He's the last surviving Van Helsing, heir to a long family tradition of vampire smiting.

When the call goes out, Luke Rutherford must respond. Week after week after week, he must respond.

So it goes in "Demons," the latest twist on the "Dracula" legend first prodded into eternal undeadness by the pen of Bram (a nickname for Abraham) Stoker in 1897. ("Demons" premieres at 10 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 2, on BBC America. Following episodes will air at 9 p.m. Saturdays.)

"Demons" is quite unlike another recent variation on the vampirical theme, the CW's "Vampire Diaries," in which teen-age vampires struggle with their wickedly bloody proclivities toward fanging people in the neck. And it's not like those all-American, Great Northwest vampires of the "Twilight" tales. "Demons" centers on a London lad called Luke Rutherford (suitably hunky Christian Cooke) whose vocation as a hunter of evil creatures in the netherworld comes as a surprise to him.

"Demons" is also genuinely scary, what with its mischievously energetic evil monkeys, monstrously ugly characters skulking in the shadowy alleys, artfully applied makeup, and constant threats of the most savage sorts of violence. But the mayhem is kept within the traditional limits of British TV. In other words, you'll see just enough goring and slashing and chomping to throw a good scare into you, but not nearly as much as you thought you saw. If the Brits know anything, it's the power of suggestion.

They also have a knack for peppering the most terrifying scenarios with odd dashes of humor. The grisly opening scene in Saturday's pilot is followed by a whimsical, jolly tune on the sound track: "Who's cooking monsters in the kitchen!"

Luke is first informed of his heritage by Rupert Galvin, a wisecracking American (the actually British Philip Glenister, "Life on Mars") who is, he learns later, his godfather. Vampires, werewolves and other such evil creatures are as common as rats in London, Rupert informs him. If people only knew. And, Rupert explains, Luke is the last surviving descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, the vampire hunter first written about by Stoker.

But Van Helsing and Dracula were real, he continues, and so are their progeny.

Vampires, wolfmen and the like are merely a few species among a great variety of pointy-toothed evil creatures, says Rupert. They have many names, he suggests, adding ominously: "We don't name them, we just smite them."

He leads Luke to Van Helsing's vast, lost, underground library, a wood-paneled, brass-lanterned repository of knowledge of evil. But this is not for him, Luke protests. He's a mere student, with classes to attend and exams to take.

It's no use, says Rupert: "They're onto you, they know where you live. You have a destiny, you are the last Van Helsing. Denial is not an option."

They are assisted in their monster-hunting expeditions by Mina Harker (Zoe Tapper), a blind concert pianist equipped with some sort of second sight that tells her when danger is greatest. In the second episode, when a child is taken by Gilgamel, a demon disguised as an angel, it's Mina who knows that "Wherever she went, she went willingly."

But the greatest mystery of all, we know, concerns not the vampires and their friends and allies. We know they will remain undead forever. The big question concerns "Demons" itself. Will it survive into perpetual undeadness, or will it end up just plain dead?