It's a TV series, but it's no-holds-barred because it's by Sion Sono for Amazon Video rather than anywhere that acknowledges terrestrial broadcast standards. Sion Sono is the nutter who also gave us Suicide Club, Strange Circus, Noriko's Dinner Table and other examples of extreme cinema. Will you enjoy this series? Well, it's exploding with batshit insane energy and I had a blast, but I didn't really give a damn about its characters. They're memorable, cool and can have amazing ballgown cleavage, but they're psychopaths. Because they're vampires. You wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly slaughtered everyone. Being drenched in blood isn't their default state, but it's not uncommon.

However, there's also:

(a) significant filming in Transylvania (which today is a region in Romania), with the Romanian actors getting plenty of dialogue in their own language.

(b) a gross living hotel and two rival vampire clans: the Corvins and the Draculas.

(c) vampires planning for the end of the world, which involves humans and a "coupling party".

(d) a third act that adopts a completely different energy and tone. If you'd been enjoying the high-intensity flamboyance of earlier episodes, you might find it anti-climactic. Also, the ending seems to focus on two new characters rather than anyone we'd been following since the beginning.

My favourite bits tended to be in the early episodes. The first twelve minutes are freaky, dripping blood into babies' mouths before a cute, cheerful girl machine-guns people in a bar and shows off a disgusting range of killing techniques. Was the fork necessary? Ewwww. The weirdest thing in episode 2 was the mother replacement, although it also has a writhing vampire naked orgy and the smiling vampire ojousama girl with hands coming up from her cushion to pull a victim into the depths.

Later, the plot solidifies and we follow events in the Hotel Requiem. Plenty here is bonkers too, e.g. the withered head on the tiny doll body that ends up being almost funny, but it's become less chaotic. The stars of this phase are the Rocky Horror duo of Megumi Kagurazaka (who's Sion Sono's wife and here is playing Elizabeth de Bathory with mega-cleavage) and Shinnosuke Mitsushima (whom ironically I last saw playing a vampire hunter in Baban Baban Ban Vampire and he was one of the best things there too). There's less nudity than I'd expected, but wild visuals and some surprising murder methods. The carnage gets so extreme at one point that the following episode starts with everyone literally mopping up the blood. Also, we're shown something that looks like Tokyo getting nuked.

You'll see all sorts of opinions on this series. If you've never encountered Sion Sono before, you're in for a surprise. Some people found it awful and incoherent, although even they agreed that it's visually amazing. Some think it's slow, while others call it a roller-coaster. Love it or hate it, though, it's one of its decade's most important works of J-horror. (The industry declined in the 2010s, after exploding on to the scene in the 2000s.)

Anything by Sion Sono is important. There's stuff here that no one had done before, not even in films, let alone on TV. My lack of connection with the characters was a negative, but you certainly won't forget it in a hurry.