Review: There’s magic in ‘Midnight, Texas’ and its charming new take on spooky old stories

The curio shop owner is a vampire. The reverend isn’t a werewolf but a weretiger. And the town tattooist? A fallen angel, literally.

Rural Midnight, Texas, is where these strange folk go to live in peace, far from the rest of humanity’s prying eyes and sharp pitchforks. Safety in numbers is the credo for the town folk, all of whom have supernatural powers, deep dark secrets or both. Mostly both.

But there’s a problem brewing just as psychic and medium Manfred (François Arnaud of “The Borgias”) rolls into Midnight. He’s here on the advice of his grandmother, Xylda (Joanne Camp), a ghost who grifts with him from town to town in a battered RV. She thinks he’ll be safe here. Ha!

The town sits on a thin veil between the living and the dead, the mortal world and hell. And that veil is getting thinner by the day, wreaking havoc with the supernatural and attracting all sorts of bad elements, be it a white supremacist biker gang in skull masks or a man-eating succubus disguised as a hot blond.

If NBC’s new fantasy series (which debuts Monday) sounds like a jumble of every paranormal trope from Ed Wood’s “Night of the Ghouls” to HBO’s “True Blood,” that’s because it is, and wonderfully so.

“Midnight, Texas” is based on the bestselling book series by Charlaine Harris, author of the novels that inspired “True Blood.” There are definitely similarities between the hit cable show and the new network fantasy series: the diner set-up looks a lot like Merlotte’s bar, tongue ’n’ cheek humor abounds and creepy-pretty scenery serves as a booster for all that other magic in the air (here it’s the rugged Texas plains).

The hour-long episodes also star Parisa Fitz-Henley (“Luke Cage”) as Fiji, a potion-brewing witch who lives with her talking cat Mr. Snuggly; Jason Lewis (“Sex and the City”) as Joe, a millenniums-old angel who knows way too much about the history of Midnight; and Peter Mensah (“True Blood”) as Lem, a blue-eyed vampire who escaped slavery when he was made immortal. He’s bullet-proof, much to the chagrin of the local neo-Nazi biker gang.

Arielle Kebbel (“Ballers”) plays Lem’s deadly assassin girlfriend, because not everyone in Midnight has a supernatural power … or maybe they do, but we just haven’t seen it yet.

The episodes move fast, and viewers don’t have to necessarily follow the bigger storyline, à la “True Blood,” to become invested in the series.

Watching the sheriff try to solve a murder, possibly involving the Sons of Lucifer biker gang, while Fiji performs an exorcism in Manfred’s haunted apartment and Lem wrestles a weretiger that’s really the Rev: It doesn’t require a ton of back story.

But you will be inexplicably rooting for this pack of oddballs, maybe because you have a soft spot for outcasts or you wish to see the worst tendencies of mankind (murder, hate, etc.) countered by magic, telepathy, ghosts or super-human strength. If only...

There’s also the usual budding romances here — Manfred and the seemingly normal Creek (Sarah Ramos), Fiji and the pawn shop owner, Bobo (Dylan Bruce) — and a clear push for diversity.

Gay characters, biracial couples and kick-ass female leads all populate Midnight. And it’s no coincidence that some of the forces that seek to take them down are homophobic, racist, misogynistic or all three.

But it’s the ridiculous lines that the characters deliver with straight faces that ensures no one involved in this show is taking any of its far-fetched scenarios too seriously.

For instance, when the group gathers to discuss the latest crisis — the grisly murders of young men in convertible cars and public restrooms — the wise old vampire has a theory: “Sounds like a succubus. We haven’t seen one of those around here in a over a century.”

You can almost hear the rest of the cast and crew busting up into laughter off-camera.

And it will make you laugh too. “Midnight, Texas” is a charming new take on spooky old stories, with enough magic to keep even cynical viewers engaged.

‘Midnight, Texas’

Where: NBC

When: 10 p.m. Monday

Rating: TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with an advisory for violence)

lorraine.ali@latimes.com

@lorraineali