Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Blade" (1998). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

The Nineties gave Generation Xers their modernized and updated vampire thrills, with a plethora of vampire themed flicks which hit the movie theaters well into the 2000s.  It was not until "Blade", the 1998 comic book adaptation, introduced its comic book action to the screen written by David S. Goyer, and loosely based off the 1970s 'groovy' original Blade character, as an  African American antihero (created by Marv Wolfman), who was immune to vampires, without becoming one of them, yet was proficiently armed with knives and guns, in a fanatical campaign in ridding them word of bloodsuckers.  Goyer took out all of the human side of the 70s comic book Blade, and made the character half human and half vampire, with all their strengths and none of the weakness, except, borrowing from the addiction mythos of vampirism, their thirst.

Directed by mostly special effects creator Stephen Norrington, and "Blade" being his his second directional release.  Norrington brought a stylized slickness to the Blade movie, cleverly edited and portrayed to be less gritty as other vampire movies, with a more polished and urbanized prelude to late 1990s ambitions of glitz and glamour for the over 25 year olds, who were getting ready for their dawn-of-the-internet aspirations.  Wesley Snipes plays Blade with such a convincing allure, he basically owns the fictional character, at least with the original '98 Blade production, later, appearing disinterested in the two sequels that followed.  Blade's nemesis "Deacon Frost", played by Stephen Dorff, matches Blade's cold resolve in ridding the world of vampires, with his own desire to rid the world of the human race.  Dorff, like Snipes, plays his villainy persona with such intensity, which is due to good directing, the final fight at the end of the movie is a much needed climax. 

Supporting Blade is the father like character "Abraham Whistler", played by the late and great Kris Kristofferson, who actually plays himself as the chain smoking, straight bourbon drinking, country singer gunsmith.  And N'Bushe Wright, as "Dr. Karen Jenson" a hematologist, under Blade's care after being bitten by a vampire who escaped one of Blade's vampire killing sprees.  Later curing herself of the vampire pathogen.

"Blade" stands alone as the quintessential, stylish vampire action flick of the last years before the 2000s, its vampiric villains are akin to 1980s ruthless, rich kid Wall Street yuppies, which gives blade that 80s esque quality.  Yet, ultimately shows up as a its advancements in CGI 25+ years ago.  The music score by composer Mark Isham, assists in giving the movie its dystopia inspired, underworld of a vampire infested Los Angeles.

*Some trivia:  Three extras who were part of the infamous BloodRave scene at the start of "Blade", attempted to sue the special effects company Reel Creations, as the masses of fake blood that pour down from the sprinkler system (an underground vampire rave), actually claimed it caused skin irritations.  

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(A.Glass 2025) 

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema