Caffeinated Clint
With the “Blade” films, the producers were to all intents and purposes clutching at straws to keep audiences entertained. “Blade: House of Chthon” is what happens when the dispenser runs out of straws.
Kirk Jones, Jill Wagner, Jessica Gower, Neil Jackson, Nelson Lee
With the “Blade” films, the producers were to all intents and purposes clutching at straws to keep audiences entertained. “Blade: House of Chthon” is what happens when the dispenser runs out of straws.
This latest Blade jaunt is further evidence that the vampiric avenger should’ve stayed in comic form – – or at least, within the confines of a hefty and workable budget.
“Chthon” (worst DVD title ever?) is the pilot episode to the short-lived “Blade” TV series. Only now, it’s a little longer… and with a couple of extra bites (in fact, it features a nude scene that wasn’t in the broadcast version).
Set after the events of “Blade Trinity”, in which Blade thought he’d eliminated all the vampires, the series fixes on a ‘nest’ of hidden bloodsuckers that somehow evaded the drac-wide wipe-out. The ‘House of Chthon’ is a nest run by a human turned vampire named Marcus Van Sciver (Neil Jackson), who plays boss to a bunch of purebloods (real vampires). With the aid of his sidekick Shen (Nelson Lee), and all the crafty weapons that Shen supplies for him, Blade makes moves to finally rid of his crafty adversaries.
The “Blade” films weren’t a shade on some of the other comic-book movies out there – if anything, they were twigs to Spider-Man’s trunks – but the series, with it’s weak production values and unexciting story-lines, doesn’t even come close to the so-so festivities of the theatrically-released efforts. Whatever you think of the man (especially in those terrible direct-to-dvd movies he seems to thrive on these days) Wesley Snipes was a pretty good Blade, what with his subtle spurts of charisma and calm coolness, and the series’ replacement, rapper Kirk ‘Sticky Fingaz’ Jones is by no means a fitting replacement. He may look like Blade, but he definitely isn’t as schooled as Snipes when it comes to acting. He’s about as wooden as Noah’s Ark.
There are moments in the pilot that border on enjoyable – funnily enough, it’s the scenes that Blade doesn’t appear that work the best – and at times, you do feel yourself getting caught up in the storyline, but like a hypnotist clicking his fingers, you almost immediately awake from the trance when proceedings slow up.
There are two audio commentaries, one by director Peter O’Fallon and the other by writers David S. Goyer and Geoff Jones. Both are pretty much standard fare – talking mostly about what’s going on on the screen rather than actually giving us the dirt on the production. Thankfully, some of the ‘dirt’ can be found in the 8-part documentary chronicling the making of the series. But still, and not unlike the series itself, it’s nothing worth missing a repeat of “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” for.
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Reviewer : Clint Morris
