Blade - Daywalker

In 1998 Marvel brought one of their darker heroes to the Big Screen. Blade was not a major box office success but was the first movie based on a Marvel character to gain a theatrical release in the United States. The film is begins Marvel's big screen success of the past two decades, it also helps to give some credibility to Graphic Novels in cinema since the laughable Batman and Robin, which could have easily destroyed the genre. Blade also effectively created the abundance of high-octane Action-Horror films such as Resident Evil, Underworld and Constantine.

Blade's has some great moments, mixed with some really terrible moments that the directors and special effects people don't get away with.

The opening sequence to Blade is sexy and dark. Tracy Lords character leads a guy to a nightclub behind a butchers shop. There people are dance wildly to 1990's techno and strobe lighting, while showing their true vampire features, soon the human is faced with blood coming from the fire sprinklers, covered in blood he tries to get away from his attackers. Enter Blade ultra-cool and relaxed as the Daywalker gets ready to fight.

N'Bushe Wright character helps to characterise the Vampire world against the Human world. She plays a Doctor who is soon face to face with a Vampire that Blade set on fire. Other characters like the Familiar who follows her home shows the strength and power of the Vampire nation on the rest of the world.

Stephen Dorff plays a moody Vampire (Decon Frost) searching through Vampire legends to help him conquer the human world.

Much of the film is well written, dark and gothic. Some of the special effects date the film. The scene with the librarian and the final battle scene show how much special effects had come in with in just 2 years with the arrival of The X-Men, marvels second foray into Cinema. 

Blade has a number of outcomes on popular culture. The film’s release on DVD began showing the power of the DVD collector in the late 1990s/early 2000s, it returned the Graphic Novel/Superheroes to the Big Screen which had almost been decimated by Batman & Robin one year previously and it started the production of numerous horror action flick franchises.

If they do reboot Blade lets hope they recast Kris Kristopherson as Whistler.