Carrie's Calling

If you’re not in the vampire game these days, you are missing out.  Writer/director Joe Wilson is well aware of that and is putting a new twist on the classic vampire story with his new web series, Vampire Mob, premiering June 30, 2010.

Vampire Mob is a six episode series that tells the story of Don Grigioni (John Colella), a hitman and vampire who turns his own wife because… he was hungry.  He then finds out that his mother-in-law (Marcia Wallace) is moving in with the couple….for eternity.  Annie (Reamy Hall), Don’s wife, feels badly when she thinks of her mother dying one day, so she decides to bite her without talking it over with Don first.

The supporting cast is made up of Kirsten Vangsness (Criminal Minds), Chris Mulkey (Twin Peaks), Elizabeth Beckwith (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Andrea Cansler, Jim Roof and Cris D’Annunzio (As the World Turns).  The series can be seen at http://www.VampireMob.com on a view count basis.  Subsequent episodes will be posted as previous episodes reach their predetermined view count.  Updates will be sent to viewers via Twitter http://www.twitter.com/VampireMob and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=370100209495.

I had a chance to interview Wilson and when asked whether he had this idea before the recent explosion of Twilight and True Blood, he said, “Our show has murder, crime, family conflict and comedy – I didn’t see anything like that out there and that’s what I wanted to watch.”  Wilson dreamed up the idea for this series last summer while working as a private investigator.  He says the idea came to him, oddly enough, during an investigation.  The intent was to have Vampire Mob be a short, but after working on the project, Wilson realized he had a much larger beast on his hands and there was much more story to be told.

I asked Wilson how he decided on the casting of his series and he said, “I didn’t audition anyone!  I had most of the actors, who either I knew or other cast member were pals with.”  He did write the mother-in-law character specifically for Wallace though and was thrilled when she agreed to be a part of the project.  When I saw the title for his show, I asked Wilson if the downward facing gun was a nod to a particularly popular mob series and he said, “It was meant as a dash of parody…and we use .45 mm handguns in the show.”

In addition to working on season two of Vampire Mob, Wilson is putting together another web series.  Wilson is an award-winning filmmaker who won Best Short Under Five Minutes at the 2009 LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival for The Swear Police (http://www.SwearPolice.com).  You can also check out his work on YouTube with Tickle Me Harder, a parody of Tickle Me Elmo, that has already amassed over 500,000 views.