HitFix

Netflix’s ‘Castlevania’ Trailer Looks Like The Small Screen Symphony Of The Night Fans Always Wanted

With classic games spanning over 30 years, Castlevania has done as much for the vampire genre as anyone not named Bram Stoker. In his hunt for Dracula, Simon Belmont became a household name, and probably became the second-most famous adventurer with a whip (after Indiana Jones). While the Castlevania game releases have slowed down in recent years, the story of Simon’s quest and the lore around Dracula’s castle is about to pick up with Adi Shankar and Warren Ellis’ Netflix animated series Castlevania.

The first trailer has made its way to the internet, showing off a gritty, hand-drawn animation style that shows off scenes that look like they’ve been lifted right from the games. Dracula rises from his coffin, an explosion of knives fan out from a Belmont (???), and a whip cracks as blood flies. This is what fans across the world have been waiting for, and it’s coming soon — July 7th.

Writer Warren Ellis has promised that his scripts are decidedly R-rated, and feel more like Game of Thrones than a typical game adaptation. Shankar, who made that super-dark Power Rangers fan film, clearly knows the characters and what long-time fans of the series want to see. There are nods to various games in the small amount of footage shown, but multiple people online believe this is going to be an adaptation of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse due to the characters revealed:

If Ellis and Shankar take from the Castlevania 3 source material, that means the plot will likely be set hundreds of years before Simon’s quest, jumping from Trevor Belmont, Simon’s relative, Alucard, Dracula’s son, Sypha, a sorceress and Grant, a pirate. It’ll be fascinating to see how these once two-dimensional (pun somewhat intended) characters will be fleshed out over the course of the series. There’s no shortage of interesting plotlines to explore. As someone who would read and re-read the NES instruction manual for Castlevania 3 as a kid, I can’t wait to see these heroes chuck holy water and munch on some mutton.