So, the DH saw that Valemont was on MTV and stuck it in the planner for me. I watched a bit of it this morning, and it isn’t really grabbing me. It’s a touch cliche in the story line and I just get that vibe that I’m watching a poorly made live action (although plot-wise it’s a bit different) version of Vampire Knight (anime). There are SO many vampire animes and series out there right now that centre around vampires at a school / academy / university (delete as appropriate). None of them have bested Vampire Knight yet though.
Here’s my rambling thoughts about Valemont… a not so great vampire series.
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| Sebastian Van Cleer – the best thing in Valemont |
There’s nothing really new for me in Valemont. It’s a bit more interesting than Vampire Diaries, since there’s a whole forbidden love thing going on between leading lady Sophie and sexy vampire bad boy Sebastian, but the shambolic sound and rather clunky camera work on it really takes away too much for me to be continuing with it. I get that vibe that nothing much is going to happen. It switches and changes by degrees every five seconds, so that it’s no longer cohesive. You get a sort of headache trying to keep up. Honestly, stick with the characters/scene for more than a second or two, please! It could have been really good, with stronger writing and better sound/camera work, and more intense/longer scenes. Also, I don’t feel any emotional connection or any feeling towards the characters. Sophie has love interests thrown at her all the time, and Sebastian clearly wants to get it on, but she’s not letting that happen… and when he does kiss her, it’s not exactly mindblowing passion you’re watching on the tv. You just can’t get a feel for the characters, their emotions/feelings towards the rest of the characters, and it sort of all falls flat.
I also get the feeling that they’re gonna kill off all the leading men – Sebastian (a vampire) and Gabriel (presumably human), and that just does not float my boat. Although, if you’re gonna kill anyone, kill Gabriel. Never kill off a sexy vampire!
Might have to ditch this in favour of keeping up with Vampire Diaries. At least that’s better produced, better written, and is a little more unique, although also full of cliches.
The vampires in Valemont are pretty standard. Nothing that hasn’t particularly been done before. The most interesting is that there are five different types of vampires, although I can’t see how a bat biting an animal can then lead to a human being a vampire.
Vampires procreate in this, and age and then mature into their true vampy state. Been there and written that (wait for my future novels that I’m in edits with – Forbidden Blood and Heart of Darkness – and you’ll see what I mean)
Human blood is pretty much like a drug to them (again, wait for Forbidden Blood, same sort of theory)
There’s some sort of rebellion about to begin against the law against drinking human blood… nothing amazingly new about that. If I was a vampire and had to lay of the human blood, I’d be pretty pissed too. Although, in this, human blood is supposed to shorten their life-span and make their true vampire abilities / issues show. Such as sunlight affecting them. I love seeing how people get around the sunlight issue. Vampire Diaries has it done the best way so far for a telly series, although ripping off Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the whole ring thing wasn’t their most imaginative move. Most of the time I deal with it a different way in each of my books, but do like to fall back on the – owie, that’s gonna smart – approach to sunlight.
Has anyone else watched Valemont and liked it?
Right now, I’m eager to re-watch Vampire Knight to erase Valemont from my mind (subbed version of course. I don’t watch dubbed anime)
Valemont… you could have been so much more… you had the looks… but unfortunately, the production sucked (hahaha I made a funny!)
ETA – This is the sort of picture I had wanted to include of Dillon Casey, who plays Sebastian!
Now, that’s hero material right there… he does get his kit off a bit in Valemont. Apparently it’s a bit of a trend for the poor guy.
