Blade (1998)

When Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire during her pregnancy she gave birth to a special child before she died in the delivery room. After the vampire attack the unborn child went through a number of changes which resulting in him becoming half vampire and half human.

Blade grew up to be a vampire hunter out for revenge for his mother's death and together with his mentor, guardian and fellow hunter, they travel the world hunting the vampire councils who have managed to infiltrate the worlds major organisations.

When a renegade vampire, Deacon Frost, uncovers the secret of La Miagra, the mythical blood god, he needs Blade's very special blood to summon the god and rule over the human race. Trouble is, Blade has no intention of coming quietly.

With most of the film either taking place at night, or in dark locations, the picture stands up well with no artifacting or outlining. The colours are bright and well defined with a high bit-rate through the film. It is a cracking anamorphic transfer. However, I did noticed that the red of the title and end credits appear to be a little washed out, but that doesn't really matter too much.

The sound department is equally impressive. There's plenty of action in the rear channels with explosions, clashing blades, gun fire, cracking bones and haunting ambient music. The dialogue is fixed in the centre channel with no bleeding to the other channels and it all adds up to a wonderful audio experience. There are even a few LFE's to give your ears a good bashing, especially during the kicking techno-music in the night club. The menu is also superbly scored in 5.1, which is pretty rare to see even amongst the higher profile discs.

There are plenty of extras to keep the most fussy of film fans happy, and even the principle stars of the film managed to find some time to give a audio commentary, even though I did find it a little on the boring side. There are plenty of featurettes on the designing of the film and characters, plus some interesting back ground information on the vampire myth.

This film is one of the few comic-to-screen productions which really hit the spot and is highly recommended.