Blade

Blade

Released: 1998

MPAA: R

Genre: Vampire

Nuts and Bolts: Blade is half human/half vampire; also known as the Daywalker. His partner Whistler and he wage a war against the vampire nation. Blade must stop renegade vampire Deacon Frost from harvesting the powers of the vampire God LaMagra before he succeeds in taking over the world.

Summary: This summary is kind of long, but Goddamn it…I think it deserves it.

We kick this party off with a little flashback courtesy of the year 1967. A young woman named Vanessa Brooks is brought into a metropolitan general hospital (presumably New York). She is dying and she is also with child. The doctors are forced to perform a Caesarian but poor Vanessa dies in the process. But they save the child and we see Blade back when he was only a little nail file.

Flash forward to the present. It’s New York City and we find a dork named Heatseeker Dennis who’s looking to score. He meets up with former porno slut Traci Lords who brings him to a party. The place is jumping. Techno music and sweaty bodies are writhing all over the place. Dennis tries to fit in but gets bumped around quite a bit. He even has a near fatal encounter with a very stern looking young man named Deacon Frost. Before long, the music reaches a crescendo and everyone raise their hands towards the ceiling. As Dennis looks up he notices the sprinklers turn on but it’s not 20 years worth of stagnant reclaimed water that comes spurting out…oh no no no. It’s BLOOD! We got ourselves a literal fucking bloodbath as the entire room is revealed to be a nest of vampires! Apparently Dennis is the only one here that doesn’t have a strict dietary regiment. The vamps proceed to kick the crap out of him until suddenly the music cuts off. All eyes turn towards the baddest looking motherfucker to stroll down the pike since Richard Roundtree. This is Blade (Wesley Snipes). He’s got his sword and his irons and apparently an extremely blood-resistant leather jacket. Now we kick this puppy into full gear. Blade is here for one reason and its not to chew gum. Just as someone slides a new techno track into the CD changer, Blade bursts into a flurry of martial arts moves. He doesn’t discriminate too much either. He’ll settle for shooting a vampire with a face full of garlic filled bullets just as easily as he would drive a ten inch silver spike into their chest. After whooping the shit out of 20 or 30 vampires, a new player enters the mix. This is Quinn. Quinn is the wisecracking major domo to the vampire nation’s premier bad boy Deacon Frost. Quinn tries attacking Blade, but he is no match for him. Blade pins him to the wall with two metal spikes. He then sets him on fire. As the police arrive, Blade disappears.

Quinn’s charred remains are taken to the morgue at the local hospital. Here we meet mortician Curtis Webb and his ex-girlfriend the hematologist Karen Jensen. Curtis shows Karen Quinn’s body in an effort to get back with her. (A real Don Juan ain’t he?) As the two talk, Quinn comes to and chomps Curtis good and proper on the jugular. He then jumps on Karen. He sinks his fangs into her but he doesn’t get the chance to finish her off. Blade enters the hospital to finish Quinn off. The two get into a brief fight in which Blade cuts off Quinn’s arm. The crispy vamp decides to get the hell out of Dodge and leaps from the window to freedom. At about this time, the local PD bust up into the joint. They see Blade as the most pertinent threat and open fire on him. Blade grabs Karen and leaps from the hospital window to a building across the street.

He takes her back to an old abandoned factory. This is Blade’s secret headquarters. It’s not exactly the Chez Paul. Here we meet Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). Whistler is the Alfred to Blade’s Batman. He’s a cantankerous old fuck with a bum leg who’s dying of cancer. Whistler is the one who started the entire human rebellion against the vampire nation. He injects Karen with a serum containing essence of garlic. He hopes that this will keep her from turning into a vampire.

Now at about this time we finally meet this vampire nation that I keep yammering on about. Across town in a darkened boardroom we meet Griatano Dragonetti (Udo Kier). Dragonetti is the leader of the House of Barabus and is instrumental in establishing the invisible truce between the vampire nation and many of the human factions in power. Dragonetti surrounds himself with 12 other esteemed vampires known as Purebloods. A pureblood is a person who was born a vampire and they typically thumb their nose at anyone who became a vampire through alternative means. This is where we bring in Deacon Frost. Deacon is the James Dean of the underworld. He aggressively opposes Dragonetti and believes that peace between humans and vamps is ludicrous. Humans are food; pure and simple. Dragonetti is pissed at Deacon because his nightclubs are drawing too much attention to the vampire nation’s efforts. All right, enough about these guys…let’s get back to the star of this flick.

Blade meanwhile suffers from a bizarre malady himself. You see, his mother was attacked and bitten by a vampire when she died. As such, some of the vampire genetic material imprinted on Blade when he was still in the womb. He is half human/half vampire. Although he suffers from vampiric thirst, he suffers none of their weaknesses. In order to combat the thirst, he injects himself with the afore-mentioned essence of garlic. But Blade has found that he’s built up a tolerance for the drug and requires larger doses. He buys some garlic juice from one of his vampire stomping homies and returns to the garage to get his ‘fix’.

Now while Blade, Whistler and Karen get chummy and exchange canisters of vampire mace, Frost is back at the vampire nation’s sacred archives, which is inside of a blood clinic near a nightclub. Frost is downloading microfiche images of ancient vampire text from the Book of Erebus, the pages of which can be found inside the archive vaults. Frost believes the text will show him the mean by which to acquire the power of LaMagra, an ancient vampire God. Dragonetti enters the room and berates Frost for being a half-breed. This scene is really little more than some extra exposition illustrating the enmity between Frost and the rest of the Purebloods.

Meanwhile, Blade takes Karen back to her house. He drops her off and leaves. As Karen is packing her things getting ready to leave town, she finds Police officer Krieger at her door. Krieger is checking on her because he heard that she was kidnapped from the hospital. Karen quickly discovers that Krieger is a vampire familiar which is an avant-garde way of saying he’s Deacon Frost’s buttslurper. Krieger attacks Karen but don’t worry Blade enters the scene. Blade winds up doing more damage to Karen’s apartment than he does to Krieger. He lets the little pussy escape in the hopes of tracking him back to Frost.

Sure enough, later that night Blade and Karen track Krieger down to a nightclub. The club is actually a façade for a blood clinic that is run by Dragonetti’s men. The two bust up in there and fight their way past some of Frost’s stooges. In the back of the clinic is where they find the vampire archives. Blade lets Krieger go knowing that he will be running back to Frost himself. Inside the archives we find Pearl. Pearl is the grossest looking fat ass festering pile of monkey nuts I’ve ever seen in my life. This freak makes Jabba the Hutt look like Callista Flockhart. His tits alone could feed a small nation. Blade squeezes pearl for information and learns that Frost intends on invoking the power of LaMagra. With such power, he would turn all of humanity into his vampire servants. He also finds a vault containing the pages to the ancient Book of Erebus. Karen does the world a favor and turns a high-powered UV lamp on Pearl incinerating it.

By this point, Krieger has reported his findings to Frost. Frost is at his penthouse estate with Quinn and his albino hottie Mercury. Frost thinks Krieger is an idiot for leading Blade to the archives. He throats him and sends Quinn to take care of Blade.

Quinn’s men show up at the archives and another donnybrook ensues. Blade is nearly beaten except for the timely arrival of Whistler. Whistler is armed with automatic weapons and explosives and pretty much wipes out a healthy contingent of Quinn’s men. Quinn chases Blade and Karen onto the subway where Blade cuts off Quinn’s arm for a second time. (His arm had since grown back between the scene in the hospital and now.) The heroes are safe.

A few days later, Frost and his crew decided that they have had enough of Dragonetti. They kidnap him and take him out onto the beach. Frost wrenches Dragonetti’s fangs out with a pair of pliars and leaves him to bake in the morning sunset. But don’t worry about our boy Frost. He’s protected by Sunblock 5000! He later tries to call a truce with Blade but our hero ain’t buying it. The two meet face to face for the first time in a city park. Frost escapes by throwing a small child into the path of an oncoming bus forcing Blade to abandon pursuit in favor of rescuing her.

But Frost now knows where Blade lives! His cronies and he go down to the garage before Blade gets a chance to return home. The only ones there are Whistler and Karen. Now while Whistler may be as tough an ornery as Willie Nelson on crack, he can’t hold his own against nine vampires. They beat the shit out of him and Frost puts the bite on him. He kidnaps Karen and leaves a videotape inviting Blade to the Edgewood Towers. Blade finally returns home to find the broken and bloody Whistler. The old man knows that he will soon turn into a vampire and asks for Blade’s gun. Blade gives his friend his weapon and walks away. A shot rings out and Whistler appears dead.

Blade heads off towards the Edgewood towers. He knows he’s walking into a trap but he has to save Karen. Frost needs Blade for his resurrection ritual. In order to summon LaMagra, he must first sacrifice the souls of 12 purebloods. But the ritual cannot be conducted without the keystone ingredient; the blood of the Daywalker. (For those of you just joining in…Blade is the Daywalker.) Homeboy busts up into the crib and faces off with two ninja vampires. He experiments with a weapon that Karen had developed for him earlier. By introducing EDTA anti-coagulants into the bloodstream of a vampire, one can cause them to swell up and explode like a puppy in a microwave. Blade launches the EDTA needles into the two vamps and they soon find their own bodies have become suitable replacements for wallpaper. But now a new equation has entered the mix. Blade meets up with the one person he never thought he’d see again; his MOM!

Yup. Good ole Vanessa is a vampire. And to make matters worse, Blade learns that Frost is the one responsible for her transformation all those years ago! Blade is eventually captured and Frost takes away his EDTA darts and his sword. (He mistakenly believes that the darts are actually his garlic serum.) They lock Blade up in this large coffin equipped with razors that slowly slice open his wrists.

Now we come to culmination of the vampire nation’s machinations. (Say THAT five times real fast) Beneath the Edgewood Towers is the Temple of Eternal Night. What! LOTS of Metropolitan cities have ancient cavernous vampire temples buried beneath their streets! Anywho…Frost and his goons gather up the remaining 12 purebloods of the Vampire hierarchy. They line them up in the chamber about a circle of glyphs. Meanwhile upstairs, Blade’s blood runs through a small gully in the coffin down into the temple. The blood drips down from the ceiling onto Frost and thus the ritual can now begin. The spirits of the purebloods rip from their mortal housings and begin flurrying about the place. They look like overgrown man-bat skeletons. Frost absorbs the power from the spirits and begins transforming into LaMagra.

Meanwhile, Karen has freed herself from her dungeon and finds Blade. She frees him from the coffin but he is REALLY weak. She forces him to drink from her in order to get his strength back. He does so and embraces the vampiric side of his personality. Now its time to get rid of mom. Blade encounters his mother and says, “I must release you” right before burying a bone shard into her chest. Bye mum. We hardly knew ye.

So let’s bring everything up to speed. The vampire lords are dead. Mom is dead and Blade is more pissed off then ever. Now its time for the final showdown. We know this because the techno music kicks in again. Blade beats feet towards the temple and encounters Quinn. Quinn has a new arm and he’s ready to use it. The two fly towards one another and Blade uses some kind of nylon ripcord to take Quinn’s head off. While all this is going on, Karen is up on the parapets taking care of Frost’s little she-slut Mercury. She sprays Mercury with the vampire mace and chicky’s head explodes. Now its just Frost and Blade.

Forget Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she ain’t got shit on our man Snipes. The two combatants fly into a whirlwind of frenetic blows. Frost now has the power of LaMagra so he is more than a match for Blade. Blade realizes this when he cuts Frost in two and the pieces re-congeal themselves almost instantly. I really can’t say anything that does this fight any justice. Let’s just say it kicks ass and leave it at that. In the end, Blade manages to recover his EDTA darts. He launches the entire volley of them into Frost and even samurai kicks one into his forehead. Apparently the power of LaMagra is not enough to counter the affects of a bunch of anti-coagulants. Imagine what it would look like if you took a bunch of babies and super glued them all together and threw the entire mess into a vat of boiling vegetable oil. If you can picture that in your mind, then you might get a clue as to what Deacon Frost ends up looking like. What can I say? Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.

Lastly, we have a little epilogue. Blade shows up in Russia. Apparently he has been taking his garlic serum and he is back to fighting form. He encounters a snarky little vampire getting ready to put the bite on a young Russian woman. Just another day in the life of Blade the vampire slayer.

Acting/Dialogue: Snipes is kind of disappointing in this one. Sure he kicks a lot of vampire ass, but he really doesn’t bring too much more to the table. Aside from a few grunts and groans, he really doesn’t really offer much in the way of dialogue. Kris Kristofferson seems to be his sound piece for this flick as he is the one through which we learn about Blade and his relationship to the vampire nation. Steven Dorff really shines as the villain Deacon Frost. He really comes through in illustrating the rise of the ‘new’ age vampire. Here’s a guy who is totally in control. He knows he’s superior to the other vampires but he just lets them carry on with their faux sophistication. It’s great seeing that Frost is an extremely animated character while at the same time a person of extreme patience and calculation.

Gore: Plenty of good stuff here. Most of the gore comes by way of computer-generated effects, but I don’t feel as if they hamstring the movie any. The movie kicks off with a pretty overwhelming scene of vampires being sprayed down with sprinklers of blood. I mean…the shit is EVERYWHERE! There’s an equally gruesome looking segment later on when Deacon’s face is covered in blood and he begins sucking face with gal-pal Mercury. Nothing much in the way of intestinal gore, but there’s plenty of red to satiate the appetite of any splatter-fan.

Guilty Pleasures: Remarkably, I don’t recall any female nudity in this. There ARE some scantily clad women and we do see a scene where some chick is slurping on Quinn’s pecker. But that’s pretty much it unless you count Pearl. Truth be told, I’m not even sure what gender Pearl is supposed to be. Women may delight to seeing the shirtless Wesley Snipes flexing his pecs though.

The Good: What can I say? This is one of the most kick ass vampire flicks ever made. I don’t really classify it as a horror movie since its primary intent is to excite rather than horrify. But as a supernatural action/drama you can’t beat it. Too often in Hollywood, producers try to ‘wow’ the audience by making their vampires more and more unbelievably grotesque with each new film. I suppose that in their puerile herd mentality they believe that gross=good. From Dusk Till Dawn is a good example of this. As much as I love the film, the vampires look ridiculous. They are so over the top that they cease to be characters at all whatsoever and become little more than a special effects coordinator’s equilivant to a cum shot I prefer my vamps to be closer to the side of humanity; some subtle fang work, a piercing gaze and a haunting expression. That’s all that’s required. After all, it’s the internal characterization that elevates the intensity of the personality, not the amount of latex. And with that, I think Blade nails it balls-to-the-wall. Even periphery characters like Quinn, Mercury and Dragonetti have adequately defined personalities. From the onset you get a solid feel for each vamp and can easily define their goals and motivation. Frost is clearly a sociopath. He works towards the betterment of the vampire nation and yet he finds himself superior to his elders. It is clear that he harbors a lot of frustration and envy over the fact that the power players are purebloods and he is merely a half-breed. He is constantly shown throughout the film exorcising his strength over others. The few moments when he actually lets his anger shine through speaks volumes about the character. Even Quinn has a stable profile. Like Frost, Quinn is a take-no-prisoners bad ass. But despite his strength, he really is a follower and could never responsibly negotiate the vampire protocols. Its no wonder that he signed on with Frost’s brood. (Although in all likelihood Frost was the one who turned Quinn into a vampire in the first place even though this is never shown in the film.)

Let’s move on to Blade himself. Blade is a man of few words and the viewer doesn’t really seem to mind that too much. Let’s face it, its not like we pay our seven bucks in order to watch Snipes recite Walt Whitman. He’s here for one purpose and that is to kick some ass. Snipes’ moves are very fluid and powerful. I give him props merely for being able to execute some convincing martial arts maneuvers while wearing a heavy ass trench coat. What I like about the fight scenes is that they don’t necessarily follow your typical Kung Fu formula. Anyone who has ever watched Black Belt Theatre as a child knows that a circle of villains will engage the hero but for reasons that not even Sonny Chiba can fathom, they only attack one at a time. With Blade, we typically see at least two if not three villains dog-piling our boy at any given turn. Blade is very swift and his movements show that he is 100% aware of his surrounding and in control of the situation. This is not to say that Snipes is some martial arts demigod, but on a cinematic level, his work proves to be crisp and entertaining.

I have recently come to re-evaluate my perception on Blade’s personality. Initially I had written a rather prosy dossier concerning his apparent lack of character. But after reading my own words back to myself I realized that his stoic emotionless countenance actually works in an ironically literary fashion. More than anything, Blade is a character who is at war with himself. He injects himself with essence of garlic in order to stave off his own natural predatory vampiric urges. He himself states that he is not human. He is something else. Psychologically, he views himself as being less than human and struggles to regain his humanity through his crusade. But in effect, he has actually achieved the exact opposite. The heavy-duty Kevlar vest that he wears isn’t nearly as impenetrable as the shield he has placed over his own humanity. He is completely devoid of emotion and as such has less in common with baseline humanity than the vampires he strives to destroy. The most poignant example of this occurs after the death of Whistler. This is a man who for all intents and purposes is Blade’s best friend and father. Blade walks away and doesn’t even blink an eye when he hears the gunshot ending Whistler’s life. The only way he can ‘human’ again is by giving in to his primal lusts. I suppose I could get poetic right about now and say that Blade’s characterization and emotional trauma is a reflection of the downfall of modern society…but ultimately I’d rather just think that this is a kick ass vampire flick.

If you want introspection go watch the fucking Piano or some other artsy type of coffeehouse bullshit. But if you want a high-octane visceral plunge into escapism, then go rent Blade. You won’t be sorry.

The Bad: Typically, I like a story that has no loose ends. I admire a screenwriter who can block out his work in such a way that everything has its place and works toward the common goal of the story. I can appreciate a sense of closure and I regard as a feather in one’s cap if they can tie everything up in one neat tidy little package complete with a sparkly red and golden bow. But sometimes that bow can tied just a little too tight. Coincidence seems to go a long way towards the mechanics of this story, and the absence of random occurrence appears to rob it of a portion of its realism.

Take for example, the ritual of LaMagra. Okay, first it calls for the spirits of 12 pureblood vampires right? Well, that’s easy enough to do. Just make sure you keep your enemies close to you at all times. But it also requires the blood of the Daywalker (or chosen one) to activate it. This is where suspension of disbelief is pulled towards its absolute breaking point. Frost is conducting his ritual and lo and behold, there just HAPPENS to be a Daywalker in the city. Convenient eh? And then there’s that niggling coincidence of the fact that the premier vampire that Blade is stalking just HAPPENS to be the guy that throated his mom back in 1967. When that little nugget was revealed I thought for sure that they were going to replay the whole “I made you/You made me” sequence from Batman. I also thought it was kind of odd that Frost was the only vamp capable of translating the Book of Erebus. Didn’t the other vampires KNOW what he was doing? Or did they simply not care. Dragonetti struck me as being a pretty savvy businessman so I have a hard time believing that he would merely ignore Frost’s activities. Granted, he thumbed his nose at him for being a half-breed but Frost had already shown Dragonetti that he is a force to be reckoned with. And then of course there’s the whole Temple of Eternal Night. Once again, a grand coincidence that Frost should conduct his ritual within a city that just HAPPENS to have this big ass cavernous temple buried beneath its streets.

There’s a really glaring blooper, which kind of fucks everything up. As mentioned before, Frost requires 12 purebloods in order to raise LaMagra. But just prior to the ritual Mercury drop kicks one of the vamp elders destroying him! So now they are down by one. Wouldn’t Frost realize that the ritual isn’t going to work with only 11 purebloods? Or did they have a couple of pinch-hitters waiting in the dugout in case one of the elders was a no-show?

Overall, there is nothing in this film that I don’t find unforgivable. Well…except for maybe Pearl. That was just nasty. Blade is a film designed for action gurus and comic book fanboys. When rating it against other vamp films, you could do a whole helluva lot worse and you’d probably be hard pressed to do better.

Great Lines:

“Mother fucker are you out of your damned mind?” --Blade’s response to being shot at by a local SWAT team.

“For fuck’s sake these people are our food!” --Frost arguing with Dragonetti.

“I wanna be naughty; a naughty vampire God!” --Quinn reveling in his promised power.

“You’re nothing but a virus; a sexually transmitted disease.” --Karen Jensen describing her views on vampirism to Frost.

“Tonight the age of man comes to an end.” --Frost preparing for the ritual.

"Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill." --Blade's final words to Frost.

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 severed heads.

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