How do you bring new life to a theme or genre that’s tired? One answer is to bring new influences in, the tack that the makers of the Daniel Craig version of Casino Royale took when they wheeled out the James Bond franchise for its latest iteration. The speed and action of the film that resulted clearly owed something to the massive success of The Bourne Identity and its sequels, films which successfully redefined what a spy franchise can do in the post-Berlin Wall and post-Twin Towers era.

Horror films have been faced with a similar dilemma. There’s a danger that werewolves and vampires and other monster staples can feel hackneyed, so what else can be brought to the table? One route is to explicitly explore the horrors that people are capable of inflicting on one another, which was handled with pathos and credibility in Wolf Creek but unfortunately also led to a host of crappy torture porn films such as Hostel and Saw.

But what if you’re still attracted to the old style monsters? Ginger Snaps demonstrated that intelligent ideas about female adolescence could be brought to a werewolf film, in a story that in its own way did for the werewolf what comics writer Alan Moore did for a whole host of horrors in his socially aware run on Swamp Thing.

And now, writer Brandon Seifert and artist Lukas Ketner have reinvigorated the horror comic anew with their title WitchDoctor. In essence, it’s House in a horror setting; the rare conditions explored by the magical medical specialist are vampirism and other forms of monstrosity, framed in a quasi-scientific way that’s a lot of fun to read. The creators have put their demo episode up at www.witchdoctorcomic.com in the hope of attracting publishers, and I wish them luck: it’s a sparky and well-executed concept that’s got the potential to inhabit its own very particular niche with style.

As for how to go about reinvigorating your own concept with the energy of fresher ideas, first look at your core story and decide whether it really does merit the time you’re going to spend on it. If it does, and it’s a new take you’re interested in, check out possible role models by exploring their style and structure: what can you borrow from, say, the new take on Dr Who that will help you to write your proposed security guard drama serial? If it’s family-friendliness, then how exactly does Dr Who manage to attract an audience of whole families, and what of that approach can you emulate in your own script?

This method isn’t, hopefully, about copying: if you learn well from a role model you can incorporate elements of their own success into yours in a way that transcends ripping off. And if not, then so be it; just bear in mind Tom Lehrer’s words: ‘Plagiarise/Let noone else’s work evade your eyes’.