Okay, here's the deal. On the whole, there's nothing like a good vampire movie. There's just somethin' cooly appealing about the whole vampire mystique, you know? Those vamp recruiters have the perfect ad, don't they? You get nice clothes, you get to stay up late and sleep all day, and you always seem to get pretty nice housing, for some reason. No vampire worth his salt lives in a split-level duplex. They always get a towering mansion, or a kickin' castle, or Bayou plantations. Okay, there's the occasional crypt or two, but it's just like camping out.
But, there are always the drawbacks. One, the whole scheme on the diet? Sorry. If there's not a chili-double-cheeseburger mixed in there somewhere, I ain't gonna be a part of it. Two, let's talk about these freakazoids that always have to be the vampire's helper. Renfield? Jeez, who needs the constant yappin' of a bug-eatin' nutcase if you're gonna be eternal? Imagine hearing that goofy laugh for the next three hundred years? It'd be like fingernails on a chalkboard after about a month! Three, the thing with the mirrors? Now, how are you s'posed to shave when you can't see yourself? No movie vampire ever has a beard, but they can't use a mirror. And how can you work that widow's peak without a mirror? From memory? I mean, really....
The fourth thing is the kicker, though. There's always somebody out there that will feel the need to put a 2x4 through you. How is that working out? No matter where you go, there's always some "vampire hunter" in town that knows all the tricks, all the legends, and is ready to slap the pine to you, or, ash, as the legends go. No fair, eh? You got enough problems with no mirrors, the freaky sidekicks, and the liquid diet, now you got somebody trying to nail you to your bed with a fence post. Get a new hobby, dude! Buy a novel! Collect stamps! Hunting the undead is what you do in your spare time? Get cable TV!
But, if you couldn't be a vampire, being a vampire hunter would be pretty cool, I guess. If, of course, you could be all suave and slick like Peter Cushing in those Hammer Studios movies. Pete could fight off three lesbian vampire women, and the Big Daddy Vamp, and never, repeat, never let his upper lip sweat. He'd just crack out the vials of holy water and commence to flingin' it everywhere. Always seemed to me that drinking it would assure you of no hickeys, but.... Then The Cush-man would break out his collection of crosses, and that'd be it. Forehead tattoos for everyone. Then, the coup de gras, he busts out the lumber and the mallet and tacked them bad boys into their bunk beds. I saw Peter get bitten himself once. Didn't throw him a bit. He slapped a red-hot poker to the bite, doused it in holy water, wrapped his neck up with a wool scarf, and kept right on. Pete! You da MAN!
These days, though, you gotta have more flash with your hunting skills. Buffy's doing her thing in the schoolyard, sportin' tight pants and tearing her way through the high school vampire trade, and, now, for the big city, you get Wesley Snipes as Blade. He's a high-tech hunter with Mortal Kombat fighting techniques and a little secret that keeps him a cut above the rest of the hunters. He also makes a pretty decent little movie, too.
Blade (Snipes) is a superhero of an entirely different breed. His mother was bitten by a vampire and died giving birth to him. He's half-human and half-vampire. Sunlight doesn't bother him much, but the diet is still there. He does, though, make full use of the vampire's superhuman strength. He has devoted his life to wiping out the undead, no matter what. His sidekick is much better than Renfield, too. Abraham Whistler, played by Kris Kristofferson, is like some cross between James Bond's Q and Rocky's Burgess Meredith. He trains Blade, and invents all this high-tech stuff for his war with the nosferatu.
But, for every good guy, there's a bad guy. Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) is a new-wave vampire that wants to overthrow the vampire aristocracy and become the ruler of a vampire nation. See, there's a rule that, if you were born a vampire, you're in the ruling class. Deacon was "turned" by being bitten. The "turners" are the blue-collar vampires. Deacon ain't too fond of serving, he wants to be served, and he plans to lead the way to the new future of Vampirism, and his plans include Blade.
There's a lot to like about this thing, people, believe it or not. What could've come across as another half-baked horror flick does some interesting things. Blade is based on an early-'70s comic book hero, and this movie recognizes the comic book universe in which Frost and Blade exist. There's a lot more to it these days than mirrors and bats and stakes these days. To battle "nocturnus humanus," as the movie calls the vampire species, silver stakes are prime weapons. The odor of garlic can send a vampire into anabolic shock. Fill hollow-point bullets with garlic, and you can blow a vampire away, providing you aim for the heart and the head. Touches like these make this thing a little different than the usual, and it's a welcome change. Much like Kathryn Bigelow did with her movie, Near Dark, they alter the classic mythology, and make the presence a newer threat. Bigelow even made vampirism curable! Blade doesn't go that far, but it still adds some flair to what has become pretty standard stuff.
But, alas, there's also the continuing problem of trying to make a high-concept action movie into something worthy of a good actor. Snipes is buffed up better than ever, and he's sports some top-drawer martial arts moves. He looks and fights like a superhero, and he has a demonic glare that could cut glass. He wears his shades and badass leather coat like a pro. But he's barely flexing his talent here. He moves like Jackie Chan, he has quiet skill like Jet Li, but there's no other need to brag. Dorff, who I thought was going to break out a few years ago with Backbeat and S.F.W., is running on a tank full of attitude and some really bad hair problems. (By the way, are Brad Pitt and Matt Damon the only two "young lions" of new actors that know what shampoo is?) And, for the record, Kris Kristofferson's best performance is still in Lone Star. Here, he's a gravel-voiced set decoration.
There's your basic requirement of bloodletting and some shock tactic visual effects, but the main treat visually is watching Snipes go through his Van Damme catalogue of moves. His work with a katana is also pretty cool. But, it brings a question to mind that I'm betting is a major whispering point in some camps. Wesley has had a few clunkers here lately. Is this what it appears to be, a screaming attempt to buy into a series character, like Harrison Ford seems to be so good at? For every Jack Ryan or Indiana Jones or Han Solo, he gets better offers at non-series stuff like Air Force One and Regarding Henry. He keeps his name in the air with the series stuff, and he gets the chance to do the better stuff by being box office sweetness. If this thing catches on, and Wesley can make a couple of more that do well, he's back in the sugar bowl, like he was after New Jack City and Mo' Better Blues. Now, he's still weathering Passenger 57 and The Fan. He's in that limbo where Patrick Swayze lives right now. A couple more bad decisions in scripts, he's scouting out offers for independent features and TV cop shows.
Look, I'm not going to declare this thing a masterpiece, and you wouldn't believe me if I did. It is, however, a pretty spicey action flick with some neat twists on the vampire myth. If you like your horror with some salsa and a few round kicks to the head, give Blade a try. It's not as over-the-top as From Dusk Till Dawn, but what could be? Sit back and watch the fangs and feet fly. Anyway, any movie that features Traci Lords still lookin' that good is all right in my book.
Image copyright New Line.
|
in for observation