17/10/2023
New podcast; link in bio.
Stephen Norrington’s Blade 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.
