Remember the musical episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer? What if you could have a whole show like that? The Hunted: Encore is an indie-made musical web series about a team of vampire hunters living in New York City. The show is one of many spin-offs from the long-running web series The Hunted, but the first to take the musical approach. Producer Ned Donovan stars as a somewhat clueless newbie hunter who teams up with a badass vampire-slaying veteran played by Megan Dorn. Together, they crush villains and make allies while singing and dancing their way through original songs with music composed by Marcus Thorne Bagala. The minute I heard the words “vampire” and “musical” in the same sentence, they had my attention. 
The Hunted: Encore is that perfect combination of campy silliness executed with genuine craft and skill. After a brief prologue, Episode 1 begins right off the bat with a dramatic sing-off between the slayers and a vampire, which then leads into the first of many well-choreographed fight scenes. This juxtaposition pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the show. The plot is rather ridiculous: In Season 1, the hunters fight against a hipster vampire who can clone himself, while in Season 2 they face a sexy blood-sucking girl band called the Queens of the Damned. Yet along the way, you begin to genuinely care about each of the characters and their absurd predicaments.
As should be the case for any musical, the best part are the songs. Each episode is usually less than ten minutes long with two songs taking up most of that time. Megan, in particular, has an absolutely gorgeous singing voice, but it’s always the songs by the vampires that I find most catchy. In Season 1, a pair of cronies sing an amazing bloodsucker rock anthem called “Here Come the Vampires.” The villains steal the stage again in Season 2 when the Queens of the Damned sing my favorite song so far, “It Only Takes One Bite,” in a scene that resembles a Pussy Cat Dolls music video. But the most visually impressive song in the show is “Subscribe, Rate, Review,” in which a pair of hip vampire vloggers sing across a montage of their Youtube videos. The soundtrack is something I would listen to all on its own, and you can find it on Bandcamp.
I am so glad that Ned Donovan brought this series to my attention, because The Hunted: Encore is the campy vampire musical I didn’t even know was missing from my life. The second season was just released last Halloween, but I’m already impatient for a Season 3! If you’re a fan of musicals, the slayer genre, or indie web series, I highly recommend that you check out the show. You can find both Season 1 and Season 2 on Youtube, and learn more about the series on the Hunted: Encore website.
Give it a watch and let me know what you think in the comments! Are there any other amazing web series I’ve been missing out on? If you’ve got any to recommend, be sure to let me know!