The series ran from 1991 to 2023, and followed the exploits of the undead Radu Vladislas, portrayed by Anders Hove, and his efforts to turn Michelle Morgan (Denice Duff) into his fledgling.

The series was shot on location in Romania, utilizing stop-motion and rod puppet techniques to achieve the look the director wanted for the eponymous creatures.

Subspecies (1991) follows three college students, Mara, Michelle, and Lillian, as they begin a study on Romanian culture and superstition in the small town Prejmer.

The rising sun forces Radu to seek refuge; Michelle wakes at sunset and finds Stefan dead in his coffin, with the Bloodstone still in his hands.

Radu, with the help of his mother, "Mummy" (later identified as Circe in Blood Rise), sets out to find Michelle and the Bloodstone.

Becky arrives in Romania and with the help of Lieutenant Marin, Professor Popescu, and US Embassy Agent Mel Thompson, attempts to find her sister.

Becky promises to return that evening, but as Michelle descends back into the tomb she is grabbed by a revived Mummy and carried off.

The rising sun slows Michelle, so she is placed inside a body bag that was brought along; the delay allows Radu time to catch up to the group.

Zachary, armed with the enchanted sword of a great vampire slayer called Laertes, seeks out the rest of Serena's bloodline to eradicate them.

While Ash is preparing to sire Sofia, he gives his daytime consult Iris the key to Zachary's room, so that she may dispose of his sleeping body in the sunlight.

With his strength restored, Radu travels to Bucharest to claim the financial wealth of one of his previous "fledglings", Ash, who has acquired both the Vladislas crypt and the sword of Laertes (mentioned in Vampire Journals).

Michelle is hidden in a coffin by Ana and the caretaker and transported out of the cemetery, while Radu's head sits on a pike and burns in the sun.

After Vladislas and Circe flee, Radu and Marius find a seemingly human woman named Helena, and her son Stefan.

Grieving the loss of Helena and Stefan, he seeks out new companions to turn and finds two aspiring musicians, Ash and his sister, Ariel.

Ash and Ariel take the demon slaying weapons Diana brought, and attack Radu with shrill notes from a Flute, fleeing him.

In the intervening centuries, Ash and Ariel come under the protection of Helena, having impaled Vladislas on the Sword of Laertes, and Stefan travelling the world.

The three hunt out of a casino that has vast catacombs sprawling under it (which is implied to be the Club Muse nightclub from Vampire Journals).

Helena attempts to bribe Ash to accept her with a piano and a drink from the Bloodstone, while Radu takes Ariel to the catacombs under the casino to find Vladislas, where he impales him repeatedly with Laertes.

[16] The subspecies creatures, which were created from Radu's blood, originally began as local Romanian men in rubber suits.

The performances of the Romanian men, along with the design of the rubber suits, caused director Ted Nicolaou to rethink his approach.

The limited budget that Toth and Cabrera had to work forced them to use any location they could find in order to apply the make-up to the actors, as they did not have a separate workstation.

Make-up trailers would be created in local resident's homes, cave openings, inside of cars, or just sitting on the side of the road.

[17] To create Radu's face, Toth and Cabrera applied four separate prosthetic pieces to Anders Hove's forehead, left and right cheek, and his chin.

This was the same process used in the original Subspecies film, although Toth and Cabrera admit to tweaking the coloring of Radu's skin.

After the make-up was applied to give the cast a "dry" and "mummified" appearance, it was slipped over Gordon's head leaving only her face showing.

[18] Subspecies V: Blood Rise (2023) was announced in April 2019, as part of Full Moon's "Deadly Ten" initiative with Hove and Duff as Radu Vladislas and Helena, a vampire queen that resembled Michelle, respectively.

[22] Culture Cartel critic Mike Bracken believed the story was "largely clichéd", coupled with "bad acting" on the part of Watson and the female cast, but commended the realism Nicolaou created by shooting on location in Romania—using Romanian residents for smaller roles in the film—as well as the fact that the film does not "take itself too seriously", making it "more fun" than Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.

[23] Cold Fusion Video's Nathan Shumate echoed Bracken's opinion on the "authenticity" created from the Romanian landscaping and actors that gave "the feel of verisimilitude", but criticized the stop-motion subspecies as being "irrelevant to the main action", and the story as a "general lack of urgency".

[24] Richard Scheib, a critic for science fiction, horror, and fantasy review website Moria, felt the original film "showed promise" when it attempted to go "back to the folklore roots of vampirism"; he also liked the authentic feeling from shooting in Romania, but felt the limited budget restricted the film from being convincing, with David Allen's stop-motion subspecies creatures being a disappointment.

[25] When he had a chance to review Bloodstone, Scheib felt the sequel delivered "vampire clichés", but again "showed promise" with its imaginative make-up effects—specifically the staking of Stefan, the reattachment of Radu's head by the subspecies creatures, the look of Mummy—as well as the visual effects of Radu's shadow stalking Michelle through town, which gave Scheib a sense of Nosferatu.