Oct 17 2023 80 mins 4
Stephen Norrington’s Blade sits if you’ll pardon the
pun at the leading edge of big-screen Marvel movies. Not counting Howard The
Duck, the 1998 film is the first Marvel superhero to be given a cinema release
and heralded the wave of X-Men and films and Disney’s cinematic universe.
The film also sits on something of an intersection in 90s
Vampire films; the most successful being Neil Jordan’s Interview With A
Vampire and Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula which place
the vampire as the main protagonist and invite the audience to feel as much
sympathy and they do horror. Meanwhile, Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn
and Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer are reviving the old monster
rally vibe to the genre, making vampire stories a lot more fun.
Buffy the TV series is also injecting a dose of vampire
romance and eroticism which would be dominated in the subsequent decade by The
Vampire Diaries.
In the middle of all this is Blade, himself something of an
intersectional character: neither vampire nor human; at home nowhere and is
cursed to fight until he dies. All told a pretty grim existed magnificently portrayed
by Wesley Snipes. The film spawned two sequels, a spin-off TV show and he will return
to cinemas in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2025.
So there’s plenty to discuss in the latest Action Movie Landfill
edition of the Oddjob Pod. Join Graham, Terry, and Gary as they sharpen their
steel and tuck into Blade.
