Description
Vampire City
City of Blood — if you believe the experts’ predictions, this is roughly the future awaiting Western Europe. And there’s no reason not to believe them: we’ve all witnessed global cataclysms recently and are watching climate change unfold in real time.
Fortunately, scientists aren’t predicting the emergence of vampires just yet. But who knows — maybe they’re preparing to step out of the shadows right now, or watching all the horrors from the sidelines. Alright, let’s put those theories aside for later. After all, drought and water scarcity are entirely realistic scenarios, which is exactly what City of Blood shows us. So we’ll deal with the vampires later.
Right now, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, plant more trees, and patch up the ozone layer that protects us from harmful solar radiation. Otherwise, the appearance of vampires will be the least of our problems. We need to eliminate plastic garbage islands in the oceans and slow down glacier melting (as for stopping it entirely — that ship has sailed; what we can stop is cow farts).
Did you know that all wild animals on the planet make up only 5% of the animal kingdom? And that there’s more livestock on Earth than humans? This is data from a study by Bar-On, Phillips, and Milo, published in the journal PNAS in 2018.
And all these animals release methane into the atmosphere daily through burping (rumination) and farting. In other words, they harm the environment no less than cars with internal combustion engines.
But even with all this meat on Earth, most of us still eat not natural, quality meat, but shit that contains nearly the entire periodic table. So why do we need so much livestock if, in the end, we’re still sold crap whose ingredients list can include anything except actual meat?
Yes, another film description has turned into an environmental manifesto.
But things aren’t much better in the film industry either: recently we witnessed the birth of yet another megacorporation called Skydance. Its main assets are now Warner Bros. and Paramount, which in turn own a whole bunch of other brands. And all of this is disgusting. Now, essentially, two giants — Disney and Skydance — will try to shove their garbage down our throats. This is horrifying. Have antitrust agencies completely stopped working? That’s a rhetorical question.
I don’t want a future like the one in City of Blood and similar shows. A future where, in a devastated world, a few megacorporations run everything and own everything. From your health insurance to your apartment, and your life is worth nothing. Either you exist — not live, but exist — by their rules, or you head into the scorched deadlands they created, where you won’t last more than a few days. You’ll die of thirst, radiation, or at the hands of some raider-cannibals.
Funny thing: City of Blood, a series warning us about a horrifying future, is produced by the same evil corporation — Disney.
Before watching, I expected something like The Walking Dead, but with vampires. But it turned out to be a dystopian drama with an ecological catastrophe, political intrigue, and vampires who have finally stepped into the light.
While watching, I was reminded of Blade, Underworld, and Daybreakers. There’s no action in the series, but there is a secret vampire society trying to improve its position against the backdrop of the apocalypse.
So basically, humanity, having brought the world to ecological disaster and essentially turned the planet into deadlands, allowed vampires to emerge from the shadows. A similar scenario was shown to us by Guillermo del Toro in one of my favorite series, The Strain, which I think about at every convenient opportunity and recommend watching every New Year’s holiday.
But beyond that, these two series have nothing in common. The scale, plot, atmosphere, and budget are completely different.
So if you want to witness family drama, vampire conspiracies, and behind-the-scenes political games, and see a possible apocalyptic future for Germany and the entire planet — welcome to City of Blood.