Netflix has recently landed its first original queer-led, teenage vampire series. First Kill will premiere in 2021 with eight one-hour-long episodes. The series will be based on the short story of the same name by New York Times best-selling author Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, published within a collection called “Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite”. According to them., the production is “part of a wave of more recent horror and fantasy media pushing the boundaries of queer representation, like Netflix shows The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Ratched“.

American Horror Story alumni Emma Roberts will produce the series alongside Karah Priess, her best friend. Together, Roberts and Priess founded Bellatrist Productions in 2017, with the main goal of their production company being to produce book adaptations because of their shared passion for reading literature. Reportedly, Belletrist beat 18 production companies for the series’ rights (i-D Vice). 

First Kill follows Juliette, a teenage vampire living in a small town who is looking for a first victim in order to obtain the approval of her family of powerful vampires. A new girl in town named Calliope becomes her target, although Calliope –ironically enough– turned out to belong to a family of vampire hunters. The author herself described the series as “Killing Eve meets Buffy“, which implies the audience can expect to see the enemies-to-lovers trope, but with vampires. It can also be seen as a lesbian reinvention of Teen Wolf‘s forbidden love story between Scott and Allison, where a werewolf and a werewolf hunter fall in love.

Schwab is set to executive produce the series and oversee scripts to make sure the adaptation is faithful to its source. Felicia D. Henderson (Gossip Girl, Marvel’s The Punisher) will also be a writer and a showrunner. It is still unknown, however, if Roberts will be part of the cast herself or if there are any other plans for casting.

 Read the series’ first synopsis below:

 “When it’s time for teenage vampire Juliette to make her first kill so she can take her place among a powerful vampire family, she sets her sights on a new girl in town named Calliope. But much to Juliette’s surprise, Calliope is a vampire hunter, from a family of celebrated slayers. Both find that the other won’t be so easy to kill and, unfortunately, way too easy to fall for…”