Use of Tropes: Star Trek: Nemesis

2002 saw the release of director Stuart Baird’s Star Trek: Nemesis and, for some reason, it was one of the few Star Trek movies I never got around to watching. Later I told myself I had to, especially as Simon Bacon has identified it as a vampiric text.

Concentrating on the Romulans, the film has the Romulan Senate destroyed at the head of the film with a device that emits 'thalaron radiation' – a radiation so deadly that it consumes organic matter on a subatomic level – in film essentially turning the Senate to stone in seconds. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis, Castlevania: Hymn of Blood & Vampire Riderz) have got married and are being taken to Betazed when the Enterprise diverts having detected signs of an android like Data (Brent Spiner) eminating from a pre-warp planet, and again when sent on a diplomatic mission to Romulus.

Ron Perlman as the Viceroy

The new Praetor, a Reman named Shinzon (Tom Hardy) has reached out for peace but in reality it is a convoluted plan to get Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart, Lifeforce & Sinbad: the Fifth Voyage), in the first instance, and then destroy the Federation. The Reman are a slave caste from the planet Remus. Before we meet Shinzon we see his Viceroy (Ron Perlman, Cronos, Blade 2, Hellboy: Blood and Iron & I Sell the Dead). This is how the original screenplay for the film describes the Viceroy (in a scene not in the final edit): “He is a terrifying sight. A powerful, monstrous alien creature; a tall, ashen-skinned ectomorph who bears a disturbing resemblance to the original Nosferatu. He is vampiric and lethal. He is a Reman” This is the first trope, basing the Reman on the design of Orlock.

Tom Hardy as Shinzon

Shinzon is not, biologically, a Reman – rather he is a human and, it quickly transpires, a clone of Picard specifically designed to infiltrate the Federation in a subsequently abandoned plan. Sent to Reman to die in the dilithium mines, the cloning technique used “temporal RNA sequencing” which, when triggered, would rapidly age him to the requisite age for infiltration. Because it hadn’t been triggered Shinzon is dying as his cellular structure breaks down. The only way to save him is through “a complete myelodysplastic infusion from the only donor with compatible DNA.” That is Picard and he needs all of Picard’s blood to live – in other words he needs to drain Picard (we’ll ignore the fact that there should prove to be a non-deadly way of doing this in the futuristic setting).

dying for need of blood

This need for Picard's blood is our next vampiric trope and whilst there is only one possible victim, the draining blood to live is a fairly solid trope. The viceroy, we discover, is a psychic. I thought, as I watched the film, that his putting his hand on Shinzon’s chest when the clone is in pain was perhaps some temporary healing but, according to the script, it is “an ancient form of Reman telepathic medical diagnosis”. He does, however, invade Troi’s mind (when in coitus with Riker) making her see her husband as Shinzon and then himself. Troi, much like Mina in Dracula tracking the fleeing Count, is able to reverse that connection and pinpoint the Remans’ cloaked ship. Shinzon is killed by being impaled in the chest – making the antagonist’s death a staking of sorts.

And there you have it, lots of tropes – actually probably enough to call the film a vampire film but, if not, certainly of strong genre interest. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Succubus {2024} – review

Director: R.J. Daniel Hanna

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

Seen on the big screen at Grimmfest 2024, this is (by its very title) about a succubus but the succubus is using both flesh and spirit of victims to strengthen herself and become a corporeal reality. In such a way her actions are vampiric. The film also does a neat line in using virtual relationships along with a commentary on our interconnected and camera filled world (the film could have veered down a found footage route but, thankfully, avoided it and instead does have some footage moments but is a narrative film.

Ron Perlman as Zephyr

That said the opening footage is a recording and it features Dr. Orion Zephyr (Ron Perlman) talking to his wife and saying if the footage is found then it means that he is dead. He talks of his controversies, which will have hurt her, but says that she must publish his research – even if it is just given away free on the net. He leaves his car (cutting to a narrative camera), gets an axe and then heads on foot, limping, to a farm house.

Chris and Sharon

Chris (Brendan Bradley, Death Valley) is at home with the baby, but it is not currently an ideal family life. His son has been dropped off, whilst his estranged wife Sharon (Olivia Grace Applegate, Blood Fest) attends a hen night – they have been separated for two weeks. The cracks in their marriage seem mostly down to him. He started an app business but overstretched and is in debt. The stress of the business saw him neglect her.

meeting Adra online

Sharon is out with Charlisse (Emily Kincaid), who is divorced from Chris’ best friend Eddie (Derek Smith). Eddie has persuaded Chris to go on a dating app (even though he actually does still love Sharon) and he matches, at first, with a mutual friend and then gets a match from a mysterious girl called Adra (Rachel Cook). At first he suspects a scam. She initiates a video chat but types as he speaks (she has lost her voice, she says) and has a filter over her face. However, he becomes convinced she is real (and she attempts to have him visit her). Faux pas with Sharon, such as her seeing him masturbating on the nanny cam in the nursery (to a video Adra sends) and reactions when she looks noticeably aged on a video call – manipulated we assume by Adra.

bio-mass

How? Well Adra is the succubus and has selected Chris. She wants his cells (as she puts it) and there is a possession aspect to this, in order to infect and use sperm to help bring her corporeally into reality (or so it is implied). Yet she is corporeal… sort of… we see a video of a goat birthing a deformity (described by Zephyr as her first attempt to enter our world)… we also see her physically as a bio-mass (whether there is more to it, we don’t see) that devours a victim whilst copulating with it. We also see her in devil form.

demon form

However it is clear she can manipulate the virtual – with her female form that flirts with Chris. She can also manipulate when people are in an altered state – be that during sex, through substance, hypnosis or dreams. She is able to do this through a digital interface too and trap a victim in the altered state and unable to return to their conscious body. All this is really clever but there are bits that seem frustratingly unanswered.

Brendan Bradley as Chris

Zephyr is described as having hurt her and one assumes that is tied to the opening, but what he was doing there is never answered beyond what we saw in the prologue. If he did damage her corporeal form then how did she get to the house she is currently based in? How did Zephyr know that Chris was in touch with her and how he might get hold of him? These are frustrations but they are not insurmountable. In truth they were more apparent when I watched for review than they were on first watch in the festival.

coming between them

Well-acted by the leads, a moment of body horror, and a really neat use of the virtual world meeting the supernatural. This is a good film that perhaps needed a little bit more in the aspects mentioned but nevertheless I think is worth a watch. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

Cronos - review

Director: Guillermo Del Torro

Release Date: 1993

Contains spoilers

We start with scenes of an alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez) and a voice over. We are told that the alchemist moved to Mexico to escape the inquisition, and there worked to perfect the Cronos Device – a mechanical piece that could offer eternal life. 400 years later the alchemist is accidentally killed by impalement, his skin like marble. No trace of the device was found.

Jesús Gris (Frederico Lupi) is an antiques dealer who lives with his wife Mercedes (Margarita Isabel) and granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath). He discovers the device in the base of a hollowed statue and accidentally triggers it, causing the device to pierce his hand. Later he sells the statue to Angel Del La Guardia (Ron Perlman) who buys it on behalf of his dying uncle Dieter (Claudio Brook). Dieter has the alchemist's notebook and is searching for the Cronos Device as a way to cheat death.

A little nod here to Perlman, a stalwart of Del Torro’s movies, whose nose-job obsessed Angel is an excellent character.

Angel eventually kills Gris, by pushing a car – with Gris in it – over a cliff, having failed to secure the device. Of course he has not been told what is going on by Dieter, who is concerned as to whether Gris was pierced through the heart. Gris reanimates and Aurora helps him as he searches for the notebook, in an attempt to explain what he has become.

Many of the usual rules of the vampire are followed here. Gris regenerates, in fact even before his death wounds heal quickly. Sunlight burns him and a stake through the heart will kill him. The twist, of course, is that it is an alchemical device that causes the vampirism. The device is shaped much like an insect and contains an insect that filters the blood. It is a novel concept.

There are many marvellous moments within the film. Gris explaining to Aurora when, scared of what is happening to her grandfather, she steals the device, that her father had done much the same at her age with Gris’ cigarettes. It is clear that there are overtones of addiction throughout the vampire genre, but rarely has a simile with tobacco addiction been used.

Another moment is when Gris follows a man with a nose bleed into a toilet. When the man leaves he is about to lick up the blood – it would have been the first time he drank blood – when another man enters, who then cleans up the blood. Gris ends up led on the floor, licking up the blood that is spilled there. The filming of this scene seems slightly slowed and makes the feeding appear almost luxurious.

Following his return from death, Gris is seen cutting the stitching from his mouth with a shard of broken glass, and it is attention to such small details that helps make this film as good as it is.

The entire cast are excellent. Shanath as Aurora only speaks one word, at the end of the film, and yet plays a thoroughly intrinsic role in the movie. Her none verbal communication shows an acting ability far beyond her young years.

The direction is superb, as one would expect with Del Torro – though perhaps I am biased as I believe him to be an excellent director. I can quite happily give this film 9 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: I Sell the Dead

This 2008 film, directed by Glenn McQuaid was one of the films on at the 2009 Bram Stoker International Film Festival and I mentioned it in my report back and said I’d be giving the film an honourable mention.

The film itself had, for me, an almost Terry Gilliamesque quality to it and is composed of the anecdotes of one Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) as dictated to Father Duffy (Ron Perlman; Cronos, Blade 2 and Hellboy animated: Blood and Iron) as he awaits execution.

His crime… well he has been found guilty of both grave robbing (which is true) and murder (which he denies).

His stories tell of how he became an apprentice to Willie Grimes (Larry Fessenden, the man behind the excellent vampire movie habit) – indeed we see Grimes executed at the head of the film. For years the two were forced, due to blackmail, to work for the obnoxious Dr Vernon Quint (horror legend Angus Scrimm, Subspecies, Vampirella and Transylvania Twist). That is until they stumbled upon the “underbelly of the resurrection trade”.

They got wind of a burial on the moors, at a crossroads. When Blake asks why the corpse wasn’t buried in a graveyard Grimes guess that it was a suicide who was then excommunicated. When asked why at a crossroad it is tied to the restless spirit not knowing which way is which. However when they uncover the woman (Heather Robb) she has garlic round her neck and a stake through her heart. The word vampire isn’t actually used in film but it is in the credits and we are clearly using full on vampire lore.

They remove the garlic and then the stake but, as they make room on their cart, they fail to notice the corpse standing. The movement of the vampire is excellently done, all the moves seeming uncoordinated and disjointed. When they turn around the corpse is gone and they leg it. They spill their gear and then spot a figure ahead. Grimes runs the other way but Blake calls out to her. The vampire turns and lunges forward. Some slapstick fighting and then Grimes accidentally stakes her. He plays a quick game of pull and plunge with the stake and then has an idea…

Having left the corpse with Quint – and neglecting to mention about the danger of removing the stake – the two men find themselves no longer bothered by the doctor and with a lucrative new career, grave robbing the undead. The film then sees a variety of undead but that is our lot for vampires.

I really enjoyed the movie and, of course, it is always nice to see a vampire in on the act – especially one drawn more like the vampire of traditional lore, abandoning the romance of the later vampire genre. The imdb page is here.

Bonus Bit: The Comic

The version of the DVD available from HMV (certainly in the UK) had a 44 page comic with it. The comic maps out the film as a graphic novelisation and certainly does not mess with the core story. Written by Glenn McQuaid it is actually quite a nice piece for collectors. The artwork by Brahm Revel isn’t anything special but is functional enough and fits in nicely with the work in film as Revel also produced that.

The end of the comic book suggests that we should keep an eye out for “The Further Adventures of Grimes and Blake” and I understand that McQuaid is writing that in comic book form.

Hellboy Animated – Blood and Iron – review

Directed by: Victor Cook & Tad Stones

Release Date: 2007

Contains spoilers


This is the second Hellboy animated to be released and, as you can guess by it being here, it contains vampires. The film is feature length and has the stars of the Hellboy live action movie performing voice acting duties. The DVD itself comes with a plethora of extras – two of which I’ll get to at the end of the review and a 32 page comic. Now, I was a little excited about the comic as it is a story called the Yearning and has skeletal creatures lusting for blood at the beginning. However these are bone ghouls and not vampires.

The other thing to note is that the edition I received from Play.com is an exclusive boxed set that comes with a Hellboy bust-up toy. A little diorama of Hellboy Vs. The Bat God, the toy has nothing to do with this actual film but, well hey… I’m a sucker for a toy in a DVD set!

At the head of the feature, the credits come over some marvellous 3D animation of a graveyard, though the film itself is in standard 2D. The story proper begins with Hellboy (Ron Perlman) stalking through sewers. He ends up in battle with a minotaur type creature, with a metal arm, and aided in his fight by Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). A fight scene later and Hellboy is victorious – though his efforts have been observed and a woman’s voice questions why he opposes his own kind.

Now the film does something interesting. We get a back story regarding Professor Bruttenholm, or ‘Broom’ – voiced in modern times by John Hurt and as a younger man by James Arnold Taylor – the story focusing on his first real field trip and his battles with the vampire Erzsebet Ondrushko (Kath Soucie). What the film does is run the sequences in flashback in reverse chronology, according to the extras an almost accidental format born of the feature being under length.

One should note that Erzsebet is obviously based on Erzsébet Báthory, and so why they did not use that name is beyond me.

The first flash back we see is Broom with members of the Transylvanian constabulary, the fiancée of a young missing woman and a priest, as they make their way into Erzsebet’s lair. In the main room skeletons hang from the walls, or are in situ on the rack and the priest seems to have visions of the girls alive and tortured.

Broom notices fresh blood on the floor and it leads to a wall. They break through the wall and enter a secret room. The missing young lady, Anna (Grey DeLisle), is on the floor, by a bath of blood, with punctures in her neck. On seeing this and Broom's intentions, the priest backs away and runs. Broom has the fiancée stake his love to save her soul.

The remaining men then open Erzsebet’s coffin, but it is empty. Blood drips onto Broom’s hand and they sweep their flashlights upwards. One of the constables is being held on the ceiling, his neck bitten by Erzsebet. Panicking the men run, with Broom telling them to hold. They manage to escape but, off screen, are ripped apart by wolves with glowing blue eyes.

Broom is alone and the room comes alive with blue flamed candles. Erzsebet appears before him and he takes a hip flask from his pocket. She mocks his need to fortify himself with a drink but he flings the contents towards her, the flask is filled with holy water that burns at her face, stripping her of her beauty.

Enraged she leaps at Broom, the momentum carrying them both through a curtain and a window into the dawn. Broom catches the balcony ledge as Erzsebet plummets through the sky, her body consumed by flames. It has all been a dreamed memory and Broom awakens. However, looking in the mirror he feels the back of his neck and has blood on his hand, he sees Erzsebet in the mirror. Hellboy enters and banters, once the demon has left the room Broom realises that his hand is clean but he knows something is afoot.

The genius of this is that, after this and scattered through the remaining film, we move back in time in flashback, rounding out the story and discovering the motivation of the characters. This adds a depth of dimension to them which is fantastically detailed.

In the modern day the BPRD (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) agents are being sent on various missions. The final one is to a haunted house (the Hampton House) as a favour to billionaire Oliver Trombolt (J Grant Albrecht), a friend of a Senator. Knowing this is a publicity stunt they intend to only send new agent Sydney Leach (Rob Paulsen) but Broom intervenes and has Leach, himself, Hellboy, Abe and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) all sent to the house, rather than their originally planned missions. Though he doesn’t share his reasons he carries garlic. Incidentally the comic I mentioned shows the mission Hellboy was meant to go on, which he does after the Hampton House

Investigation of the house shows it is teeming with ghosts, but they all seem to be female, of Eastern European origin and asking for help. Broom reveals that they are all victims of Erzsebet, and realises that someone is trying to bring her back via the artefacts from her castle that Trombolt has bought.

We get more background on Erzsebet. Whilst alive she was obsessed with beauty and killed some 613 maidens to bathe in their blood, but her atrocities only became worse after she died and was raised as a vampire. We discover that she was a priestess of the Goddess Hecate (Cree Summer).

Now, to a degree, this is where things do fall slightly flat. Erzsebet is indeed brought back but her return is for Broom to deal with. Thus something must be done by the filmmakers to distract Hellboy and that something is a fight against a manifestation of Hecate. This, in itself, is not a bad concept – it was Hecate observing him at the beginning – but there is no depth to it. I would say that, compared to the rich back story of the Erzsebet story it seems tagged on. However the bizarre part is the back story is the tagged on bit. This almost makes the film an accidental success.

Vampire lore is pretty standard. No reflection (the reflection at the beginning is part of a dream/vision remember), control of wolves, blood drinking, aversion to garlic, holy water and crosses (which are dependant on the bearer’s faith). They can be killed by stake or sunlight.

The voice acting works well, though perhaps the character Leach distracted from what is a fairly dark story as a newcomer and thus fairly wide eyed and innocent. The soundtrack is fitting to the piece. The actual animation works well, though I wouldn’t say it is the most attractive or stylistic I’ve ever come across.

I mentioned extras on the DVD and there are two that deserve highlighting. You can access Professor Broom’s story, which is the back story from the film but in correct chronological order. There is also an e-comic called Penanggalan. Whilst it is somewhat short, and without a huge amount of depth, its nice to see this rare Malaysian vampire being highlighted.

All in all an entertaining animated feature with good depth – albeit accidentally. 7 out of 10.


The imdb page is here.

Blood Ransom – review

Director: Francis dela Torre

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

The vampire tale Blood Ransom was both written and directed by Francis dela Torre and has – it has to be said – style in spades. Unfortunately I think direction and story probably left a little to be desired.

As we will see the vampire lore was pretty unique but this is background, there seemed to be more of the actual story and more narrative that was left somewhat hanging.

Anne Curtis as Crystal

The film begins with intertitles that tell us some of the background to the main character and the vampire lore. Crystal (Anne Curtis, Ang Panday) is a woman who sought to escape pain through the night and met vampires – specifically, we will discover, one named Roman (Samuel Caleb Hunt) – these vampires are unusual and the intertitles begin our education.

the magic blade

Wooden stakes do not kill them nor does sunlight. They are not affected by crosses. When they are created they have seven days to kill and the kill makes them immortal (the more powerful the victim, the more powerful they will be). They are given a unique, magic blade (who creates them is not revealed) and must use that to make the kill. If they are to die it must be via that blade – we’ll come back to this.

Bill and Roman

The film then shows us Crystal, who works in a(n upmarket) strip joint. A customer gets handy and he is killed by Roman’s hired killer Bill (Jamie Harris). This is intercut with scenes around a cop named Daniel (Darion Basco) we get voice-overs from him that adds a film noir-ish element to the project. As the plot develops we discover that Daniel’s best friend Jeremiah (Alexander Dreymon) has been hired as a driver for Crystal.

Crystal and Jeremiah

They have a mutual friend, Oliver (Dion Basco), who has come up with a plan to kidnap Crystal in order to extort money from Roman. As he has fallen in love with her, Jeremiah is opposed to this course of action. What he doesn’t know is that Roman has decided that he will be Crystal’s first kill and what Roman doesn’t know is that Crystal has fallen for Jeremiah. When she is kidnapped, Jeremiah rescues her and they go on the run, Bill kills the kidnappers and Daniel tries to work out what is happening whilst keeping all from his boss, Hobbs (Clifton Powell).

a dream of Crystal

Further lore that comes out in the film is that the vampires can only be killed via their blade being embedded in their throats. They physically cannot do this to themselves and must find someone willing to kill them. Turning involves feeding the new vampire the existing vampire’s blood and the turn can be reversed if they kill the sire and put a drop of their blood in holy water to drink before making their first kill. If that sounds convoluted, it is. Also, because they can only be killed by their own blade it makes us wonder what the price would be of not killing in seven days (Crystal breaches the seven days and yet does not seem to be worse for it). Perhaps Jeremiah's dream where Crystal seemed decayed, revenant like even, was a clue, if so it was too subtle.

Jamie Harris as Bill

There is an undertow about religion – hence the holy water – with questions about belief and mysterious (vampire?) Mr. Manningham (Kevin Meaney) seemingly Catholic in his mentality. However the film does not develop these themes in any satisfying way. There is also a story of fate and maybe prophecy that is dangled before us but, I felt, under-explored. I mentioned Mr. Manningham being a mystery and Bill seems to take orders from him and Roman, but we do not know why. Indeed Bill seemed to change his mind about who he worked for and who he would kill on a frame by frame basis. This was a shame as he was an intriguing character who reminded me of Ron Perlman’s character in Cronos, though I felt Jamie Harris’ performance was a bit too stagy. Anne Curtis and Alexander Dreymon generated a good chemistry, however.

weapon drawn

The cop sections seemed a tad pointless and, if it wasn’t for the fact that Daniel is essential in some scenes (especially the climax), I’d consider cutting them altogether. Strangely we learnt more of Daniel's character than any other character. The Noir seemed to go nowhere and the film would have been better concentrating a little more on Roman as there was scope for him to be an intriguing character but instead he was only a cipher. Such cuts/changes might have helped the pacing as the film seemed ponderous in places.

iconic photography

The film struggles knowing what it wants to be; is it a noir, a thriller, a horror, a road trip, a romance, a philosophical debate? The mix of elements does not combine well and thus jars us. That said the photography is lovely and there are some iconic looking scenes. This is not a bad film, but it is a ponderous film that needed a better direction of travel and a clear vision to make it a great film. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Blade 2 – review

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro

Release Date: 2002

Contains spoilers

This is (obviously by the title) Blade’s second big screen outing and I need to get this out of the way right now. I am a big fan of del Toro’s films (as regular reader may have picked up on) and therefore I am biased as I write this review. To me this was Blade’s finest outing – the score is going to be good and I’m going to gush embarrassingly over the film. You’ve been warned!

Once again Wesley Snipes plays Blade but the prologue is specific to the storyline and does not involve the daywalker. A man enters a blood donation service in the Czech Republic and sits next to another, Jarod Nomak (Luke Goss). Nomak is taken through and is asked questions, including how he got the scar on his chin. A childhood accident, he says. As he is guided into a room he is told that his blood contains a rare phenotype that they have never seen before. Nomak is to be completely harvested as the blood bank is run by vampires.

Nomak begins to laugh and attacks the three vampires. Before feeding on the third he looks up at a security camera and says “Vampires! I hate vampires!” Del Toro is careful through this sequence to hide the feeding method, just hinting at something in his mouth – of course I’m going to spoil it later.

Over the title sequence we get a Wesley Snipes voice-over that outlines a little background and also mentions Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), specifically that Blade is hunting him. Remember I mentioned in the Blade review that we did not see Whistler’s suicide shot, well he might have fired a round but he had already turned.

Following the titles we get a group of vampires running from Blade. There is a protracted chase and fight sequence and the main thing to notice is that del Torro made the dusting effects a lot more luminescent. We can also see that there is a tad more humour tinged through the film, such as when Blade leaps on a motorbike, garrottes the vampire rider, takes the controls and stops before his own car that is blocking the alley. Before the action continues Blade blows himself a kiss in the window. To me this indicated a Blade who was more comfortable with himself and his inner struggles, compared to how we saw the character in the first film.

Blade gets the last vampire, Rush (Santiago Segura), and forces him to tell him where Whistler is. He breaks into the warehouse and fights his way through until he gets to a room and finds Whistler in a stasis tube. He releases his old mentor and, for a moment, appears as though he would stake him. He puts the silver stake away and takes Whistler back to his hideout. In the hideout is his new weapon smith/mechanic, Scud (Norman Reedus), who is less than impressed that Blade has not killed Whistler.

Whistler is placed in a cell and given an accelerated retro-virus detox treatment. Whistler still seems insensible but Blade tells him that in the morning the security blinds on the window will be opened, whether he is cured or not. The cure seems to hold, Whistler has been out for two years and repeatedly tortured and then healed – though they never fixed his gammy leg. Scud is still unsure about Whistler and Whistler is less than impressed by Scud. However intruders have breached the perimeter in the form of sun-suited vampire ninjas.

There is a sword fighting sequence and, whilst it is well done, this is one of my (very minor) irks with the film. It is too obvious that much of the fight is CGI. I think the reason is that the movement is too fast and too fluid to be a human. Whilst that shouldn’t be a problem it does jar slightly as, deep down, we know that a human actor or stunt man couldn’t move that fluidly. The fight ends without fatality. The two vampires are Nyssa (Leonor Varela) and Asad (Danny John-Jules) and have a message from the vampire ruling council. They wish to call a truce and have an offer.

Blade travels with them to the Caliban Industries building and meets Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann) an ancient vampire, bald and marble skinned. The vampires have a problem, a new strain of the vampire virus (dubbed the reaper strain) has appeared and these voracious vampires are hunting their kind, those bitten turn and the reapers will spread exponentially – Nomak is patient zero. Also at the meeting is familiar Kounen (Karel Roden) who gets a great little comedy line – Blade “You’re human.” Kounen “Barely, I’m a lawyer!”

Blade is asked to lead a group of pureblood vampire warriors named the Bloodpack, who have been training for two years to take him out. The carrot is dangled that, when the reapers have finished with the vampires, they’ll turn on the humans, however Blade is aware that the vampires will betray him eventually but the truce will get them deeper into vampire society and give them more intelligence on how they live. Unfortunately, as well as the possibility of vampire betrayal it seems that there might be a spy in Blade’s camp.

We looked extensively at the vampire lore used in these films in the Blade review. The reapers are something else, however. They are immune to garlic and silver and have bone casing around the heart, with just a slight aperture, making staking very difficult. They seem to shrug off damage and EDTA - the anti-coagulant from the first film – is useless. The only real weakness they have is sunlight. We actually see one have part of its head cut off and the main body sunlight destroyed. The eye on the remaining portion of head continued to move.

The feeding method is very different. Their mouths split at the chin and they have no lower mandible. The lower fangs inject a neurotoxin, paralysing the victim, whilst a strong, snake like tongue actually feeds, barbs on the tongue transmit the virus. They have to feed about every two hours or their hyper-accelerated metabolism will start to devour them from the inside.

The film is much darker than the first in tone and it is with the reapers that this truly is revealed. They hunt in packs and lop along like beasts, their visage is akin to Nosferatu. What we have is an animalistic, voracious killer that is virtually unstoppable and, for once, a film made vampires scary again.

As for the actual vampires, we do get a couple of extra snippets. Damaskinos bleeds green, not red and is so old that he turns to marble on death. We also begin to see more of how the purebloods feel about turned vampires, when bloodpack member Priest (Tony Curran) comments about a nightclub of vampires, “Look at them. Half of these ba***rds, they're not even pure bloods. I tell you what, why don't we f***ing kill everyone just to make sure.” This attitude really comes into its own in the TV series. Blade also gets a new weapon in the film, UV bombs, and he also seems to develope a romantic bond with pureblood Nyssa.

The casting is excellent, with Snipes comfortable in the role and Kristofferson excellent, again, as Whistler. Ron Perlman takes on the role of Bloodpack member Reinhardt and is first-rate in the role – as one would expect. I was a little less sure about Danny John-Jules, though there is absolutely nothing wrong with his performance. The problem is entirely down to me, as I am a Red Dwarf fan and I can’t see him without thinking of the Cat.

Most impressive, however, was Luke Goss as Nomak. Now some of you may be unfortunate enough, like myself, to remember Bros – the awful pop combo that Goss was in. Just hearing that he was in the film turned my stomach. Well, you know what, he was absolutely superb and delivered a first rate performance. Kudos to him.

The story is well rounded, though not as convoluted as the first film as the backstory and main rules are already established. The soundtrack again is quite a pounding, urban piece – again not my cup of tea but fitting the movie perfectly. Still action packed, darker and superbly directed this is a film that did the unusual – a sequel that blew the original away. This is how an action movie should be. 8.5 out of 10.

There’s just time to mention an extra on the DVD, a deleted scene that sees Damaskinos with hair – before they realised it looked really silly. Strange to say, he looks like Michael Bolton.

The imdb page is here.