Comic Horror Fest - Blade (1998) feat. Paul Waller - A Year in Horror podcast - Midnight Viewing

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You better wake up. The world you live in is
just a sugar coated topic. There is another world, the
real world. For thousands of years, they have existed among us.

(01:15):
You keep your eyes open there everywhere. Chances are you're
seeing him yourself and didn't know it. A secret nation.
Our livelihot depends on our ability to blend in with
the lust for power. We should be ruling the humans.
These people are our food. They've got their claws into everything, politics, finance,
real estate. There's a war going on out there. He

(01:38):
makes the weapons. I use the word now. One will
lead them to conquer mankind. Tonight the age of man
comes to an end. We're gonna be gods, and one
will try to stop him dead. There were things out
tonight than vampires, like me.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Attacked by the vampire while she was pregnant, half immortal.
He got the best of both worlds, all our strings,
none of our weaknesses.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
He is their greatest fear and our only hope. So
open Season of Vampires. Wesley snips Stephen Dora one of

(02:35):
them a blade boy.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
What an exciting trailer, and it really tells everything you
needed to know. Through dialogue. Paul, I have a theory.
If you can make a fantastic radio ad for your
film based solely on dialogue, letting everyone know who all
the characters are and what the plot is, you've probably
got a terrible screenplay.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
That wouldn't be a theory, that'd be a fact.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Such is the case here, all right, listen, this is
a new fest, a brand new fest. HP is on
vacation because he does not like horror. I'm pulling in
an array from the galaxy of horror podcasting stars to
talk about horror movies based on horror comic books.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
How fucking niche is that?

Speaker 2 (03:36):
And I can't think of anybody anybody better to start
the entire process off with me, then mister year in
Horror himself, mister Paul Waller, how are.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
You, Paul? Ah? What an intro? What a smashing voice
you've got, sir, And yeah, I do love it. When ever,
I speak to our fellow friend Lono, who goes, please
don't start liking father Malone more than me. So, yeah,
more than happy to be back with you. And yeah,
Stephen Norington's he's delivereds a film for the ages here.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Now, okay, we aren't talking blade, we're gonna start this
off with Blade Everybody, Blade, which came out in nineteen
ninety eight August twenty first, nineteen ninety eight, one hundred
and twenty minutes, forty five million dollar budget, pulled in
one hundred and thirty one million dollars. People will tell
you that this is the actual start of the Marvel
cinematic universe. Prior to this, there were no incarnations. That's wrong.

(04:29):
There was Howard the Duck before this. Before that, there
was the Doctor Strange television movie or the Captain America
TV movies. There have always been cinematic adaptations of Marvel films. Okay,
in some way, shape or form, not everything has to
be a landmark. Nevertheless, this motherfucking film is a motherfucking
landmark because it might be the first time that a

(04:49):
non traditional superhero hit the big screen in such a
way that was actually goddamn decent. Paul, Yeah, yeah, take
me back to nineteen ninety eight, would you where are you,
Paul Waller? Culturally? What are you wearing? Who are you
listening to? What are you going to see at the movies?

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Okay, I was. I can tell you exactly what was
going on. I discovered hardcore. It was the likes of
I don't know. The first thing was Nirvana, and when
that had finished, I was like, right, that list Kirk
Bain's given us, That's what I'm going to do with
my life. And I discovered underground American indie music and
hardcore and I got so heavily into hardcore and emo

(05:32):
with that very first wave bands that people will have
never heard of. But like, I was just obsessed with
this stuff. I was so desperate I formed a band
and when we were on tour, Blade was one of
the watches that we did. It was nineteen ninety nine
in fact, when I first saw Blade and we were

(05:53):
on tour and we were in Germany at the time.
With this's a VHS, I think it must have been like,
it's a bit vague that, but it no, Maybe it
wasn't because we watched it in English, so yeah, and
we were in Germany, so maybe it was. I don't know,
but either way, we watched it late one night and

(06:14):
the rest of the band were just like you know
when you leave a cinema and you're so excited about
what you've seen and you're reenacting little parts and things
like that. The rest of the tour was then being
Blade and it was so annoying.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
That's fucking fantastic, man, I love that. Yeah, for me,
I saw Blade when it came out. I've been a
Blaede fan for a long time. But before I delve
in any of that fucking autobiographical bullshit, I gotta ask you, what,
at this point, you're seeing Blade for the first time,
did you know Blaede was a comic book character.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
I did, Yeah, I did, thanks to things like Empire
magazine and things like that. I also knew it was
a horror as well, although like from what my friends
were sort of saying, it wasn't that they were like
even in the comics, it really is, right, Oh yeah,
it's a horror comic. But yeah, to be honest with you,
I knew like a little bit of the history with

(07:08):
it because of that Empire article that had come out,
and it was something that I did want to see,
but I didn't want to go to the cinema, and
I had free cinema tickets where I lived, so it
was that much of an effort not to actually go
and see it. I was just not bothered.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Wow, that's incredible. Note they do need to bring up
a couple of things here. This will let you know
where Blade was for me in nineteen ninety eight when
this movie came out, because I've been an avid reader
of the comic for fucking Ever's.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Going to be such a nerd here, I can't write.
Let's do it all right now. Listen.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
In the Marvel universe, all evil comes from their version
of the Necronomicon. It's called the Dark Hole. So this
evil book and the book begat the first vampire. His
name was Varney, and then he gave us Dracula, and
then Dracula was the ruler of vampires in the Marvel universe.
He got his own comic book in nineteen seventy one

(08:04):
called Tomb of Dracula, where he became the antagonist. But
really he's the protagonist. But we can't really say he's
the protagonist because he drinks blood and he's trying to
take over the world. So what they had was this
trio of vampire hunters and they're chasing Dracula all around
the globe. A couple of years in the comic is

(08:25):
taken over by a guy named Marv Wolfman. No joke, Well,
Marv Wolfman and his first order of business is to
introduce While the characters are traveling across Europe, they stop
in London and there they meet Blade. He's black and
he's English. I'm gonna say that again, everybody, Blade is English.

(08:47):
He's from London.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now, Blade is not an ally of this trio of
vampire hunters. He's just his own independent contractor. He's out
to fucking kill Dracula. And he gets his name because
he uses these teak wooden daggers that he throws.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
And okay, this.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Gid's even weirder man right, So his origin is the
same in the comics. His mom was bitten while she
was pregnant and that imbued him with powers, except he's
not a vampire at all in the comics. What he
is immune to the vampire infection. If a vampire bites him,
he'll still be human, and he can sense when evil

(09:31):
is around, so basically he has incorruptible blood. Now, throughout
the seventies, Blade would pop up in comics here and there,
but by the eighties he completely disappeared for a very
good reason, because vampires were banished from the Marvel universe
for the entirety of the nineteen eighties, Doctor Strange just
got sick of them and got hold of the Dark

(09:51):
Hold and he banished them, so we wouldn't see Blade
again until the late nineteen eighties, where he shows back
up with a group calling them selves the night Stalkers,
which is again, this is Hannibal King and Frank Drake
that was the third from the other, right. Now, Hannibal
King is a vampire himself, and Frank Drake is the
last living relative of Dracula. So before Dracula was turned,

(10:15):
he still had a bloodline and this is his last guy, right.
So they formed this trio called the night Stalkers who
are hunting just they're basically it's like the X Files, okay,
because there are no vampires, so they're hunting demons and shit.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Now there's this.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Whole other group of superheroes that are all the dark
versions of Marvel. So we got two versions of ghost Rider,
we got Morbius, the Living Vampire, and oh and Doctor
Strange himself. They all get together with the Knight Snalckers
and they form a group called the Midnight Suns who
have to defeat Lilith. It's a great fucking run of comics.

(10:49):
Everyone should be reading these They were fucking great, right.
Basically that ends, vampires end up getting reintroduced. At the
end of it, Blade gets his own series, and this
is when he gets the attention of Avi A Rod
who's running Marvel and trying to sell off properties and movies,
who brings it to David Goyer, who's the screenwriter of

(11:09):
this movie. And David Goyer sees this as an opportunity
to make a superhero movie without a real superhero, and
to create a because the Blade's history is still vague
at this point, vague enough where he can turn him
into something else. So what you end up getting is
and this happens rarely, but it happens more in comics
than any other sort of media. The movie comes out

(11:32):
and is so influential that they go back and rewrite
the character. So now Blade is a vampire day walker
who has to feed on blood in the comics, where
up until nineteen ninety eight he was not.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Okay, isn't this going against your the rules though of
this series? With I take it this is episode one,
so you've already gone against the rules. So no, this
is comic adaptations. There's no rule at play here.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
This is I want to see what they do with it,
and if what they do with it is good, then
I'm going to continue to praise it.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
And what David Goyer did here was great.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Man because he took this character and gave us a
real world version of the vampires, and then he built
on top of it what we end up getting in
this film with the House of Arabas.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
And the Twelve Clans and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
That's all Dave Goyer, and that's what this series needed overall.
So like his contribution to it, the film ends up
being as important as the comic itself, except the comic
still stands. Here's the thing, this is so comic Bookie.
I'm such a fucking nerd about this. But they don't
go back in retcon anything. What they do is Blade,

(12:44):
after the movie has come out, gets attacked by Morbius,
the living vampire. Now Morbius is like a scientific vampire,
he's not a traditional vampire, so his attack changes blades
bloodstream and turns him into a day walker.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
There's a rhyme reason then, right, So.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I'm not I don't think this is breaking any rules
or anything here. This is not a retcon this is.
They just continued the character and went, oh, yeah, that's
yeah the movie that does actually link up continuity wise
because he is. But maybe the events happened after Morbius attack.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Then I've got another question. If that was the case
with pre film Blade, Was Whistler part of that pre film?
No makes sense. Yeah. Blade was a solo act and
Blade had been raised.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
He was an orphan obviously because his mom is dead
and his father was a fucking his father was absent
and a vampire turned his mother. But he received some training,
but he didn't have a mentor character who was out
there doing it. Certainly not what seems like a lineage
of vampire slaying like we did in this movie. But interestingly,
now here's okay, here's this weird thing. Now people claim

(13:53):
that Whistler did exist in the continuity beforehand, because in
between his return in comic Book in this film's debut,
there was an episode of an animated series called Spider Man.
The animated series where I think it was season two
or three, where Blade shows up for it's season two.
Blade shows up for an episode or two because there's

(14:13):
a vampire epidemic and in it we meet Whistler. So
people are like, Whistler existed, he was created for that cartoon.
But here's what happened. They wrote that cartoon and then
somebody said, hey, look they're making it into a movie
as well, and they gave him the script, and then
they wrote Whistler into the cartoon, which ended up coming
out long before them because the movie was just it

(14:35):
wasn't in production, it was in development at that moment.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
So this movie creates so much lore for him. Two things.
First of all, I've scrolled down my notes. It was
October two thousand in Dresden. They go, so I was
completely wrong with regards to when I saw it second
European tool, not the first one. There's that. Secondly, Whistler

(14:59):
is it's so important to how I see Blade that
I can't see a Blade comic series or anything without him.
I can't see it. It doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
And is that because Chris Christofferson is playing him or
is it because the character is just so fucking cool?

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I think both. I think both may yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, you can see other people playing different characters, but
that character I don't think needs recasting if they're going
to remake this or do anything, else with it, because
why would.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
You Okay, I want to go into a couple of things.
First of all, I guess because you are such a
big fan of this. I read an article twenty seven
years ago or something, and I cannot remember any of
it with regards to the introduction of this franchise in
this film, with the EDM pumping scene and the blood

(15:52):
showers that had to have come from a comic like
that had to it can't be original for the screen.
It's original for this script.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
I was gonna ask you, it's so crazy, like you
were in Germany in two thousand and this is being
displayed on the screen. Are you seeing any raves like
this where you're out there in the world. In the
music scene, there's no blood showers where you're going, which,
by the way, the opening scene always makes me think
that DJ has to have really great insurance for that equipment,

(16:21):
Like who's spot Deacon Frost is sponsoring that gig? Is
he covering that because that equipment's done right.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
If that's what you're thinking of, Like, yeah, I guess
they've got the like cheap logo in the background as well,
like sort of thing, so it looks like a makeshift thing.
It doesn't look like it's a regular do. It just
looks like just as a one off. He's probably stolen
that equipment and like they're.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Most likely, yeah, it probably killed some DJ at some
other party and just taking his equipment over there. Yet
the opening scene, which is great, amazing, nobody's thought of
it prior the a vampire nightclub where they're going to
bathe in fountains of blood, like of course they would,
why wouldn't they do that? And ultimately that becomes the
theme in the movie, which is the sort of old

(17:10):
versus the new, And that's I have a complicated relationship
with David Goyer. I think he's one of my favorite
screenwriters and one of my least favorite screenwriters because he
always comes up with such fucking good ideas and then
he always delivers a ham fisted dialogue poor. Structure is great,

(17:31):
but the characterizations are just okay. Kind of a screenpoint.
But like case in point, this what a way to
open your fucking movie. Man, Let's introduce the world of vampires.
Let's see what they are up to in the modern age.
This is look up until now, there have been plenty
of vampire movies and We've seen them in all sorts
of guys is, but I can't think of one that

(17:54):
kind of dragged them into the technological age the way
this movie dispenses with gothic trappings entirely.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
It's Tracy Lord's she does this. She literally drags this
bloke in off the street and says, get into this
meat looker with me. Yeah, I'm yeah, she's the one
doing it. Man, she's fantastic. What an opening, Like, You're
totally right, it's incredible. Don't you wish she had survived? Man? Yes, yes,
I do.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
God, the sequels could have been saved if Tracy Lawi's
had just kept popping up.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
What do you mean the sequels are better than this.
I'm just trying. I'm just trying to we're gonna get there.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
No, I mean we're not gonna get there because I
don't want to talk about those movies. But all right, Blade,
Oh so let's talk you know what, Let's talk about
Blade himself as a character. I want to talk about
an anti hero. I think he's the ultimate perfection of
an anti hero. When you have anti heroes in movies,
they have to end up caring about other people. I

(18:54):
don't get the sense that Blade ever did from beginning
to end. I think he has a bit of affection
for what people can do for him, and certainly he's
sad that his mentor goes. But like, really, this is
the distillation of what people expected from an antihero.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah, he doesn't bring a lot to empathize with. That's
the word I was trying to think of earlier, But yeah,
there isn't. He's like a blank, but for good reason,
Like it's difficult to read what he's thinking because he
never shows like any emotion apart from revenge for you know,

(19:31):
so many things, the way his life's turned out. He
just wants revenge. He just wants to kill every other
vampire that there is. But the thing is he doesn't
care if someone gets in his way, and yet he
every now and again he'll do something to buck that.
So I don't know how much sense that that sort
of character makes to me, because if you are going

(19:54):
to go completely down that line, like he gives the
nurse a chance, you know, a fighting chance. The way
I would have preferred his character he is if he
didn't give a shit, I don't care, Well, don't care.
Do you want a child? I don't care. You won't
get it from me. I'm on to my next thing.
You know. That's how I would like to see Blade,
and I think surely in the comics that's how he's written,

(20:15):
like a kick ass doesn't care. I'm on to the
next thing. I've got the same goal.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
He has to be a little bit more empathetic. Look,
and when he came back in the early nineties with
the Knight Stalkers, he had to be empathetic then because
he's on a team. Prior to that, as a solo guy, no,
he didn't give a shit about anybody anywhere, like he
would fuck up other heroes who got in his way
prior to that. Once he came back with the Knight Stalkers, which,

(20:41):
by the way, when we first meet him, he's in
an asylum in the comics, so he's a broken man
when we finally get back to him. But the comics
don't really matter. We're talking about Blade here on screen
and Wesley Snipes's portrayal of him. What do you think
of mister Wesley Snipes as Blade?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
When anyone says Blade, he's all you think of, Like
it's just the way it is, Like there's no other
way around it, and he was the reason I didn't
really gel with the series anyway. I don't really rate
him as an actor, But on the really watch of this,
like what more does he have to do? You know what?

(21:19):
He nails this character. And it's not that I don't
like the character. I just think I don't. You know
some actors you just don't like, you don't gel with,
and Wesley Snipes is one of them. But like, if
I take myself out of my own like weird likes
and dislikes, he kicks us throughout this and like he's
so well trained. I can't imagine what the training was

(21:42):
like just to get match fit for this film. I know,
like he's an action star anyway, but christ like what
he brings to this performance is something special. The wirework
alone just would have like broke his back for the
rest of your life, surely, like amazing.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
I totally agree with you as far as the Wesley
Snipes aspect of it, where I do not like that guy.
There's something arrogant and troubling about Wesley Snipes as a
human being, but I love him as a performer, Like
I'd never seen a bad performance from him, and for

(22:22):
whatever reason, this seems to be the perfect meeting of
those two halves, the arrogant prick of a human being
and the total perfect action star. And what makes it
better is because Blade is something not unemotional, but such
a shut down human being. We know all the arrogance
is there, but he's keeping it in check, so it's like,

(22:44):
what could be better?

Speaker 1 (22:46):
I got a DVD of another horror film that Wes
leads in. I think it's something Walkers. I can't remember really,
Death Walkers, Gargallo Walkers, I think anyway, I got it
when it was on Hygen being those shelves that you
get at the bottom of like a thing which is
like we're just going to sell this stuff cheap, and
it was one of them, and I got gifted that

(23:07):
and I was like, oh, thanks for that, but I
knew in my head I would never watch it. I've
still got this unwatched DVD of this thing that he's in,
Like that's how much I just don't care for his
character that I got given something for free. All I
have to do is press play and I'm never gonna
actually like pull the trigger on that one. But like, yeah,

(23:27):
as I said, he kicks ass in this. I'm glad that,
like he's still vocal about it now, Like still whenever
anyone brings up this and his name is included, like
he's disgusted and too right, like he makes this character his,
Like I don't know anything about like the comic book

(23:47):
stuff of it, apart from that it was a comic book.
So whenever anyone mentions Blade, I'm just thinking Weresley Snipes,
he encompasses that character and as far as acting goes,
apart from that film with Demolition Man, like which again
I don't mind him in but I wish he wasn't
in it, which it was someone else, But like, I

(24:09):
just think this is it for Wesley Slip.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
It's the only film of his that I will watch.
I will watch Demolition Man. I think he's a I
think he's a fun element to that movie. I think
you're if you wanted to make a great movie, then
you should take out the Simon Phoenix character altogether and
have some other plot at foot for that film. But
if you're gonna make that movie with the taco bell
jokes and Sandra Bullock and you know, murder, death kills,

(24:35):
then yeah, then Wesley Snipes is the perfect part. Plus
seeing him with the fucking with the hair, with the
fucking blonde hair and the blue eyes, just a cuckoo
like going for broke. Like you want a comic book villain,
I'll give you a comic book villain. Speaking of comic
book villains, Deacon Frost played by Stephen Dorf, what's your
opinion of that performance?

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Not so much the character. It's a good character. And
so this is where me and my wife differ. She
hated it. She was just like, I don't buy him
as like this sort of a surpa of like you know,
menace from within and he's going to overtake the cartel
sort of thing. I'm completely buying him. I think he's
fantastic in it. He it's almost camp in his like

(25:21):
villainous the ways. But you mentioned it at the beginning,
it's so modern this and for the time it really
was modern. There was no of that previous sort of
vampire trace and this was a new sort of vampire villain.
It was as much as like like a Wolf of
Wall Street sort of thing, whereas there was political intrigue

(25:44):
in this, like how are you going to overtake this cartel?
I don't know, I think he was great for it,
but I completely get what my wife was saying and
she doesn't buy it. So I can see both sides,
but for me like no complete pass.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, Dwarf comes off kind of a bit, let's say,
youthful and whiny at times, but that's Deacon Frost, So
I can see being off put by that as a
character trait. But that doesn't mean he ain't doing a
good job because it is that thing. This is a
character who in rewatching it. I never really noticed how

(26:23):
wounded a character he is. He does feel the sting
that he's not a pure blood vampire. Like as much
as he's going to topple that regime and be and
put in the new order, it does really bother him,
which that was a nice thing, and I think that's
Stephen Dorf bringing that to the character. But he doesn't
ever come off as incapable.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
The thing is, when you look at his face, do
you think of the Gate anymore? Do you think he's
not that kid in the Gate? Do you think he's
I always think of the Gate? What are you talking about?
Because I can't get it out of my head? But
I still give him, as I say, a complete pass
this like the way that all it would take for
them is to be able to and this is the

(27:05):
people above him at the beginning of the film. All
it would take is for them to see which way
the tide was turning and to stop being such like
the Royal family and sticking to like tradition and moving
with the times. And they would have, I reckon they
would have got Blade, they would have just done Blade
over that that would be it. But they don't. They

(27:27):
don't stick together, they don't bond together. The Evil Vamps
fail and lose the day because of like Stephen Dorf's
like oh sorry, Deacon Frost's will to a serpent become
like this is what we need to do to, you know,
be like we should we need to be like not

(27:48):
respecting humans in any way. We just need to kill
is it Eric Bloody Brooks is Blade's name, That's correct? Yeah,
Eric Brooks. We need to Eric Brooks, we need to
kill him. And yeah, we need to overtake this the cartel.
I've got my little posse, my gang behind me. We
can do it, and they do, but all this inner

(28:10):
internal fighting costs him the game. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
I love this character and this is again a step
up from the original Deacon Frost character, who is just
this wandering vampire funck shit up. This guy's got a
plan and I love the battle of old versus new.
I love the throwing off the marbled old world quiet speaking,
we're oh so proper when we're actually just a bunch

(28:34):
of fucking monsters, genteel version of the vampire versus the
one who will throw a rave at an avatoir and
know that there is good to do that, and you
should be doing it and there shouldn't be any human
interference in that.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
He's right, they are the top of the food chain.
I think he goes a little extreme. Maybe you don't
want to bring back a blood god who's going to
turn to everyone to a vampire. That's counterproductive, Deacon, but
he should be fucking smashing the fuck out of the
House of arab Us.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I would love to know, like the pre Blade film,
like what was going on there? What's the deal with humans? Like,
let's go through that, Let's go through the political intrigue,
Like there is a TV series set up there just
for you know, for the ages, like imagine like all
the Cloak and Dagger stuff and like how that first
come about and how they quietly live with each other.

(29:30):
That's really interesting. I want more of that stuff, and
we don't get it, damn it. We just get it
all hinted at, which at the same time does work
for this film, because like they just sprinkle enough world
building where you know, like any sequel could go anywhere.
So yeah, again, I think you're right. Like he's a

(29:51):
great actor doing a great role, and I think he's
perfect for it, pretty much like Wesley Snipes is perfect
for Blade. And I don't know if it's because I've
seen it so much that I think that and I
can't see it any other way. But as I said
at the beginning, you close your eyes, you think of
these characters. You can't think of anyone else in that role.

(30:12):
Now we have in Bushy E.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Wright as Karen the hypotologist, the human character our proxy.
The audience is proxy, because this is still a time
and we would still be stumbling through this particular fog
for a few more years. With comic book movies, where
the filmmakers do not trust us to just go with
the fucking premise, they have to give us our human proxy.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
So same with hell Boy.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
We got some agent nobody from Nowheresville who's never going
to reappear guy. So that's effectively with Karen is Karen
has a little more agency than most of the human
proxy characters in that she provides the sort of mcguffin
for the climax of the movie at least, and she
actually helps along the way. But ultimately so we need

(30:57):
her like at all.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
I do not think we do, and I don't think
her character is handled correctly by Blade, but I will
say it's believable how quick she gets with the program.
And they do set it up so you would also
get with the program at the same speed she does,
Like you know how some of these films will be

(31:21):
like someone will believe just straight away. Here she's given
like the story, she's like, oh come on, she sees
the evidence, She's like, oh god, come on quick. So
I completely believe it. And that's really well written. Like
there are some problems with the writing here, but that
isn't one of them.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, No, there are some minor miracles with the writing here,
and I do think that you handle this ultimately completely
superfluous character in a really good way. Look the movie,
what's funny to me? Is if you go back and
read earlier drafts of the screenplays and you listen to
David Goyer talk about the movie. He describes this sequence

(31:59):
as it is, it is easing us into the story
as a character we're going to identify with, and it
is our world. Right. They're working in a hospital and
it's very mundane, and he said he very he kept
the dialogue basically to melrose Place levels of ness, right,
and then when Quinn, the vampire who's been brought in,

(32:20):
jumps up and attacks them, then all the all reality
goes out the window.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
For her and for us.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
And that's true, but I would also say we began
with a blood rave. At the end of the Blood Rave,
just follow Blade and get in his car and have
a fucking narration. Come on and goes, My name's Blade.
I've been doing this for twenty years. The world you
see is candy is a candy coated topping to the
horrors underneath.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Here we go. I got to get this guy, Deacon Frost,
that prick, and we as it's happening, you're seeing like
everything happen outside of the window, so you can see, oh, like,
here's the vampire on the corner of the street, like
we're just not We're seeing it, but we just don't look.
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Let's talk about that for a minute. The look of
this movie, Oh my god, I want to live in
that Los Angeles. I was living in Los Angeles when
this movie came out, and that's the la. I want
to live in a completely darkened Neon Litz Street where
not trash but newspapers just loose.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Newspapers are blowing everywhere all the time. What could be
better than that? Having them not blowing everywhere?

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Perhaps, Oh, then there's no atmosphere. I lived in the
not blowing everywhere. I blew with the trash everywhere on
the ground. At least it's airborne here. The look of
this movie is gorgeous, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
It's Yeah, it's I would say it's sort of post
apocalyptic without being post apocalyptic. It has that feel about
it still be in without the annihilation. Yeah, there we
go perfect. I would say with the budget that this has,
with the cast that this has, with the lead up,
they know it's going to be a success, Like that's

(33:56):
the very minimum that they should be delivering, though they
should be getting that stuff correct first of all before
everything else, and mentioned all the stump work. Why work
all their effects digital? And otherwise? Well, let's talk about
those for a second, shall we. I agree?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Look, we can all agree not only digital effects in
general never age well unless they're done supremely well. To
begin with the effects, here are early days of CGI. Look,
we've had the triumph of Jurassic Park, and now we
think we can do anything. And so they come up
with a pretty cool innovation here, which is whenever Blade

(34:37):
kills a vampire, they immediately combust, which is different, which
is funny. If you read the original script, they turn
into goo. They just they dissolved into a pile of go.
And then somebody went, we can make them explode. That's
more dynamic. What do you think of those though? Now
looking at them, I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
If you couldn't get with it, forget this film, like
the first time that happens. If you've taken out it,
forget it because there is a lot of it, and
it's key to key to every fight scene because it
is such a thing of awe when you look at it.
I'll be honest, like I'm okay with it, Like it

(35:14):
doesn't annoy me as I say overall, I don't love
this film, but it isn't that I can't pick apart
the reason as to why. There are a couple of
things that really annoy me, and I'll get to them,
but that isn't one of them. And I see how
hokey it is, and I can see how much better
that's become since. But that's the onset of technical stuff.

(35:38):
You know. I wonder if cgi if this was pushing
it at the time, because you know, we're not seeing
exploding dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. We're seeing the movement and
how they got that correct and the texture and things
like that. This is different. This is like supreme blood splatter,
and I get for me, it's I'm okay with it.

(35:58):
I'm okay, I'm all right, don't upset me.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Two things I would say if they had concentrated all
of their effects were force and budget toward the exploding vampires,
then I think we would be marveling at them to
this day instead of the lamagra ending that we'll get
to which we'll get to. Okay, that it, we'll get

(36:22):
to it. I do think just as early as like
the opening scene, not the opening scene, but the first
time you see Blade.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
In Blade two, he.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Starts killing vampires. The effects had already like it was
geometrically better as far as what the look of it was.
I do agree with you, though maybe it's nostalgia or something,
but it's not like my brain is now looking at
the effects and going, oh no, those were bad. They

(36:51):
were the My reaction was the exact same in the
movie theater. It wasn't like I was bowled over by
how fucking fantastic this computer shit looked.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know what I mean? And you know what's funny
to me is on a pure editing level. I think
they could have fixed it.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
If you can probably still do it now, maybe I'll
do it. I've been listening to a podcast, the Lonely
Island Podcast, a group of comedians. I don't know if
you're familiar with their work, but they were on Saturday
Night Live here in America, and they used to do
these little digital shorts and there was always esoteric little bits.
They had a sketch called people eating food getting punched.
The premise is very simple, a person in frame starting

(37:26):
to eat something and before as they're getting it to
their mouth, Andy Samberg would pop into the frame and
just punch them in the face and then dance. What
a kiva schaff for the guy who directed it figured
out was if he removed one frame of the film
right before he connected with the punch, then the punch
became savage. And if you watch it, I'll put a
link in the show notes to it so everyone can

(37:47):
watch it. If you watch it, you can see, like,
what is an innocuous little comedy Skit looks like somebody
is really just wrecking people if they I think if
you had just taken out one frame, they were so
in love with the fact that you were getting to
see the skeleton that if you took that one frame
of the skeleton out, I think we wouldn't have a
problem here at all.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
You'll have to do it. What about the hospital scene
with the burned up vamp me that looked great.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
That was a great makeup. That's a great character. Quinn
played by Donald Logue, who is that character? As written
was a know nothing, no say nothing character who maybe
says three lines in the entire movie, was just a
right hand man. And then Donald Loge kept improvising all
of that shit, and he turns out one of the

(38:33):
best characters in the entire movie. But funny thing is,
Donald Logue was in a motorcycle accident in his youth
that broke his jaw. So if his jaw gets struck
in a certain way, it it locks itself open. So
during the hospital sequence when he was wrestling with and

(38:53):
busche E Wright, they fell to the ground and that happened,
so they had to rush him to the hospital and
he's in full burn makeup and they walk into the
er and everyone's like, holy shit, and they're like they
all rest to.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Help him fair as you would, what can you do?
But it does look that real as well, you'd be like,
I'm not prepared for this.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
All the practical effects in the movie are great, Like
talk about Pearl, for instance, the age old vampire who's
grown so morbidly obese that he can no longer move
in the archives, I thought that effect looked great.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, but that for me, that is pushing it to
the edge, Like that's at the edge where I don't
want to see anything beyond that. Don't go more silly
than that, Like you that is right there for me,
Like I feel like this should be what am I
trying to say? You know? How sometimes in total weekle,
it's just like, oh, you've introduced this another mad thing

(39:51):
that Arnie's bumped into, you know, like the face coming apart. Oh,
it's just another mad thing. And it becomes so many
mad things that are happening that this film's just become
mad and completely unbelievable. Like it or loathe it, but
it's just crazy. And when you get you're built, you're
already into this world. It's already been introduced as like,
like we've said, like this post apocalyptic thing without being

(40:12):
post apocalyptic, So we've already got this like hype of
future real sort of thing, and then we're introducing another
wacky sort of aspect to it. We've already got to
deal with the whole ending thing. That's a lot already,
and we introduced to another characters. Well, I don't push it,
and luckily it doesn't really push it too much further

(40:32):
before the ending.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Well, let me defend Perl because if you're watching the
movie for the first time, yeah, you might feel like
it's pushing there, but you have no idea what's coming.
Because let's talk about the ending, shall we. There's a
mystic gotten ending the once again and look, maybe it
wasn't the once again, but the idea of the chosen
One I'm so fucking tired of Blade isn't necessarily the

(40:54):
chosen one. He's not going to lead the vampires, but
it is his blood that ends up being the key
to Unliine. Like this amorphous mcguffin ending of we're going
to release La Magra, the blood Tie, the ancient demon
that created vamporism to begin with. I think, I mean,
we're going there, and it does all make sense. I'm
not saying it doesn't, it's just what are your thoughts

(41:16):
on the ending that we got.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I just think it's too much, and it's probably one
of the reasons that I wasn't loving the film, and
it's because it's so mad. I just put that there.
It is mad, right, the whole ending is mad. But
then on top of it, we've got this most ridiculous,
over the top fight going on. It's so crazy. It's

(41:39):
do one or the other, choose a lane. Let's have
the face off and we'll deal with that for a sequel.
Maybe put it in a post credit scene of like, oh,
we've actually kicked this thing off inadvertently or something like that.
But the fact that it's all going on at once
reminds me of that the return of the Jedi problem,
where you've got all these sort of things happening at

(42:00):
the ending, you don't know really which one to focus on.
The think I think they get away with it because
we've all watched it forty thousand times. But it's just
a lot going on and we're not concentrating on any
one thing. And I think that's the problem for me,
is that I'm not focused enough on whatever. And the
fight is so ridiculous that is putting me, starting to

(42:21):
make me not likee Blade because he just seems like
he's never gonna lose anything no matter what happens, it
doesn't matter. He's so tough. Yeah, it started pissing me
off a bit far from alone. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Well, they do throw a lot of minions at him
at the end, which leads me to think, like, why
you guys aren't dressed the same, aren't you Because they're vampires.
These aren't even familiars, like they're exploding when he kills them, which,
by the way, not to keep praising or deriding the
exploding party this is in this case, it's praising. When
you do have a sequence where you're killing tons and
tons of faceless minions, having them just explode is great.

(42:53):
Like a video game, we don't even have to think
about them again. But I think that the main problem
for the movie, for the script for me, is in
this scene. Because Dave Goyer, in every one of his
movies you can tell has done the scientific research in
one way or another, Like he's always trying to figure
out a solution to a problem even if no one's

(43:13):
noticed the problem. So he's overly scientific here. So we'll
find out that it's Alium sativa is from the garlic plant,
and if you've synthesized that and make it liquid, you
can use it. If you use a UV light, it
replicates the sun's rays. Right, So he's all focused on
Blade using technology. He's all focused on Deacon Frost using

(43:35):
technology and shaking off all the old world bullshit. To
that end, they have Deacon Frost like using a computer
program to decipher this old text to bring about this demon.
And I would say, we don't need a fucking demon
who gives a shit about any of this blood business.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
At the end of the movie, just.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Have a new ending, like just something new. Like the
idea of summoning anything from the past and all we're
trying to do is kill the past in this movie
seems fucking crazy to me.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
But it has been like, to defend it a little.
It has been brought up throughout the whole film, like
it's not like they just brought it out of nowhere.
I just don't think it was the best path for
the film to end on whilst all that battle's going on.
Oh would much rather just like I just have the
like an exciting battle, you know where then a blade

(44:27):
might introduce something that we haven't seen or what's worth
maybe even frost, like having something that we didn't know about.
But it is just has been like laid like, oh,
there's a little clue in the first twenty minutes or something.
Do you know anything like that would have improved it.
And I tell you the worst moment for me when
he mouths what the fuck and it was just like,

(44:50):
oh man, it's so cheesy.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, it's very superhero. It turns into a very superhero
movie in the last ten or fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, did
you see the did you ever see the original ending?

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Oh? Please? No, I have not oh.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Boy, there is no battle TwixT Deacon Frost and Blade.
What happens is Deacon Frost immediately turns into a blood
tornado that completely engulfs the room. It is literally a
spinning vortex of blood, and Blade is hanging on to
debris and trying to work his way up toward his

(45:26):
the serum, the anticoagulant that will make the bloody explode.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
You can see it. It's on YouTube. It only exists
a pre visual. They've already filmed this. Oh yeah, it's done.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
You can watch it, so the effects aren't finished, so
you can't really ding it for the effects looking pad.
And it gets even worse because they cg in or
they just layer in Stephen Dwarf like they filmed him
and you can tell they were going to do some
blood version of him, but instead it's just him going.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Hey, Blade, I'm gonna go fuck the world in a minute.
So see, yuh. It's awful.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
And you can tell fight that we get is an
improvement over it, but not by much. That fight only
becomes interesting when Blade lops off Deacon Frost's arm and
it comes back to him Like at that moment, I thought,
oh this could be interesting. This could be a whole
fight of this unstoppable blood thing that he Deacon Frost

(46:23):
has now become like that to me is interesting, but
they don't do anything with it because they were just
so desperate to have a fucking ending that wasn't a
blood tornado that we just got a quick sword fight.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I've got a question for you. And this was my
most frustrating thing of the whole film. Blade's mum is introduced.
She talked about but then we get her introduced. She's
been kept alive, she's a vampire, and she makes an
appearance to try and sort weaken Blade and to make
Blade question things and things like that, and unfortunately, I

(46:57):
if you're going to do that, you can't just introduce
so like this is Blade's mum. I want way more.
You can't just throw that in there as like that's
another five minutes tops, and then Blade's going to get
out of it like a cinch anyway, Like no, like,
let's go into that. Let's I mean, that is such
heavy dialogue, friendly, loads of potential. Let's deal with it,

(47:22):
and it's not. It's just washed out so quick.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yes, this is the main problem with the movie because
when at that moment it's revealed Blade's mom is still
alive and she's in league with Deacon Frost. She's just
as she's just as villainous as Deacon Frist that I thought,
Oh my god, this is what a turn for our hero.

(47:50):
How will he deal with this for the rest? Oh no,
she's dead, and isn't that Blade's reason for being Blade?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, And here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
It's my understanding that when the script first was coming together,
he was writing it for Ernest Dickerson to direct. Ernest
Dickerson was Spike Lee's DP. He did tell from the
Crypt Demon Knight, and then the second director was going
to be David Fincher, and David Fincher's contribution to the
screenplay was he told David Goyer about this, like kne

(48:19):
or some Buddhist philosophy, that in order to be your
own person, you have to kill your mother, kill your father,
kill the Buddha. That's why during the course of this movie,
Blade does exactly those things. He kills his mother, he
kills Deacon Frost, his father, he kills Buddha, who is
or does. He provides the gun for Whistler to kill himself.
So that's there, and that's really fascinating. But it also,

(48:44):
as you said, it's we're given such short shrift here
because his mom should have been introduced halfway through this movie.
That should have been a complication running throughout the movie.
He's dealing with his father figure Whistler, his now figured
out his other father figure Deacon Frost, and his actual mother.

(49:05):
What a fucking cocktail? Why do we have?

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Karen correct, Yeah, so this is it just feels so messy.
It feels like all the ingredients are there and they
have been put together in such a I want to
say that it feels like as a viewer, and as
I say, I've seen this four times in five years
for some reason. I do not know why, but it
just seems so haphazardly bummed together when there is so

(49:32):
many ingredients for such a wonder. I watched Spider Man.
Let's just say that, I watched Spider Man Sam Raimi's
one the other day and it worked so well, like
everything seemed to be clicking, and it was like it
completely makes sense in the world that it's built up
around it, and I left it completely satisfied. And I
haven't watched it since when it came out of the

(49:54):
cinema and I was just like, Wow, that really held up,
really loved it. Coming back to this, I don't know.
I wish people would stop asking me to watch it.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
God, and they're going through after this, and yet look,
I still give this a really good score.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Like I feel like Blade is iconic. I feel like
the action work, especially in the first half, is some
of it's incredible. I still can't figure out how they
did it. As I say, some of that why work
must have just been intense. I just don't know how
you can make your body go through that, because it
definitely wasn't like a you could tell at this age

(50:32):
when it's a c cgi human bouncing around the room
and things like that. They'll see it in the fucking sequel,
you certainly will, But this is Wesley Snipe's going through it.
So yeah, I, as I say, I give it a
good rating, I think it's a solid seven for me.
But I really just think this could have even been
a ten with some care and attention given to it,

(50:54):
because all the ingredients are already there. Rip Whistler couldn't.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Have said it better myself. This is an almost their movie.
This could have been a perfect movie. Let's get another
one going. How about that Marvel? You've been talking about
it for fucking five years, Paul Waller, thank you so
much for joining us in my inaugural episode.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
When people are looking for you, where do they find
you in a Year in Horror? Honestly, just go to
wherever you search your podcasts out put in a Year
in Horror. If you want to listen to some horrible
doom music, go and put Ome's double HMS India Music
platform listening preference. But like, yeah, all I would say

(51:35):
is over last year, Father Malone, I've been sort of
addicted to your shows, So keep it up, keep the
keep this spunk pummeling. I want all that energy. Don't
give up on this, because you make my days better
for being there. I'll do it just for you.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Everybody, keep listening here, Patrons, thank you for patroning, and listeners,
thank you for listening. We've got so many fests going
on right now, Star trek Fest, We've got Climb Barker's
Books of blood Fest, and now we have our comic
book horror Fest. I don't really have a name for
this one yet. We'll figure that one out anyway, Thank
you all for listening. We'll check you out next time.
I got to come up with a comic book phrase

(52:11):
at the end. God damn itent

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Comic Horror Fest - Blade (1998) feat. Paul Waller - A Year in Horror podcast

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Comic Horror Fest - Blade (1998) feat. Paul Waller - A Year in Horror podcast