Blade (1998)



Director : Stephen Norrington


Blade is a freak, a half-vampire, half-mortal man who is not really accepted in either world. When vampire Quinn bites a Dr. Karen Jensen at a hospital, Blade brings her back to his place where Abraham Whistler helps him heal her.

In the vampire world, Deacon Frost is the bad guy. He won't lay low, and he gets human politicians all upset. Deacon wants to rule the humans. He says: "These people are our food, not our allies." The vampire counsel tells Frost that they have existed this way for thousands of years. Frost is not a pure blood : he is turned.

Abraham Whistler and Blade hunt evil vampires, and kill them. Blade is chasing Deacon Frost and Deacon Frost wants him too. Whistler tells Dr. Jensen about blade. His mother had been bitten by a vampire while she was pregnant. She died but Blade lived. He could withstand garlic, silver, and sunlight and his has vampire strength, but he age like a human and has a vampire's thirst. He takes a serum that suppresses his thirst but his body is beginning to reject it. Whistler's wife and family had been killed by a vampire,

Deacon puts on some sun block and come out and meets Blade during the day. He tells Blade that he has the best of both worlds and wants to have a truce with him, but Blade wants no part of it. Meanwhile, Karen begins to turn but thinks she may have come up with a serum that will save her.

Deacon then breaks in to Blade's place and beats Whistler almost to death and takes Karen. Whistler tells Blade that Deacon is trying to set off a Vampire Apocalypse aligned with some kind of vampire god. Blade's blood is the key to Deacon's success. Blade gives Whistler his gun so Whistler can kill himself. Blade starts to get his silver bullets and other weapons ready.

Blade attacks with his machine gun silver bullet shooting pistols, his martial arts skills and his titanium sword. Vampire blood is splattered all over the place. But then Blade sees his mother, who is being kept by Deacon, and Blade is soon captured. Deacon brings everyone. including the vampire council, to an ancient structure : The Temple of Eternal Night.

The ceremony in the temple is going to have Blade as a key component. Blade's mother tries to talk her son in to joining the other team. Then the ceremony begins, and the vampires wait for La Magra, the blood god to come and end the age of man. Karen frees Blade and then Blade bites Karen to get some serum and get healthy. Blade kills his mother, and then he goes for Deacon.

But is Blade a superhero? The vampire movies are a different sub-genre than the superhero movies, but I think that Blade qualifies as a superhero. He suffers greatly to take a serum that will keep him from becoming a vampire. He also has vampire strength and healing powers. He has a choice and like most of the superheroes on this page he has decided to do what he can to make life better for humanity.

A good movie, not a traditional superhero movie, but it was close enough that I decided to include it too. It has a much better story than most of the superhero movies, and was very well done on all levels. What I especially liked is that they played the movie straight : not much comedy here.