Amazon.com

The recipe for Blade is quite simple; you take one part Batman, one part horror flick, and two parts kung fu and frost it all over with some truly campy acting. What do you get? An action flick that will reaffirm your belief that the superhero action genre did not die in the fluorescent hands of Joel Schumacher. Blade is the story of a ruthless and supreme vampire slayer (Wesley Snipes) who makes other contemporary slayers (Buffy etal.) look like amateurs. Armed with a samurai sword made of silver and guns that shoot silver bullets, he lives to hunt and kill "Sucker Heads." Pitted against our hero is a cast of villains led by Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), a crafty and charismatic vampire who believes that his people should be ruling the world, and that the human race is merely the food source they prey on. Born half-human and half-vampire after his mother had been attacked by a blood-sucker, Blade is brought to life by a very buff-looking Snipes in his best action performance to date. Apparent throughout the film is the fluid grace and admirable skill that Snipes brings to the many breathtaking action sequences that lift this movie into a league of its own. The influence of Hong Kong action cinema is clear, and you may even notice vague impressions of Japanese anime sprinkled innovatively throughout. Dorff holds his own against Snipes as the menacing nemesis Frost, and the grizzly Kris Kristofferson brings a tough, cynical edge to his role as Whistler, Blade's mentor and friend. Ample credit should also go to director Stephen Norrington and screenwriter David S. Goyer, who prove it is possible to adapt comic book characters to the big screen without making them look absurd. Indeed, quite the reverse happens here: Blade comes vividly to life from the moment you first see him, in an outstanding opening sequence that sets the tone for the action-packed film that follows. From that moment onward you are pulled into the world of Blade and his perpetual battle against the vampire race. --Jeremy Storey ... Read more

Reviews (499)

Move over Buffy
Wesley Snipes is every vampire's worst nightmare in the fantastic comic book actioner "Blade". Legendary "Day-Walker" Blade (Wesley Snipes) uses his lethal skills in his quest to exterminate the vampire underworld from the face of the earth. When the rogue vampire Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) plots a vampire uprising against all humans, humanity's only hope for survival lies in the tortured vampire hunter Blade. Based on the Marvel Comics hero, "Blade" is an exciting, action-packed comic book film that contains extreme action and rich characters. The storyline moves quite fast and the action sequences are fierce and quite dazzling. Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff deliver some wildly effective performances. The cast also includes N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Keir, Traci Lords and Kris Kristofferson.

New Line gives "Blade" an outstanding "Platinum Edition" presentation. The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen format. The DVD has a fine video transfer with rich colors and excellent sharpness. The 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is truly clear with amazing surround effects. Its supplemental features include a detailed audio commentary by cast and crew, deleted scenes, behind-the-scene featurettes, production designs and DVD-ROM extras. With such winning presentation and great supplements, "Blade" earns a solid "B+".

Blade kicks butt
Finally a mainstream vampire flick that is cool and delivers the action. Right away it is established that this is going to be different from every other vamp. movie you've seen before. I don't mind big budget Hollywood productions as long as they are somewhat creative with the storyline, don't bore me with endless dialog/build up and provide lots of action and fun. Blade was a real surprise, as I wasn't expecting much but it really blew me away with spectacular visuals, chase scenes that get your heart racing, a badass hero (Snipes' character Blade), stunning action and an overall ultra sleek feel with tight pacing and a real lack of dullness (how refreshing). The gory death scenes are a nice treat as well, this is the advantage with cg effects: you can do pretty much anything if you can imagine it. Villains are sliced to pieces and spray geysers of blood similar to Shogun Assassin (another cool movie people should check out).

Wesley Snipes is not one of my favorite actors but he did a great job playing the role of a dark and mysterious warrior, he is almost bounty hunter like. Blade is a major vampire hunter, and has a really deadly arsenal of weapons, mainly consisting of a big sword that he uses to slash vamps. Blade prowls the city streets and underworld at night seeking the growing number of vampires that are planning to rule the earth. His strength and skills are heightened because of his genetics- he is part vampire. This idea works well for me, you have to be able to explain how he is able to be so successful as a hunter, how he can identify the vamps and over power them.
Blade's strength is also his weakness though, he must take a syrum that controls his thirst for blood. This is gonna tie into the story for a nice little twist toward the end. Anyone who liked Interview With the Vampire will enjoy it.

Along with a new found female companion, Blade is lured into the final confrontation that will determine the fate of the world. Nothing new here, but the big showdown is well done and holds your attention till' the cliffhanger climax. When these vampires die they puff up and explode,
spraying blood and guts into the air. This alone is worth seeing the film.

I've seen a few vampire movies, and I would have to say that Blade easily beats "John Carpenter's Vampires" and "Fright Night" which are two of the most popular ones, but it's not a fair fight since Blade is more action than horror.

Blade is a movie that oozes coolness, I would describe it as a mix of the Batman films, The Matrix, Highlander, Fist of the North Star, and From Dusk Till Dawn. I highly recommend it.

Marvel was still in bankruptcy proceedings..
In 1998, when Amen Ra (Wesley's production company) and New Line agreed to do this first Marvel Movie, they had limited budget, resources, and time to do it. So the whole thing was shot in Europe and from start to finish, it'a a very cheap looking movie. Lots of fake CGi effects, guns going off everywhere, and somewhere there is supposed to be a plot here (but there isn't). I don't think it even had a script. They only made two sequals to this movie because each film cost only $1.98 to produce. Marvel and New Line do not mix.

From The Comics to The Screen -- Vampires Beware!
This is a pretty good film but is not as good as the Buffy television series.

The world is secretly under the control of vampires (much like in the Vampirella stories). Blade was born of a woman who was dying from vampire bite. Thus he has many of the vampire advantages without the limitations. He has teamed up with Kris Kristofferson who was also a vampire hunter and has weapon making skills. Together they are waging a war against the vampires.

The vampires are led by a council of vampire family heads. There are two types of vampires: those born as vampires and those turned from humans by a bite. The leader of the made vampires is tired of ruling from behind the scenes and is pushing for vampires to take overt control. The ancient leaders are very wary of such actions. But the made vampire has a plan for vampiric triumph.

Some ancient vampire texts hold amazing secrets but the secret of translation has been lost long ago. Computers have made it possible to learn these secrets a la Jennie Calendar. The text reveals the existence of an ancient vampire device that can bring about the Blood God. It is to this end that the head of the made vampires is striving. With the sacrifice of the heads of the ancient vampire houses, he can become indestructible. His plans are carried out and Blade must find a way to defeat him.

While this movie has the trappings of vampires and vampire slayers, it is really an action flick with the emphasis on Blade's fighting style. There really are some very good moves here. The rest of the film is pretty good but not excellent.

I am usually pretty indifferent to most of Snipe's movies but he seems to be well-cast in this role. There are many good reasons to see this film but it is on the violent and gory side so be warned.

Nice!
This is the greatest comic adaptation ever made. It has action, great actors, sript, and well made plot. A must see for all action fans and comic book fans! ... Read more

Description

A group of unruly Ohio teenagers win a trip to Washington D.C., where they proceed to wreak havoc. ... Read more

Reviews (100)

Refreshing, different, and most importantly, original.
Forget the sequels, the Scream movies, and the 'I Know Who You Killed After Sleeping With Them Last Independance Day'-type movies. 'Candyman', the original urban-legend-based horror movie is definitely one of the absolute best horror movies of the 90's, and even today, with a decent body of work being produced in this genre, stands the test of time as a truly scary and original picture.

Attractive, intelligent and wry university researcher Helen Lyle (an excellent, hitherto overlooked Virginia Madsen) stumbles onto the horrifying legacy of The Candyman, while compiling a research paper on Urban Legend. She and her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) investigate further, and what ensues is a genuinely disturbing movie, choc-full of decent performances, excellent direction and an exquisite score by Phillip Glass.

The premise is simple: Urban Legend comes to life, starts rampage, must be stopped. It's the actors that make 'Candyman' a treat, and Madsen and Lemmons give great performances, believable as disaster-plagued Women-Of-The-Ninties. Madsen, in particular, does a brilliant job in the role of the hapless Helen, being by turns businesslike and frail. Tony Todd as the titular Candyman is one of the most memorable villains of modern Horror, and gives a sensual, menacing performance as the Villain. His voice and screen presence make the flesh crawl, while simultaneously exuding charisma.

Bernard Rose's direction (he also wrote the screenplay, from an old Clive Barker story) is standard-setting. The grim, gritty vistas of Cabrini Green and the sepia-toned flashback sequences are memorable and chilling, and spiralling arial shots coupled with choppy cut-sequences make for a visual feast. The score, too, helps the picture enormously, and Glass' solo piano is the stuff of horror classics.

An original and excellent horror, 'Candyman' deserves its place as a true classic of the Genre. Neither pretentious nor ironic, it's a brilliantly realised vision of a modern nightmare. Get it.

The REAL Urban Legend film
Candyman is yet another fantastic adaptation of one of Clive Barker's stories into a film. It has a very different feeling to it compared to Hellraiser, Nightbreed, or Lord of Illusion. The world in "Candyman" feels more real, which makes it more frightening. The story is about a graduate student working on a thesis about urban legends and modern folklore that people use to deal with the baser human fears in modern life. Once the legends get spread they eventually take on a life of their own. In the case of Candyman, a legend taking on it's own life gets on an entirely new meaning.

That's enough to get you started without giving away too much.

In the right atmosphere, this movie can be down right frightening. The use of sound in the film is phenomenal. The constant switch between silence and Philip Glass' creepy score is wonderful. On top of that, Tony Todd's resonating deep voice will send chills down your spine when he calls out Helen's name.

The movie is starts very slow paced in order to keep the suspense up, and then explodes.
This is an intense, highly psychological, and gory film.

Been waiting to see this one but...
I love horror movies and this was one of the few that I haven't seen. The acting was okay, but the pacing was slow and it really didn't live up to the hype at all. Rent it first as I did.

Best Horror Movie
This by far has to be the scariest horror movie of all times. As a child i have to say the Friday the 13th movies were scary, along wit Mike Myers, Chucky, Freddy, and the rest but this movie goes beyond all that. I think if u want to see a good horror movie on a Friday night then this is the one. You will definitely be scared. The only thing is that you shouldnt watch it alot of times, the more u watch, the less scarier it becomes.. a must movie to own.

An overlooked psychological thriller
Candyman starts out pedestrian enough. Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is a graduate student attempting to wow her instructor while dealing with her cheating professor husband. Helen chooses the local urban legend Candyman to blow her teacher away. Being the detailed and dedicated researcher, she investigates the area where most of Candyman's victims are found; the Cabrini Green housing project. Helen and her fellow student interview residents of the rundown apartment complex, explore an abandoned apartment that has been transformed into a shrine to the title character, and form an unusual bond with a young, struggling mother (Vanessa Williams).

All proceeds as one would expect until a murderer using the Candyman legend as a cover is caught by the police. Helen comforts a boy by telling him that the Candyman is not the boogeyman, just a bad man trying to scare and cause harm. This is the turning point of the movie.

By destroying the boy's belief in Candyman, Helen invites the entity who describes his state as "to be but not to exist". Candyman is because others believe in him. Helen has destroyed this so he must now revive his legend and resuscitate belief in him. Helen encounters him in a parking garage where he commands her to "be my victim". The next thing she knows, she is lying in the young mother's apartment next to her dead dog with a bloody knife in her hand.

From this point Helen descends into madness with murders and a kidnapping surrounding her while her husband's cheating ways are revealed. Eventually Candyman asks Helen to join her in the non-existence of legend. To save a child, Helen agrees and sacrifices her life so the child might live. The worst thing about the movie is a rather cheesy ending that confirms Helen's entry into Urban Legend-hood.

Candyman is a well written thriller. It's overabundance of gore overshadows the existential elements. All the actors perform their parts with aplomb. Virginia Madsen is more than believable as a woman on the edge of a breakdown, while Tony Todd was born to play the Candyman. His tall and imposing stature combined with a deep and creepy voice can be truly unnerving at times. Forgive the ending and you have a great horror film. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Based on a story by Clive Barker and skillfully written and directed by Bernard Rose, Candyman rises above most horror films by eerily suggesting that some urban legends--in this case a particularly frightening one--have a spooky basis in reality. The legend of the Candyman is a potent one around the high-rise tenements of Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing complex, where the residents speak of a dark, ominous figure who appears when his victims say his name five times in front of a mirror, then mercilessly slashes them to death. Upon learning that the Candyman is rumored to live in one of the vacant tenements, a University of Illinois researcher (Virginia Madsen) investigates a recent murder at Cabrini-Green. She learns that the Candyman (played by Tony Todd) is both unreal and chillingly real--a supernatural force of evil empowered by those who believe in his legend. He is a killer made flesh by the belief of others, and the young researcher's investigation is a threat to his existence. What happens next? We wouldn't dare spoil the chills, but rest assured that writer-director Rose has tapped into a wellspring of urban angst and fear, and Candyman serves up its gruesome frights with a refreshing dose of intelligence. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (100)

Refreshing, different, and most importantly, original.
Forget the sequels, the Scream movies, and the 'I Know Who You Killed After Sleeping With Them Last Independance Day'-type movies. 'Candyman', the original urban-legend-based horror movie is definitely one of the absolute best horror movies of the 90's, and even today, with a decent body of work being produced in this genre, stands the test of time as a truly scary and original picture.

Attractive, intelligent and wry university researcher Helen Lyle (an excellent, hitherto overlooked Virginia Madsen) stumbles onto the horrifying legacy of The Candyman, while compiling a research paper on Urban Legend. She and her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) investigate further, and what ensues is a genuinely disturbing movie, choc-full of decent performances, excellent direction and an exquisite score by Phillip Glass.

The premise is simple: Urban Legend comes to life, starts rampage, must be stopped. It's the actors that make 'Candyman' a treat, and Madsen and Lemmons give great performances, believable as disaster-plagued Women-Of-The-Ninties. Madsen, in particular, does a brilliant job in the role of the hapless Helen, being by turns businesslike and frail. Tony Todd as the titular Candyman is one of the most memorable villains of modern Horror, and gives a sensual, menacing performance as the Villain. His voice and screen presence make the flesh crawl, while simultaneously exuding charisma.

Bernard Rose's direction (he also wrote the screenplay, from an old Clive Barker story) is standard-setting. The grim, gritty vistas of Cabrini Green and the sepia-toned flashback sequences are memorable and chilling, and spiralling arial shots coupled with choppy cut-sequences make for a visual feast. The score, too, helps the picture enormously, and Glass' solo piano is the stuff of horror classics.

An original and excellent horror, 'Candyman' deserves its place as a true classic of the Genre. Neither pretentious nor ironic, it's a brilliantly realised vision of a modern nightmare. Get it.

The REAL Urban Legend film
Candyman is yet another fantastic adaptation of one of Clive Barker's stories into a film. It has a very different feeling to it compared to Hellraiser, Nightbreed, or Lord of Illusion. The world in "Candyman" feels more real, which makes it more frightening. The story is about a graduate student working on a thesis about urban legends and modern folklore that people use to deal with the baser human fears in modern life. Once the legends get spread they eventually take on a life of their own. In the case of Candyman, a legend taking on it's own life gets on an entirely new meaning.

That's enough to get you started without giving away too much.

In the right atmosphere, this movie can be down right frightening. The use of sound in the film is phenomenal. The constant switch between silence and Philip Glass' creepy score is wonderful. On top of that, Tony Todd's resonating deep voice will send chills down your spine when he calls out Helen's name.

The movie is starts very slow paced in order to keep the suspense up, and then explodes.
This is an intense, highly psychological, and gory film.

Been waiting to see this one but...
I love horror movies and this was one of the few that I haven't seen. The acting was okay, but the pacing was slow and it really didn't live up to the hype at all. Rent it first as I did.

Best Horror Movie
This by far has to be the scariest horror movie of all times. As a child i have to say the Friday the 13th movies were scary, along wit Mike Myers, Chucky, Freddy, and the rest but this movie goes beyond all that. I think if u want to see a good horror movie on a Friday night then this is the one. You will definitely be scared. The only thing is that you shouldnt watch it alot of times, the more u watch, the less scarier it becomes.. a must movie to own.

An overlooked psychological thriller
Candyman starts out pedestrian enough. Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is a graduate student attempting to wow her instructor while dealing with her cheating professor husband. Helen chooses the local urban legend Candyman to blow her teacher away. Being the detailed and dedicated researcher, she investigates the area where most of Candyman's victims are found; the Cabrini Green housing project. Helen and her fellow student interview residents of the rundown apartment complex, explore an abandoned apartment that has been transformed into a shrine to the title character, and form an unusual bond with a young, struggling mother (Vanessa Williams).

All proceeds as one would expect until a murderer using the Candyman legend as a cover is caught by the police. Helen comforts a boy by telling him that the Candyman is not the boogeyman, just a bad man trying to scare and cause harm. This is the turning point of the movie.

By destroying the boy's belief in Candyman, Helen invites the entity who describes his state as "to be but not to exist". Candyman is because others believe in him. Helen has destroyed this so he must now revive his legend and resuscitate belief in him. Helen encounters him in a parking garage where he commands her to "be my victim". The next thing she knows, she is lying in the young mother's apartment next to her dead dog with a bloody knife in her hand.

From this point Helen descends into madness with murders and a kidnapping surrounding her while her husband's cheating ways are revealed. Eventually Candyman asks Helen to join her in the non-existence of legend. To save a child, Helen agrees and sacrifices her life so the child might live. The worst thing about the movie is a rather cheesy ending that confirms Helen's entry into Urban Legend-hood.

Candyman is a well written thriller. It's overabundance of gore overshadows the existential elements. All the actors perform their parts with aplomb. Virginia Madsen is more than believable as a woman on the edge of a breakdown, while Tony Todd was born to play the Candyman. His tall and imposing stature combined with a deep and creepy voice can be truly unnerving at times. Forgive the ending and you have a great horror film. ... Read more