In the opening sequence of the first episode of Joss Whedon’s beloved cult supernatural-drama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we follow two teens breaking into a high school. As suspenseful music plays over the scene, the rebellious jock repeatedly convinces the beautiful timid blonde girl that they are alone and able to make out. When he finally convinces her that everything is fine, her face morphs into a monstrous visage and she chomps onto his neck.

That’s right — the GIRL is a vampire. Whaaaaaat? When Buffy debuted in 1997, this was actually wild stuff. We were deep into the horror trope of any blonde girl on screen being straight-up murdered for daring to have any kind of sexuality. The show’s titular heroine is that same inversion of the trope — she’s a tiny blonde cheerleader who — in-between juggling school, boys and her family — goes out at night and uses her super strength to slay vampires and save the world.

The show twists the cliché, and turns women from prey into the kickass, empowered, predators. Much like the slayer herself, this was the kind of thing the world needed at the time.

It’s no coincidence that the opening sequence of Netflix’s new British comedy-horror Crazyhead features a similar twist. Here, we follow a pyjama and fluffy-slipper wearing woman (not blonde, thankfully, there’s some good bloody diversity in this show) being dragged into an abandoned factory at night by two clown-masked figures, as she screams and begs for help. But then, we discover that her friends are behind the masks and they plan to piss on her as part of an exorcism. Once again, the seemingly helpless victim is the monster in disguise.

Changes in the Hellmouth

Crazyhead, the new show by Misfits creator Howard Overman, follows the story of two awkward new friends, Amy (Cara Theobold) and Raquel (the brilliant Susan Wokoma, who you might remember from excellent British comedy Chewing Gum). The women bond over the fact that they are ‘seers’ — people with the ability to see demons who enjoy possessing humans — and the show tracks Amy through the seven stages of grief over this realisation. Eventually she ends up being a kickass demon hunter and teams up with (the already awesome) Raquel.

It may seem lazy to compare the superficial similarities of this to Buffy — female protagonists kicking paranormal ass with some drama and humour — but Crazyhead isn’t simply similar. It’s both a fantastic show on its own and also a kind of homage.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a kind of weird beast to describe in any one way. It has horror which is sometimes effective — such as in the creepy, award winning episode ‘Hush’ which featured some truly upsetting monsters which stole away people’s voices. It’s got action — there’s not a single episode where Buffy isn’t punching and kicking her way out of some sticky situations. It’s got humour — the witty, wise-cracking dialogue may be my favourite part of the show, and it’s definitely what brings me back for each re-watch. And it’s got weird teen drama, being set in a high school and focusing fairly heavily on the relationship between our teen protagonist and her ancient pervert paramour named Angel. This milkshake has got a lot of ingredients, but it worked.

Crazyhead doesn’t mimic every single one of these — in fact, it’s generally both scarier and funnier than Buffy. And the paranormal angle isn’t particularly noteworthy anymore; we’ve been bombarded with monster hunters ever since Buffy blew up the Hellmouth in 2003, from Supernatural to The Walking Dead to Penny Dreadful. Instead, it’s Crazyhead’s mixture of all these things — feminism, supernatural punching and comedy — along with a certain campness and silliness that throws back to Buffy more than anything else.

I see it as a kind of spiritual successor. The kickass feminism in Crazyhead in particular has grown a lot to reflect more up-to-date values. Also, while Buffy had a range of horrifying boyfriends, the show was ultimately a love letter between her and her friends, the Scooby Gang. Crazyhead continues that theme, except it’s about the awkwardness of an adult friendship.

“I’m The Thing That Monsters Have Nightmares About”

It might be easy to forget now, but Buffy was an exceptionally camp show.

I know people who have attempted to watch the first series and found the cartoonish villains and melodramatic plotlines a significant hurdle — that can also be compounded by the terrible graphics and low-budget production. But the trick was that, somehow, even though it took the STAKES of the drama seriously, the show was easily able to poke fun at itself. You could still believe in the efficacy and sinisterness of season three’s big bad Mayor Wilkins, while still laughing at Xander’s later question: “Does anyone else miss the Mayor — “I just wanna be a big snake”? (That’s right: the mayor’s goal in life was to transform himself into a giant snake).

Crazyhead’s villain is somewhere in the middle of ‘Big Snake Wilkins’ and season one’s The Master — flamboyantly evil, prone to dramatic monologues, while still presenting a kind of cheerful, charismatic and human front. Not only is he spectacularly camp and Scottish, but his evil plot is actually so ridiculous that I don’t want to even write it down (plus, spoilers). But once again — Crazyhead, like Buffy, is incredibly adept at pointing fun at its own ridiculousness, helped along in no small part by how much better the British are at dark, ironic humour.

Crazyhead is also thematically similar, touching upon similar themes that helped drive Buffy. It also centres on the notion that growing up is hell. In Buffy, the fact that the school was literally an evil portal to the underworld was a fairly overt metaphor about the liminal space between childhood and adultness, and how awful it all was. In Crazyhead, our protagonists are around their mid-twenties, struggling with the notion of adulthood and making it in the real world while being burdened by demons, both figurative and literal.

Suffering from mental health issues, both protagonists are somewhat outside mainstream society, unable to quite reach the typical type of ‘adulthood’, which is further compounded by the added issue of having to hunt demons from hell. I thought this was one of the most relatable parts of the show, but could also understand if equating mental illness with seeing demons was not something that people with mental illness loved seeing.

There are a lot more subtle similarities between the shows too. I truly believe that Amy’s best friend (the foul-mouthed, sex-crazed Jake) is a deliberate wink to how much of a skeezy asshole Buffy’s Xander was. Xander truly is the worst, but nobody in the show every really acknowledged it — he slut-shamed Buffy at every opportunity, pioneered “the Friendzone” and actively sabotaged her relationship by helping send her undead paedophile boyfriend to hell. At least Jake, though unapologetically horny, is respectful of boundaries.

In the end, Crazyhead is a show that’s so weird and wonderful that it stands on its own, without being overshadowed by the spectre of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its influence on the genre. Because Buffy was so groundbreaking, there have been hundreds of ‘Buffy-lite’ wannabes that have borrowed influences from Buffy and the Scooby Gang. But it’s with Crazyhead that the weird milkshake finally works again and, in my opinion, makes it a worthy successor.

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Crazyhead is on Netflix now.

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Patrick Lenton is a writer and author. He tweets at @patricklenton.