Blade (1998)

Blade (1998)

Release Date: August 21, 1998

In 1998, superhero films were in a bad way. Batman and Robin had been released the previous year, and single-handedly destroyed the Batman film franchise at the time, also doing serious damage to the genre. Blade was a much more obscure hero at the time than Batman, with this film being his first major exposure to non-comics reading audiences. The success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the small screen must have been a big help for Blade pre-release.

After a brief prologue of Blade’s mother dying in child birth, the film opens with a vampire rave at an abbatoir. That sentence alone should make it quite clear that this film is a product of the 90s. During the party, the guests are drenched in blood, which lends the scene an almost fetishistic tone, as the dancers writhe around and rub the blood over their bodies. The vampires seem to gain an almost sexual pleasure from blood. The party is crashed when Blade shows up uninvited and decides to be the party pooper by killing several of the guests. The ensuing fight scene has Blade shooting and stabbing at the vampire hordes, baddies disintegrating as they come into contact with Blade’s silver weapons. The accompanying techno soundtrack (another reminder of the 90s) makes this scene feel like a video game, with the scene ending once Blade pins the leader, Quinn, to a wall and sets him on fire.

Quinn’s charred body is taken to the morgue for examination, where we meet our other protagonist, Dr Karen Jenson. While she and her colleague examine the body, Quinn wakes up, thanks to his regenerative capabilities, and kills Karen’s colleague before biting her and fleeing. Blade arrives and takes Karen with him to his hideout, where Blade’s mentor Whistler gives Karen a garlic injection to temporarily halt her vampirification (Is that a word? It is now) while she researches a more permanent cure for herself, and a bottle of Chekhov brand Garlic mace.

Now comes the introduction of the villain of the piece, Deacon Frost. Frost is a member of a vampire council, and the other members aren’t pleased with him for throwing his blood raves, because they attract attention towards vampires. Frost doesn’t listen though, because he’s a bit of a playboy who wants his hedonistic kicks and doesn’t care to follow tradition. As such, he’s working on translating a prophecy relating to the vampire blood god La Magra, despite being told by the rest of the council that it’s impossible. Shows how much they know.

After a run-in with a Deacon Frost’s familiar (a human slave to the vampires) at her apartment in which the mace did nothing because she tried to use it too soon after getting it, Karen decides to tag along with Blade as he infiltrates a building where he believes Frost will be. Another encounter with the familiar proves him right, and in the basement, our heroes meet this lovely looking fellow.

                                                    “I wash myself with a rag on a stick!”

The morbidly obese vampire is Deacon Frost’s researcher, and our heroes learn from him that Frost has translated the prophecy and, with the help of the vampire council and Blade’s blood, he intends to resurrect La Magra, who will turn everyone on Earth into vampires. It doesn’t seem that Frost thought his plan through too well. If everyone in the world is a vampire, how are they going to feed and sustain themselves, since there won’t be any humans left?

The next day, Blade sees Deacon Frost out in daylight. The crafty devil is wearing sunscreen! He offers a truce to Blade, which is predictably turned down. Frost doesn’t take rejection well, as he responds by throwing a small girl into oncoming traffic and while Blade’s distracted with saving her, attacking the hideout where Karen and Whistler have just finished making a chemical that reacts with vampire blood to make them explode. In the attack, Karen is abducted and Whistler is bitten by Quinn, who is working for Frost. Blade arrives just in time for Whistler to tell him where the bad guys went before he kills himself so that he doesn’t turn into a vampire.

The climax begins with Blade kicking ass and taking names, until he is stopped dead in his tracks by a shock reunion with his mother, who has become a vampire, followed by the even more shocking revelation that Deacon Frost was the vampire who bit her while she was pregnant with Blade! 

 Frost takes the opportunity to beat Blade unconscious with sticks while Quinn takes Blade’s shades as a prize. With the slitting of Blade’s wrists (Blood for the Blood God!), the summoning of La Magra begins. The vampire council sacrifice themselves to empower Frost with the powers of La Magra, while Karen rescues Blade and lets him drink her blood to get his strength back. The now very angry Blade makes quick work of his dear old mum, Quinn and the last of the nameless mooks, while Karen dispatches Frost’s girlfriend with her Chekhov brand garlic mace, since enough time has passed now since she got it and the laws of action movies dictate that if there are female villains, at least one must be defeated by the female lead. With the minions defeated, Blade turns his attention to Deacon Frost, who now has super speed and regenerative capabilities that prevent him from being cut in half. However, that doesn’t mean he’s invincible, which Blade realizes when he injects Frost with Karen’s vampire exploding chemicals, making him go boom. Blade precedes this with a one-liner that’s so stupid it’s absolutely brilliant. “Some motherfuckers always try to ice skate uphill.”

The surprising thing about the film is that it doesn’t play up the comic connection much at all, which is quite odd in relation to today’s films. This could be due to Batman and Robin making the phrase “comic book movie” box office poison at the time. Blade’s relative obscurity worked to the film’s advantage in this regard, since general audiences were not familiar with him as a character, and the film could establish itself without having the comic connection hurting it.

The film’s portrayal of Blade is quite different from the comics. In the comics, Blade was a normal human immune to vampirism and had a quirky sense of humour instead of superpowers. This is in contrast to the film, in which he is a Daywalker, a person who has all the abilities of vampires and none of their weaknesses, besides the need to drink blood. He is also portrayed as a stoic badass type for the most part. Deacon Frost is also portrayed differently. In the comics, he’s an old man with white hair, originating from 1860s Germany and with the ability to create doppelgangers of those he bit, and biting the doppelgangers would bring them under his control. The film portrayal of Blade was later carried over to the comics. The other characters are all exclusive to the film, though Whistler was later carried over to the comics.

                                                Deacon Frost as he appears in the comics...

                                              and Deacon Frost as he appears in the film.

The special effects have held up quite well, with the exception of the effect used for the exploding chemicals, which make the victim look like an inflating cancerous balloon before popping gruesomely with blood all over the place. You can almost hear the Mortal Kombat announcer say “Fatality!” after it happens. The fight choreography is also well done, with the fight scenes being fast-paced and exciting to watch, but the viewer is always able to keep track of what’s happening without the camera spasming all over the place. In all, Blade is a highly stylish, though occasionally dated, action film that doesn’t let a lack of substance get in the way of being a fun time to watch. The film did well at the box office, but it did not revive the fortunes of the superhero genre. That would be done by another film that took greater advantage of its heritage, which will be the film we look at next time.

Next Time: 20^th Century Fox get the X factor.

Bonus: The original version of the film’s climax had Deacon Frost transform into a giant blood tornado for the final battle. The scene was altered to have Frost retain his regular form after test audiences responded negatively to the original ending. Personally, I think the ending used in the film is the better one, (the deleted version is lacking in the motherfuckers trying to ice skate uphill department) but here it is for your viewing pleasure anyway.