Does that sound like schlock, or what?
Well, Vampire Hunter D is pretty schlocky. It’s not
horrible, but the
story and the depth behind the story has been done to death. No pun
intended.In the year 12,090 (10,000 years after Armageddon), vampires rule the world, enforcing their sick version of law against humans, who are no better than sex toys and livestock to the bloodsuckers. They utilize mutants with wicked powers to uphold their rule, and to kill those who would stand up to the vampiric aristocrats.
Doris Lang is a lovely young woman who runs a farm with her little brother. The farm she runs lays on the land controlled by Count Magnus Lee, and Doris has caught the arrogant vampire’s eye (lucky her!). Doris discovers a monster eating the fruit off of a tree of her’s, and charges after it. She calls her horse, Luke, and gives chase.
She blows the creatures head in two, and looks for more danger, only to be surprised when the monster raises up and chomps into Luke’s neck! Doris blows the creatures head off, and continues to blast the creature’s dead carcass just to be sure. In paying attention to the creature, however, she doesn’t notice the lycanthrope coming out of nowhere to pick up Luke in it’s monstrous jaws… and use one claw to pull her crucifix off her neck.
Still in shock because of what just happened, Doris doesn’t realize that she’s lost her cross until Magnus Lee appears before her. He tells her that he has chosen her, and then seals the deal with a bite. Fade to black.
A short time later, Doris meets up with a wanderer coming down a road riding a robotic horse. She attempts to take the wanderer’s sword, and is turned back. Through this confrontation, she realizes that the man is a vampire hunter. Doris beseeches the man to protect her from Count Lee, offering room, board, and a warm bed (nudge, nudge) in return. The quiet man, known as D, agrees to track down the Count and kill him.
Doris realizes how much trouble she is in when the three of them travel to town to get supplies. First, the mayor’s prick of a son hits on her, telling her that he can protect her from the vampire. When she flatly refuses the bastard’s advances, he tells everyone within earshot that she has been marked by Count Lee.
She’s immediately brought before the mayor himself, with the town doctor, Doctor Fearing, and the mayor’s son standing alongside. The mayor thinks about sending Doris off to a prison camp to keep the Count away from the town, but Fearing (a friend of Doris) reminds the mayor of the utter destruction that following that course of action has caused in the past. The mayor instead releases Doris into D’s custody, irking his son to no end.
Doris then is refused service at the store, despite the doctor’s best efforts. While they’re bickering with the storekeeper, D is in the horse cart attempting to explain the best way for Doris’s brother to deal with the situation. As soon as they were introduced, you can see the way that Doris’s brother looks up to D. This adds a hint of tenderness to the story.
Night falls, and D doesn’t expect the Count to come after Doris that night, because there’s a blood moon. During the blood moon, vampires believe that a female’s blood is unclean. However, D winds up being incorrect, because the Count’s daughter, Lamica, and his right hand mutant (Rei Gancy) come after Doris. D puts Doris to sleep, to make sure that she won’t be called to the Count subconsciously, and goes after the two interlopers.
D unsheathes his sword, and goes to work, but is surprised when he runs Rei through… and his sword winds up sticking out of his own back! D tells Rei that he’s heard stories of a mutant that can manipulate time and space, and Rei chuckles because he’s found him!
Rei and Lamica are just as surprised, however, when D musters the strength to pull the sword out of him and keeps coming at them! Lamica discovers what they’re up against: D is a dampile, a half vampire/ half human (kinda like Blade). D turns them back, but he realizes that this is basically only the beginning.
D decides to take the battle to the vampires by attacking the Count’s castle. However, despite D’s own version of Jiminy Cricket warning him that he thought it was a trap, D winds up getting trapped in the basement of the castle with a group of three snakewomen.
While D’s life forces are being drained by the hideous snakewomen, Doris is kidnapped by Rei and Lamica, and brought back to the castle. Lee plans a wedding, and MEZMERMIZES Doris into a slumber. Lamica prays to the vampire’s god, Dracula, to stop the wedding, but then decides to do the job herself.
Meanwhile, D’s conscience wakes him up, and he regenerates his strength. He also grows big ass fangs, and proceeds to slaughter the three snakewomen with very little effort. He cuts through the defenses of the castle like a hot knife through butter, and blows past Lamica while she sets up the murder of Doris. D grabs Doris and continues sprinting through the castle. He fights his way through the rest of the defenses, and gets back to the ranch, despite Rei’s best attempt to cut them down.
Rei doesn’t give up, however. He meets a messanger from the Lee at the hotel in town, and is given a magical candle with the power to paralyze people with vampire blood in their veins. Problem: the mayor’s son finds out about the candle. Do you think he’ll cause problems? Could be.
Rei proceeds to kidnap Doris’ brother and leaves a note telling D to come get him. D does (just like a hero), and Rei lights the candle to paralyze D. The only problem is that the candle doesn’t work! Rei is so surprised that D lops off his hand, and leaves Rei in a bloody heap on the cold ground, rolling around like a player who suffered a back injury in Madden 2002 and swearing all sorts of bloody revenge on D.
While D is away, Doctor Fearing reappears at the ranch. He tells Doris that he’s worried about her, and he wishes to wisk her away to a safe house. They jump on a carriage and head out, but on a narrow mountain pass they are stopped by Lamica. As Doris prepares for battle, Fearing knocks her down and rips off her crucifix (tearing her dress at the same time for a hint of fan service). The good doctor proceeds to grow fangs, and as he bickers with Lamica about what to do with Doris, Doris collapses in her seat.
The doctor tells Lamica that Doris is like the daughter he never had, but now he wishes to suck her blood once Magnus Lee is finished with her. Lamica snaps and stakes Doctor Fearing, sending him down the mountainside.
Lamica hatches a plan to get Doris out of the area controlled by her father, but as luck would have it, the mayor’s dipshit son intervenes. He paralyzes Lamica with the mystic light from the candle, and he tells Doris that she were to marry him, he would use the candle to protect her from the Count. He plans to be mayor of the town in the future, and as such, once he kills the Count, he’ll have access to his fortune and land. He ogles Lamica, and is about to grant her wish of killing her, but a blast from a rifle cuts short his attempt.
D and Doris’ brother make the save. They drop Lamica off near the castle, but she wonders why they don’t just kill her and be over it. The response: killing Lamica for no real reason (and they don’t have one) would violate D’s code of ethics. In the debate that follows, D proves to Lamica that he knows more about the Vampire God than she does. Lamica is floored, and demands to know how he knows that.
The mayor’s son, walking down the road, clutching the candle in his left hand, and his left arm in his right hand. He limps along until he runs into Rei. Rei then exacts his revenge on the mayor’s son.
Fan service scene, featuring Doris waking up from a nightmare. The dream: reliving the past day’s events. She then jumps in the shower (nudge, nudge), and dries off. She runs into D in the living room, and they share a tender moment, as D resists her advances. His conscience slaps him down some more as he lay on the couch, trying to sleep. He then gets up, as he senses danger.
D checks outside to be sure that the cottage is safe, but the mystical light from the magic candle paralyzes him. Rei originally wanted to kill D just so Magnus Lee would bite him and make him a vampire, so he’d be immortal. Now, it’s personal for him. D attempts to fight the power of the candle, but to no avail. Rei proceeds to stake him and then lops off his left hand, leaving him for dead. Rei then kidnaps Doris and her brother… again… and takes her to the Count. Rei asks for Magnus Lee’s blessing to join his family, but Lee scoffs at his wishes and rebukes him. Rei then hatches a plan for revenge.
The story gets a little more interesting when the story finally lets us in on the source of D’s little inner voice. His left hand starts moving on it’s own! Plus it has a little face on the palm, revealing why D almost always wore a glove on that hand. The hand attempts to rouse D, and redoubles his efforts when he notices a creature that looks like ball lightning swoop to the ground and digest a worm in a matter of seconds. The hand eats a bunch of dirt and crawls over to where D still lay unconscious. He puts himself up to the bloody stump in the hopes that he’ll regenerate, and that D will wake up. Now, what type of movie would it be if the main hero is killed before the final scene?
D wakes up, and slices the spirit in twain. He then sets out to save the siblings and to bring a little bit of justice to his crazy world by ending Magnus Lee’s stranglehold on the land.
The movie is very straightforward…to a point. The story is very engaging, but the primary problem the movie has is the fact that it’s only about 80 minutes long. The twists and turns would be better suited if the movie was 20 minutes longer. As it is, it might give some people a headache with all the cuts and very fast English dialogue.
This film was released in 1985, and the art sort of shows that. The great Yoshitaka Amano (the guy who did the character designs for the Final Fantasy games) did some wonderful character designs for pre-production, but the in-depth artwork was impossible for the animators to… uh… animate, so they scaled back quite a bit.
The remaining art is pretty average, and it’s a little grainy. The animation makes up for any problems with the art. It’s pretty smooth, and it’s probably the best part of the movie. However, the art problems really date the film.
The sound is… bizarre. D is the dark, quiet type. So, in both tracks, he doesn’t talk much. The Japanese track is better than the English track (Doris’ brother sounds like he’s 5 in English), so if you can stand subtitles, watch it in the original Japanese.
The extras are nice. A short film about the Making of Vampire Hunter D shows a small peek behind the scenes of Sony in Japan when they were making this film. It’s a very interesting bit of film. There are also a couple of different trailers for Vampire Hunter D (including the original Japanese trailer), a trailer for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (GORGEOUS looking movie), and as it is with the rest of Urban Vision’s releases, they have a bunch of previews for other titles.
The film isn’t horrible, per se. It’s just a little dated, and a little cliched. It has it’s problems, but when you scratch the surface, it’s easy to see why the film has survived to this day. It’s an animated film with the Japanese flair, and a story that helps it gain mainstream acceptance.
However, it’s very violent, with several dismemberments. It also has a couple of moments of fan service (mmmm… shower scene). I’d give the film an R rating… it’s just a little bit too violent for a PG-13. So if you don’t enjoy this type of film (for example, Ninja Scroll), take a pass. Otherwise, take a chance.
RATED: 6 of 10
Next: will Nate ever finish his article on Ranma? Maybe. Tune in next time to find out!
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