Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Chronicles series in general have always been queer as hell. Even if you’ve never read a single one of the books in Anne Rice’s infamous book series, you’ll have read an article or post about them by now. The AMC series adaptation of Interview with the Vampire in particular has garnered a lot of discussion. More importantly, in its unapologetic queerness. Unlike the ‘94 film adaptation, this gothic series leans all the way in. And I’m about to give you a few moments of gothic splendor.

Note: These aren’t all the moments because the series is gothic horror as a whole. And season 2 is still airing.

Lestat Murdering the Priests (1×01)

“In Throes of Increasing Wonder…” (season 1, episode 1) is a wonderful premiere, and it makes no apologies for Louis (Jacob Anderson) being a Black man in this adaptation or showing us queer sex that results in literal levitation. But it also gives us a scene in which Lestat (Sam Reid) finds Louis at church, feeling absolute despair and confessing to a priest (showing how he’s still struggling with internalized homophobia), and murders the priests in the most violent of ways. It’s a rejection of religion and conformity and a bold moment of no fucks given.

Lestat Turning Louis (1×01)

The twisted romance of it all, right? Lestat’s beautiful speech to Louis before he turns him, the declaration of love, and the moment after Louis is turned serve as tremendous gothic imagery. And the fact that it all happens in a church is even better. There’s something to be said about unabashed queerness occurring in a church or a churchlike atmosphere. Everything gothic has always been revered by judgmental religious people. So the irony is fantastic. After all, in that church, the death and the undeath of a Black gay man in the 1900s occurred.

The Party Massacre (1×08)

A dysfunctional vampire family throwing an after party and choosing a specific amount of guests just to slaughter them incites bonkers imagery. And the scene itself is brilliantly violent. A room full of horrible rich white people thinking they’re going to get the gift of eternal life. Only to be killed? It’s ironic. Of course Lestat’s “death” at the hands of Louis (only for it to be revealed that Louis spared him) is gothic tragedy at its finest. Vampire romances don’t always end well and while it’s not permanently over between them, it’s still tragic.

Louis’ Conversation with Imaginary Lestat in the Cemetery (2×01)

Being tormented by the hallucination (that’s the best way to describe it) of your former lover is something that Louis finds himself struggling with. The atmosphere with a bunch of corpses on the ground, Louis’ grim appearance, hallucination Lestat having a bat come out of his neck, and the bleak feeling of it all is perfection. Louis’ undying heartache and guilt over Lestat is the epitome of gothic. And the madness of it all is just the cherry on top.

The Murder on the Théâtre des Vampires Stage (2×02)

Exploring this point in the flashback is quite the journey because Paris obviously has a different feeling to it. The vibes during this current season of the show aren’t remotely the same as Louis and Claudia (Delainey Hayes)’s live in New Orleans. And part of that comes from the introduction of the Théâtre des Vampires. This coven of vampires isn’t like any other coven; they delight in theatrics and murder people on stage as part of the show. But naturally, the human audience doesn’t think it’s real.

During the first show we saw in the second episode of the show, there’s a memorable performance from one of the prominent members of the coven, Santiago (Ben Daniels). He draws in the audience, especially when he bites a captured woman named Annika (Sinead Phelps). And after that very intense moment, she is swarmed by some of the coven, drained and killed. Any aspiring vampire would be proud.

Loss is a theme that has permeated the last ten years of Inside No. 9—in a way that isn’t wholly restricted to death. In “The Twelve Days of Christine” (series 2, episode 2), the title character grieves the life she anticipated living, mirroring it against the one she has ended up in. One scene depicts her talking with a vision of her late father. “I didn’t think it would turn out like this,” she says. This episode is a fan favorite, and there’s a lot to glean from it: It’s a meditation on memory, and how it relates to relationships, expectations, reality, and surreality. It also says a lot about the pressures of womanhood: the overwhelming sense of “Is this it?” that can come from failing to follow the route society lays out for us—education, job, marriage, children, keeping yourself together whatever the cost. I know there are other women out there for whom the concept of having to explain to a late parent that you’ve grieving a life you didn’t quite manage to live rings achingly true.

In “Love is a Stranger” (series 8, episode 4), the unlikely villain, Vicky, is a perfectly pitched characterization of a woman who has lost her way in life. She’s video dating after the death of her mother, explaining her situation to a potential partner.

“I’m footloose and fancy-free,” she says, later in the conversation amending this sentiment to the heart-wrenching, “It untethers you, doesn’t it?”

Vicky is open-minded, flirty, sweet—and denigrated by everyone she meets online. She also followed a different route in life, eschewing becoming a wife, becoming a mother, to look after her own parent. “You lose your bearings,” she says, reflecting on what happens when it all ends. Nonetheless, there’s a spark in her that’s so compelling, her quashed zest for life finally allowed to blossom again, but she’s an older woman who is constantly negged, cheated, lied to and judged—no wonder the episode takes the turn it does.

When I think about Inside No. 9, I think about my dad. He died in 2014, the year the show first aired. He got ten months with the show; I’ve had ten years of both Inside No.9 and grief: the two are forever connected. I don’t know if he ever watched it; these days I can’t even remember whether it’s something he would have enjoyed. Madness and loss are, of course, inextricably linked, but I was mad before my dad died—his death just finally gave me a solid excuse to be unwell. I think about David from “Diddle Diddle Dumpling” (series 3, episode 5), and how the loss of one of his twins is such an unfathomable concept that he cannot fight a descent into madness. I think about the way humans sometimes make strange links when dealing with bereavement, guilt, mental illness, and wonder whether that’s why I, like David, needed something to concentrate on.  Previously, my grief was raw and my madness as on-the-surface as David’s, but over the years both have significantly dulled. The show, for me, became a vessel that has helped me make more sense of the world.

Trauma, too, is a frequent bedfellow with grief and madness. While Inside No.9 has broached traumatic subjects from the start, there’s a growing sense of thoughtfulness and care with which later episodes have touched on trauma. Series seven’s “Wise Owl” (episode 6) blends 1970’s public information films with the day-to-day of a man who has survived sexual abuse in an episode that is unsettling and nightmarish throughout. The combination of freakish sound design, ominously lit scenes, a haunting score, and jerky, uncanny animation made me sick with dread when I first watched it. In one scene, which will never leave my psyche, protagonist Ronnie reluctantly opens a bedroom door after hearing a noise behind it. No monster is revealed, just an unholy sound that is part-scream, part-roar, part-nails on a blackboard—utterly unspeakable. It is the best non-physical representation I’ve ever encountered of what it feels like, in both body and mind, to be a child who knows something bad is happening, but doesn’t know exactly what or exactly why. When you’re living with a grief for part of you that was lost or taken, or for a childhood irrevocably changed, it’s important to be seen, and this episode is fluorescent.

But after everything, hope, too, is crucial, and sometimes in Inside No. 9, as in the real world, there is hope for a way through and out. Occasionally, this takes the form of a confirmed happy ending, a character like Ronnie figuratively and literally walking away from his past. Sometimes the opposite is true: victims exact their revenge through fire, through tetrodotoxin, through scaphism—but in both the show and the real world, it is hard to say, really, whether one form of closure is more human than the other. Grief is morally grey; so is its aftermath.

Inside No. 9 has been soothing and terrifying for me. Seeing familiar situations played out with deliciously gallows humor and realizing it’s okay to find the grotesque laughter among the horror is validating; so too is feeling the gut-punch of recognition and being allowed to sit with that for half an hour. There are strange little days where I feel like a mixture of Christine, David, Vicky and Ronnie: more or less doing it wrong, more or less irrevocably changed, more or less melancholic. But these are fewer and fewer—and with that comes its own sense of grief for the person I once was. Of course, no TV show can have any hand in medicating a complex mental health diagnosis—that’s psychotherapy and being med-compliant—but the show has been an oddly comforting constant for years. The ninth and final series ends this month. Its ability to disturb, charm, terrify and validate its viewers will be grieved.

I’ve compiled a mini list of horror and one psychological thriller series that will trip you out one way or another. Whether it be because of the psychological or sheer mystery, I’ve got you covered.

Sharp Objects (2018; HBO)

When shows are grounded in what we, the audience, perceive as reality, it can be a hard pill to swallow. Sharp Objects is a miniseries that follows Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), an alcoholic reporter who has a past she’s forced to face when she returns to her hometown to investigate unsettling murders.

The show is based on a book of the same name by Gillian Flynn, and it’s an uncomfortable journey that involves dysfunctional families, small town secrets, the murders of young girls, Southern Gothic flavor, and more. There are moments throughout the show that’ll have you jumping in and out of different points in time with flashbacks that fold into the present day so neatly. It might not be traditional horror, but it damn sure is creepy enough to satisfy any horror lover.

From (2022; Epix/MGM+)

Being trapped in any place, without any promise of being able to escape, is an awful thing to think about. From follows a bunch of people that are stuck in a Middle American small town while trying to survive every night when creepy creatures come out with the intention to kill.

There’s still so much mystery wrapped up in the show, and the third season will likely answer some more questions. For now, it’s a show with a blend of characters that you’ll either like or you won’t. As well as a solid mystery, creepy as hell moments, violence, and some tremendous performances (especially from Harold Perrineau). Saying much else would spoil key points in the show. So the only thing I’ll say is that you should check it out.

Archive 81 (2022; Netflix)

The number of shows that Netflix has canceled before they could be wrapped up properly is astounding. Archive 81 is based on a podcast of the same name, and it follows a man named Dan (Mamoudou Athie) who is hired to restore video footage that sends him down a spiral of uncovering a mystery of a cult and demons.

A good portion of the series is analog horror, and it makes the tapes feel so real (something that’s incredibly effective about found footage). Overall, the characters come across as real people and there’s a genuine sense of conflict.

The series isn’t perfect because we’re left with more questions than answers thanks to the cancellation. But it gets the job done as far as being unsettling, especially when the walls start to close in on Dan. Not to mention, anything involving cults is eerie because we have plenty of those in our regular life.

Chambers (2019; Netflix)

People are free to say what they want, but Chambers has plenty of twists and turns, and it deserved to be wrapped up properly.

The series follows a Native American teen named Sasha (Sivan Alyra Rose) who receives a heart transplant from a girl who died under mysterious circumstances. Sasha becomes burdened with startling visions that lead her down a path of mystery.

It’s not every day where a horror series has a Native American character at the forefront. There are no ancient burial grounds that bring people back from the dead or harmful stereotypes. And it’s actually well shot, the cast is good, plus the mystery isn’t what folks might expect. If you love psychological horror and representation, you might like this series.

Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021; Netflix)

You can’t go wrong with complicated and/or shitty characters and a lot of body horror. Brand New Cherry Flavor is a limited series based on a novel of the same name.

It follows a young filmmaker named Lisa (Rosa Salazar) who gets screwed over by a horrible man, and she takes her revenge with the help of a witchy tattoo artist. The series is hard to explain without spoiling the best parts, and it’s certainly not a show for the faint of heart.

An important aspect to it that doesn’t give too much away is that predatory men in the film industry are a huge component to the show. Also, Lisa isn’t as likable of a person, but she’s the character we’re following for the most part. And she goes through the wringer, complete with body horror that you’ve likely never seen before. It’s a series worth watching at least once.

Created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, American Horror Story is a horror anthology television series that began in 2011 and has now gained a cult following.

The viewer is presented with an opening scene set in 1834 New Orleans with Madame La Laurie; a French immigrant of high society obsessed with eternal youth. From the very start, the viewer is presented with the macabre world created by the gruesome mind of Lalaurie, played by Kathy Bates. Soon after she coats her face in blood, we are presented with the terrifying attic where she enacts her torture in aid of her experimentation and obsession with eternal life. This scene, while grotesque, not only sets the tone for this series at large, but also reflects on a real-life woman whose cruelty, up until the 1834 fire of her mansion, went undetected.

Murphy and Falchuk then take us through to the modern era were an aged Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau begins to wreak havoc as the battle between the witch coven, led by reigning “Supreme” Fiona Goode (Jessica Lange), and the Voodoo Queen begins to unfold. The unearthing of the buried alive La Laurie begins season three’s descent into a battle of the supernatural where the two enemies ultimately become partners.

Without giving away too many spoilers, what is most poignant about this season is its tackling of historical abuse of slaves in the American deep south. Murphy and Falchuk are no stranger to tackling controversy and sensitive topics and this is reflected through Lalaurie’s abuse of her daughter for fooling around with a slave, and the dynamics of Louisiana’s elite society.

Both Goode and Laveau’s obsession with staying alive and the desire to be immortal take them on a path of self-destruction. The former, a terminal cancer patient willing to stay alive at all costs, even by trading her soul with Papa Legba, a Voodoo god, reflects on the philosophical and existential fear of death and the embrace of the unknown. The latter emphasizes how sometimes, getting what you want means hurting others beyond measure. This is evidenced through Laveau’s yearly collections with the Voodoo god, one of which sees her abduct and handover “the soul of an innocent”-a newborn-  in order to maintain her immortality.

The powers of the young coven also create much drama throughout the series with shenanigans such as the reanimation of a dead lover and the use of natural warfare through the raising of the dead, and the utility of different plants, adds depth to this series. From pyrokinesis to Ouija boards, the viewer is presented an occult feast, along with an array of gore through flashbacks such as with the Axe-man. Set in the late 1910s, the Axe-man would prey on women murdering them with an Axe. In Coven, he is murdered after the then coven goaded him into what he believed to be his next killing-spree. 

Further, after fighting between the Voodoo coven and that of the witches comes to a head, the two bridge their differences and turn to their real enemy; the family of Fiona Goode’s son in-law Hank. Her unsuspecting daughter, Cordelia Foxx (Sarah Paulson), is forced to reckon with the destructive nature of her husband’s witch-hunter family and their desire to “rid the world” of all witches. Ironically, Laveau intended to exploit this manipulation in an effort to kill off the “white witches” which ultimately backfired and leads to their collaboration.

While both Goode and Laveau end up dying and reawakening in an after-life where they are forced to pay for their sins, wanton callousness, and destruction, Foxx ends up leading the coven and welcoming a great multitude of women all possessing the attributes of a witch and descending from those women who escaped Salem and the descendants of those that did not. I still rewatch this season of American Horror Story every Halloween as it is a masterpiece of contemporary television that is multi-faceted, well-crafted and engages the viewer with each and every peculiar twist and turn. A must watch!

Of course that means I’m undertaking (!) a rewatch. It has been a joy to watch New York City doctor Joel Fleischman try to fit in with the Cicely, Alaska locals, but what’s jumping out at me is how ahead of the times Northern Exposure often was, and how often the show puts death front and center. Maggie dreams that Joel will die in a plane crash; Ed fixates on death as the Coho winds sweep through the town; Chris accidentally runs over a dog; a dead Frenchman is found in the ice; Joel thinks his cabin is haunted by its former resident who committed suicide. I could go on!

Let’s take a look at some of the best deathly episodes from Northern Exposure.

S2E3 All is Vanity

Joel is settling in to Cicely pretty well, but isn’t expecting to be appointed “coroner” by Maurice after a man dies in Joel’s waiting room. Complicating matters is the fact that no one in Cicely recognizes the dead man—Marilyn only knows he was “number nine” in line. Who is he, where did he come from, how did he end up dying in Joel’s waiting room? The episode gently shows us that we are more than our names, and the contents of our pockets—and the right people will know this, and claim us as theirs. The town refuses to let Number Nine go when the ME in Juneau offers to autopsy the body; “it’s like a still pond, we see our reflection,” Chris says. “His experience is our experience; his fate is our fate. We all face death alone. It’s that solitude in death that’s our common bond in life.”

S2E7 Slow Dance

Maggie O’Connell has a bad history with death when it comes to her boyfriends. They usually wind up dead, see. Rick is the fifth and most recent fatality, struck by the Comsat 4 satellite falling back to Earth. Ed thinks Rick is lucky—who goes out like that?—but Maurice and Joel are aghast; man and space debris have melded into one awful mess. Rick’s funeral is a blend of comedy and tragedy; satellite bits stick out of the casket. Maggie begs people to stop laughing, and storms out when they can’t; she thinks she’s to blame for Rick’s death. Joel later tracks her down to assure her it’s not her fault, but Maggie’s haunting will continue in season four’s “Northwest Passages” (and gets a minor resolution in S6E14).

S3E4 Animals R Us

Maggie crosses paths with a seemingly-stray dog who she begins to believe is the reincarnation of her late boyfriend Rick. The dog hangs with Maggie long enough that she asks Joel to look him over; Joel objects, saying he’s not a vet—and the dog bites him. The dog loves everyone except Joel and takes to sitting on Rick’s stool at The Brick, and just when Maggie is convinced the dog harbors Rick’s spirit, the dog’s owner turns up. Time with Butchy sure gives Maggie some time to heal though, which she still desperately needs.

S3E16 Three Amigos

Maurice and Holling get word that their old hunting friend Bob has died, and set out to bury him as he wished—at a treacherous place called No-Name Point. This has to be one of the best Northern Exposure episodes of all time. Sweeping outdoor scenes parallelled with Chris’s on-air readings of Jack London’s Call of the Wild and White Fang, make for a fitting send off for this hunter-adventurer. Maurice and Holling are in constant physical danger and emotional peril, as Bob’s widow complicates the matter of laying her late husband to rest. Maurice and Holling remember what it is to live, all while hauling a dead body across the Alaskan wilderness.

S3E20 The Final Frontier

Likewise in this stellar season three episode, Holling confronts his own mortality, being told that Jesse, the Kodiak bear who attacked him in his youth, has died; Ed found the bones on a mountaintop. Holling can’t quite believe it; Jesse has haunted Holling physically and emotionally for years. How could such a big creature be dead? Even when faced with bones that are clearly Jesse’s, Holling doesn’t believe it. He sets out to kill Jesse once and for all—so Holling himself can go on living.

S4E1 Northwest Passages

Maggie is turning 30 and decides to head to the woods, but she’s growing sick with a fever from appendicitis, and her dreams turn dark. Her former boyfriends—now all dead—return to have a barbeque, roasting hot dogs alongside Maggie. Dave died when he fell asleep on a glacier; Glen took a wrong turn in his Volvo onto a missile range; Bruce had a fishing accident; Harry died at a picnic—potato salad; and of course we remember Rick and Comsat 4. Maggie’s sick mind works things out—but her recovery from these deaths shapes her character for six years.

S4E4 Heroes

Chris gets a crate in the mail and it’s the dead body of his friend Tooley. Chris doesn’t quite know how to lay Tooley to rest, and spends most of the episode searching for an answer. What kind of send off is right for this heroic presence in Chris’s life? Cremation? Chris has no idea where to spread the ashes. Burial at sea? But which sea!? Mummification? How do you do that without the Cult of Osiris? His pondering takes him to a freshly dug grave, but once he’s spent time inside, it also doesn’t feel right. In the end, Chris uses his trebuchet and flings Tooley into the great beyond (the local lake).

S4E22 Kaddish for Uncle Manny

Joel is crushed after the death of his uncle, but more crushed that he cannot properly mourn for him, given his remote location. I’m unclear on why Joel can’t get away from his job for even a family death, but I could digress for days. The town of Cicely unites around Joel in his time of grief, assembling ten Jews from every corner of the state to say kaddish for Uncle Manny. Joel feels awkward the entire time, but it is a beautiful episode about trying to honor those we love even under largely impossible circumstances. How timely, even now.

S5E10 First Snow

Resident Nedra announces that she is going to die, which upsets Joel quite a lot; he’s her doctor and he knows she’s perfectly well, but Nedra insists. The entire town agrees with Nedra—people know things in their bones. Cicely gets ready for the big winter that is coming and this includes Holling tallying up how many graves they’ll need to dig before the ground freezes. He’s guessing ten. Joel finds it all grisly, and is heartbroken when Nedra does pass. Ruth-Anne tells him to not be—does he cry when the grass dies? To everything there is a season, so too in Cicely.

Is Neil Gaiman involved in Dead Boy Detectives?

As the creator of the original characters in the show, Gaiman is listed in the credits as a source (‘based on the characters by” or similar). However, he’s not listed as an episode writer or executive producer on the show. He is likely not directly involved.

Along with artists Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones III, Gaiman created the characters for this show in April 1991, for Sandman issue #25. These two have also appeared on HBO’s Doom Patrol in the series’ third season, played by Ty Tennant and Sebastian Croft. The DC universe is slowly becoming as complicated as its Marvel twin, though perhaps we can hope that this will be the subtler of the two siblings.

Is Dead Boy Detectives part of the The Sandman universe?

The Sandman TV show (2022) is based on a long-running Gaiman comic of the same name published by DC Comics from 1989-1993. The series then moved to Vertigo from 1993-2020, before returning to DC Black Label from 2020 to the present. The beloved comic series is sprawling and decadent, containing many interwoven tales that hinge on Dream of the Endless, a character also known as the Sandman. Whatever realm dreams may touch can come into his purview, and along the way we meet his siblings: Death, Destruction, Destiny, Delight/Delirium, Desire, and Despair. Whatever the Sandman can’t touch, they surely can.

Dead Boy Detectives grows from that fertile ground, taking its roots from a multivarious universe, and work spanning several decades by one of the most prolific and versatile minds in the game. Although these two characters are a minor part of The Sandman, they are written with the compelling richness that Gaiman seems to bring to anything he fancies enough to include. The Sandman is a garden full of exotic and fascinating specimens like this one, and there could theoretically be dozens more spinoffs where that came from.

Who is in Dead Boy Detectives?

George Rexstrew, a relative unknown, will play Edwin Payne, paired with Jayden Revri (The Winx Saga) as Charles Rowland. Together, the two will take on such Nancy-Drew-coded adventures as “The Case of the Dandelion Shrine” and “The Case of the Lighthouse Leapers.” They’re joined by Briana Cuoco (Harley Quinn animated series), Kassius Nelson (Last Night in SoHo), and Caitlin Reilly (Hacks) in a cast of mostly fresh faces. If you want to see some young up-and-comers cut their teeth in a series of paranormal mysteries, this is the show you’ll want to watch.

What’s the plot of Dead Boy Detectives?

The Sandman, as a series, sees plenty of characters come and go from the afterlife and various underworlds, sometimes making stops along the way. Payne and Rowland meet one another after dying decades apart, and team up to solve mysteries. The story combines some of the classic elements of British literature: boarding school kids clinging to one another, and teenagers cleaning up after lazy or corrupt law enforcement. With the help of a talented clairvoyant, the pair work out what’s happened to the living from beyond the grave.

Where can I stream Dead Boy Detectives?

Dead Boy Detectives will premiere on Netflix on April 25, 2024.