Blade

Alternate titles : Dark Force

Tagline : "The power of an immortal. The soul of a human. The heart of a hero"

Not your typical vampire film, "Blade" stars Wesley Snipes as a "funky" kung-fu fighting vampire hunter who goes around wiping out modern day vampires with an array of super high tech weaponry.

Aided by his weapons expert, an old hillbilly named Whistler (played by 70's actor and country singer Kris Kristopherson), and a young nurse named Karen Jensen (N'Bushe Wright), who he previously rescued from a vampire attack. They find themselves doing battle with a power hungry vampire named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) who's planning some kind of vampire apocalypse.

Frost is trying to overthrow the purebloods that govern the vampire world, so that he can enslave humanity by unleashing the blood god La Magra. Of course Blade, who himself is part vampire after his mother was bitten during childbirth, isn't about to let that happen.

So the scene is set for a series of blood filled action packed battle scenes involving martial arts, medieval swords and high-tech machine guns, which should keep your average horror or action movie fan entertained for the full 115mins of the films duration.

Also featuring horror veteran Udo Keir and former "adult" movie star Traci Lords, vampire fans will have a blast!!!!

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines: "Against an army of immortals, one warrior must draw first blood.", "Vampire Hunter", "Sometimes it takes one to kill one.", "Have you given blood lately?", "Part Man. Part Vampire. All Hero".
• The Vampire coven that Blade is battling, 'The House of Erebus' derives it's name from Erebus the Greek god of darkness.
• The film's budget was $42million
• Udo Keir also played Count Dracula in "Andy Warhol's Dracula" (1974) and appeared in the vampire films "Die Einsteiger" (1985), "Modern Vampires"(1998), "Shadow of the Vampire" (2000), "Dracula 3000" (2006) and "Bloodrayne" (2006).
• The film the vampires are watching at Frost's party was Mortal Kombat (1995).
• The German video release was cut by a staggering 14 minutes to receive a "Not under 16" rating. The uncut version was available with a "Not under 18" rating, but owing to German censorship laws means that it can not be advertised and only sold "under-the-counter".
• Rapper LL Cool J was originally considered for the role of "Blade". Co-incidentally, fellow rapper Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones went on to play Blade in the short lived TV spin off.
• The vampire biting the young girls neck at the roadside during the chase with officer Krieger was played by the films director Steven Norrington.
• The script originally had a scene featuring a vampire baby in a jar, which Blade and Whistler were keeping alive to use for testing out weapons on. However, the studio forced them to abandon the idea, as they found it too disturbing.
• The films original ending, which is included as an extra on the US and UK DVD's, showed Frost (Stephen Dorff) turning into a swirling mass of blood after he is taken over by La Magra, rather than keeping his form.

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