To paraphrase Mugatu, Will Ferrell's villainous fashion designer in Zoolander, "Vampires. They're so hot right now."

Despite atrocious reviews, Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer's fourth and supposedly final book in her Twilight series, sold 1.3 million copies its first day out on August 2 and has since sold a few more million more. The first volume of the saga, beginning the tale of the blood-boiling love between a young Pacific Northwesterner and the teenager vampire of her dreams, has also been adapted into a movie. Twilight will be released on November 21, three weeks earlier than originally planned in order to fill the continent-sized void that was left when Warner Bros. delayed Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince until next summer.

But if you prefer your vampires more macabre than Mickey Mouse, then has HBO got a show for you! Based once again on a series of books about vampires, True Blood follows some small towners in Bon Temps, Lousiana, a hamlet that plays host to a whole host of vampires. The Japanese have invented a synthetic blood drink called Tru Blood to sate vampire desire for the human variety, but vampires still remain feared outcasts fighting for their rights. Alan Ball, he of American Beauty and Six Feet Under fame, developed the show, hence the obsession with death and the fairly obvious analogies to our own society, in this case, the discrimination of groups like homosexuals. The show stars Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress rocking one hell of a thick Southern accent. She can also read minds, but only if that mind is human. Stephen Moyer plays the so-bad-he-must-be-good vampire who falls in love with her.

Early buzz on the show is mixed, pegging the show as either ridiculous or ridiculously addictive. But after the failure of last summer's John from Cincinnati, created by another of HBO's prodigal sons, Deadwood auteur David Milch, the network could use a hit in the drama department in this post-Sopranos world. Considering the success of the Twilight series, particularly in light of the bad reviews for Breaking Dawn, it's clear there's a thirst for vampire stories. Plus, it's got the most awesome fake drink marketing campaign ever and since it's HBO, the show will be full of all that sex and violence TV viewers just love. Whether True Blood will actually suck in viewers, however, remains to be seen.

True Blood premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on HBO. Here's the trailer: