the cardinal rule
- no mixing with the day students. They are under the care of
Dr Murdoch, who is determined that they will be redeemed. Their
training tries to teach them how to curb their thirst for warm
blood. One small complication is that Drew, one of the Vamps,
has fallen for the lovely Sherry, a normal, girl day student.
The others fall under the sway of Marty - a real renegade vampire
who has obviously overdosed on watching Jack Nicholson movies,
especially Batman.
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News Stories:
Shooting resumes (Montreal, May 5, 2001)
Producer Rock Demers was happy to announce
that the shooting of Vampire High will resume on 7
May, after series was interrupted in mid-February as the American
distributor was in default and could not complete its $3 million
payments. He said they had bridged the gap in the funding
of the series that would ensure the series would be broadcast,
in Canada and around the world. The writers have resumed their
work and the post-production continues on the first 13 episodes.
It is anticipated that the shooting of the next 13 episodes
will be completed by July and the YTV network will begin broadcasting
Vampire High in the fall, as scheduled.
Buffy Copycat? (Canadian Press)
Television is nothing if not a big
old copy-cat, eager to identify the latest smash hit and make
another one just like it. So it's a little surprising it took
YTV so long to come up with Vampire High: The Mansbridge Chronicles,
a Canadian-made series to launch this fall on the popular
channel for youth. The series follows fairly obviously in
the tracks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a US import heading
into its sixth season every bit as wildly popular as ever
-- if the response here Monday to one of its stars at the
second annual Canadian Television Press Tour is any kind of
guide. So cherished is Buffy that relative newcomer Michelle
Trachtenberg, who plays Buffy's young "sister" Dawn, can say
more or less nothing and scribes smile gratefully and write
it down.
Reporters reverted to the Vampire High
gang, where wanna-be stars Karen Cliche and Joris Jarsky were
far more forthcoming. Cliche, a young woman with a bare belly,
a refreshingly forthright manner and a potentially troublesome
last name, explained the premise: Vampire High houses a group
of five youthful vampires who have special powers, not unlike
The X-Men, such as telekinesis. These creatures, known in
the vampire world as Elders, live in the basement of the Mansbridge
Academy and have enlisted the help of one of the school's
instructors, Dr Reginald Murdoch (David Mcllwraith of La Femme
Nikita fame) to teach them how to become more like humans,
to learn their ways enough to eventually integrate with the
race. Joris Jarsky - who plays Marty - thinks that their show
was different to Buffy in being a metaphor for being young
and feeling different.
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