Blade

Automatic Transcript

Blade (1998)

Episode 415, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we come to that time where we do a tribute episode, and, you know, this is something that I kind of learned a little later. I don’t know how I find out when. People die. I guess it comes across my social media or it comes across the news probably and I think for me I think it was like a big news thing like cnn or new york times It was doing a retrospective about Kris Kristofferson who actually died late september So now that we’re done with all of our halloween holiday stuff before we kick off into Christmas and it becomes a new year I did want to revisit him because he’s another one of those actors that for me has just kind of Been around and he pops up in all kinds of places.

And I also knew he was a country singer and things like that. Just, he’s just been a guy who’s kind of always been there. You know, not at the forefront of my mind by any means. Like, Oh, there he is again. And I didn’t know that much about him. And I thought this would be kind of a fun opportunity to see if he had done any horror movies so that we could talk about them.

And I could also learn a little bit more about him myself. And so here we are doing a tribute episode for Kris Kristofferson. And the episode that we settled on was 1998’s Blade. A movie that I knew we were going to get to eventually. So we might as well do it now. He has a fairly prominent role in this one.

And I’m glad we came to Blade because, uh, I have not seen Blade, I think, since it came out. I remember renting this with buddies and thinking it was pretty cool. And I think I saw the sequel as well. I’m really fuzzy on that. And then I just kind of left it. So, uh, this is going to be my first time revisiting it since the nineties.

How about you, Craig? 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I saw it when it came out, I guess. And I think I’ve seen both the sequels, but it’s been a really long time. You know, I was reminded about it recently. You know, this was Marvel maybe had done like one other or a couple other superhero movies, but. They hadn’t really taken off yet and they had just done, Oh, one of the Batman sequels, the notoriously bad one, I think with George Clooney and the bat nipples had come out just right before this, you know, the entertainment industry just kind of announced, you know, like the, the superhero movie genre is dead.

Like that, that Batman movie with the bat nipples killed it. Everyone got a lot less enthusiastic after that one. Yeah. But then this came out and it did. pretty well and it spawned some sequels that I think the second one did okay and I think Wesley Snipes thought that the second one was the best one. I honestly don’t remember.

I, I do remember that by the time the third one rolled around, I don’t know if Wesley Snipes was upset with the director or what, but I read that he was just a nightmare on set. Like he wouldn’t even like open his eyes, like in, like in shots and scenes, like he wouldn’t open his eyes. I don’t know. My point though, was that this kind of is the, like Marvel is so huge now.

In an annoying way, frankly. Like, I’m over it. I get it. I’m so over it. I get why those movies are fun and exciting and, you know, pre COVID when I still went to movie theaters, which I don’t really do anymore. They’re fun to watch on the big screen, but we just got so oversaturated with them. Yeah. I’m done.

Like, give me a f ing break from these videos. F ing superhero movies. 

Todd: It’s too much to keep track of, you know? I know. I remember when there was like a new one a year, or maybe two a year, and they, they interconnected with each other, and that was kind of exciting, and you’d wait for the end credit thing to see what was coming next, and then, you know, we knew it was all gonna culminate in like that one Avenge you know, those three Avengers movies, right?

Yeah. And it was fun to follow those interlocking stories and all that, but now I don’t know, man. There are TV series, there’s, uh, 15 movies a year. It seems like it’s too much to fill my brain with, and it’s just another one of those cases, in my opinion, of just like, too much of a good thing, suddenly you don’t like it anymore.

Right. It all becomes mush, and it’s not special. That’s true. I think they’ve done the same thing with the Star Wars franchise, to be honest. But 

Craig: that’s, yeah, that’s, that’s true as well. I mean, it’s so ubiquitous that it almost can’t be avoided. Like I’m still watching stuff, you know, like I’m watching Agatha all along now, which is a Marvel properties, spin off of Scarlet or WandaVision with the Scarlet Witch and like, and I’m not saying that some of those movies aren’t good.

They are like, I do enjoy them. Some of them are really funny. The funnier ones. I prefer those. It’s just so much anyway, that’s. Getting off topic, the point is Blade was kind of a precursor to this era. Yeah. And it seems very much in keeping with this era even though it also reeks of the 90s. It does. It’s very Matrix.

It’s very Yes. Charlie’s Angels. fascinated by really fast martial arts to like industrial techno music for a minute. Yes. 

Todd: And like bullet time and all these cool new effects you could do with CGI, which, you know, could, could really enhance the action and make things exciting. It’s hard to believe I’ve thought for a minute, okay, this was definitely very inspired by the matrix, but actually this came out a year.

Matrix did so it almost seems like this movie may have inspired some of the action in the matrix as well 

Craig: The thing that I read and of course, who knows you read things on the internet Who knows if they’re true or not, but people, you know associated the the two movies But really they were both written and in production Approximately at the same time.

Right. So it’s unlikely that they had any impact on each other at all. 

Todd: Sure. They just captured the way Hollywood was going, or the zeitgeist. Exactly. 

Craig: That’s what I was going to say. There were lots of those movies. Really, The Matrix, people, you know, talk about it was so innovative, it was such a big thing.

And it was, but there was a lot of that just because the technology was developing. And so you were seeing these similar effects. And similar shooting styles in a lot of movies, the Matrix just happened to be one of the better of them. And this movie, I wasn’t super excited to go back to it, frankly. Like I, I, it’s not that I remember disliking it.

I just had in my head, I have a feeling this will not have aged well. And ultimately I think I’m right, like, the action sequences are fun, if you’re like down for that, if you’re in the mood for it, and there are a lot of them. I was a little bit shocked at the effects, the digital effects, like the CGI is crazy, like, not good.

Todd: It’s pretty bad. I mean we kind of forget how bad it was back then because back then this stuff Even though by net by today’s standards, it’s bad was blowing us away because we were seeing it all kind of for the first time 

Craig: Yeah, and I’m not as I’m not as much of a gamer as you are But I feel like these looked like video game special effects Like I like I felt like I was playing like a first person Like horror shooter 

Todd: make no mistake video games were still very polygony when this came out like, 

Craig: you know, they 

Todd: were still right, right, right By today’s standards.

No, you’re right. What video games are today is kind of what this looks like Well, you know go back a few years, but it’s what this looks like right now Yeah somewhere in between and I think another point you’re trying to make as well You you know, you were talking about marvel. This is one of the first movies to really go super dark With comic book characters, it certainly wasn’t the first Okay, obviously we had the Tim Burton Batman, which I think you could credit with that and that was like at 89 I think 88 89 and then at some point the crow came along Before this in the early to mid 90s because we were all in kind of about the crow in high school But they were just starting to like make comic book movies that were not just being taken seriously But also we’re gonna go for grit And violence and put gore in there and very high stakes and really terrifying villains.

It’s no coincidence, obviously, that David Goyer, who wrote the screenplay for this, and was really responsible for developing this property, actually changing it from the comic book. This was based on a comic book, but the comic book character apparently was very different. They deliberately updated the comic book character for the nineties for this movie.

Subsequently, then. The comic book started to take the cue from the movie and change its tone and direction. I was surprised actually to learn that Blade was a character that was created for the Tomb of Dracula comic book series in the 70s. 

Craig: And the history of the comics is, is very interesting. Like, Blade was just a minor character.

I won’t remember it well enough. to recount it all. But if that’s something that you’re interested in, you should look into it. It’s, it’s very easy to research, and it is really interesting. Um, a minor character, really. Early on, anyway. Like, I think that maybe he had had a, like, one ten issue run. Yeah, he was introduced in something else.

But he did, I think he just had, like, before the movie was made, he had only been in like, one run of his own, like, Blade thing. Series or whatever. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: All very interesting and you know Wesley Snipes who plays Blade was looking into doing a like a superhero Role, but he was really pushing hard for Black Panther And again, this is you know in the early 90s that he’s pushing for this and what I don’t you know, whatever happened I don’t know what happened that that didn’t come about but this black half breed vampire character He landed.

What I’ll say about it is is that I, I think that this movie and his character are iconic. I don’t know that in the pantheon of comic book movies and comic book heroes that he’s near the top, but people know about this character. I mean, Wesley Snipes just cameoed in. Wolverine and Deadpool. Yeah, I mean, I think there were a million cameos in that movie, but he cameoed as blade So like his character in some earth or some reality multiverse or whatever is still around He’s a cultural entity.

You know, I mean like people know who blade is. Yeah, it’s a big deal 

Todd: My mom would know who blade is, you know, even if she hadn’t seen the movies She would have an idea right of what this is. Sure Yeah, and it’s important to point out because it’s very current just last month in October They officially pretty much pulled.

There has been a new blade sort of reboot that has been in development hell for like a decade. They’ve announced he’s going to be a part of the, of the universe. I think like in 2020, they were going to bring him into the Marvel universe again, but he’s going to be played by a different actor and then just kind of went through all these things and a movie had been announced a couple of years ago and it just got pulled.

Off the list in October and it seems like that’s just dead. So, you know, it’s kind of interesting we’re doing it now. We just happen to be doing this now as well. You know, a couple other things I just wanted to say about it real quick before we start getting into the story. And of course, eventually talk about Chris Kristofferson.

Of course. Who’s also super fascinating. I can’t wait to talk about him. But we last revisited a David S. Goyer movie. Just a couple months ago. And that was demonic toys. That was one of his very first screenplays. 

Craig: Oh my God. That’s hilarious. I had no idea. 

Todd: Crazy. Right? 

Craig: What a change, 

Todd: right? But he went on from there to do a sequel to the crow city of angels.

So you could see, you can see the trajectory of his writing, right? What he’s interested in. 

Craig: He did a couple of the really popular, like, didn’t he do like Batman begins and, and yes, dark night too. 

Todd: Oh yeah. Yeah. The first couple of those Batman movies. And before that, I think probably the one that made, that got him some attention.

Although, the script did. It came out the same year, was Dark City. Have you ever seen Dark City? 

Craig: No, I remember hearing about it, but I haven’t seen it. 

Todd: Dark City is one of those, like, underrated gems. If you remember it, you love it, and you go, Oh my god, why did I forget that movie? It was so good. I think it’s still good today.

But yeah, you’re right. He eat at Dark City, which is amazing. Two Blade movies, actually all three of them. He wrote, he directed, I believe the third one, Guillermo del Toro directed the second one. Gosh, it’s so interesting part in, uh, in, in history. And again, at this point where Marvel was starting to get okay with being dark, Marvel was not yet part of Disney.

Marvel was still making pennies on their properties over these little like little deals that they had in this case with new line. I 25 grand off of blade, even though it went on to make tens of millions of dollars worldwide, but yeah, this movie is. far more violent, for its time especially, than any comic book movie had really dared to be, with maybe the exception of The Crow.

There’s gore, there’s blood everywhere, limbs are coming off, it’s just, it’s pretty intense. And then of course, the martial arts action scenes, which were all the rage. 

Craig: I don’t know how, really, to approach the movie, because it’s, one, long, and two, Plot heavy. Is it though? I, I, I say plot heavy. I don’t know that it’s, yeah, the, I, I, I get Maybe not, I just mean it.

Like things are always happening and there’s a lot going on, so I don’t know how detailed we want to get, but basically the whole premise. You get in the very beginning, you get his backstory. This pregnant woman is on a hospital gurney, she’s being wheeled like into surgery or whatever, and you can clearly see that she’s got blood and teeth marks on her neck.

She’s been bitten by a vampire. And she gives birth to a baby, and then presumably, So Blade, because he was like, in utero, and his mother was bitten, like, he’s, he’s a, he’s a half breed. 

Todd: So like, he has all of the positive qualities of a vampire. But very few, if any, of the negative qualities, right? So he can handle daylight.

He’s immune to a lot of the sil the silver and all the stuff that they say in this movie that affects vampires doesn’t affect him. But also he’s like super strong and heals right away. And the only thing that he’s really struggling with, he’s trying to keep an addiction to blood at bay. He’s got a serum that has been developed that he has to constantly inject himself with.

So that he doesn’t have the urge to feed off of humans, right? To keep him pure. 

Craig: I guess. I didn’t really understand that like so I guess from his infancy to puberty He just lived on the streets I’m not sure we know sometime around puberty And I say that because they specifically say that in the movie.

Whistler, this old guy played by Chris Christopherson, finds him. Now we don’t see any of this. This is an exposition dump later. But grisly old Chris Christopherson finds him. 

Todd: As grisly as he could possibly be. He’s playing his grisliest in this one I think. And he’s played some pretty grisly guys. I 

Clip: found him when he was 13.

He was living on the streets, feeding off the homeless. His need for blood had taken hold at puberty. I took him for a vampire at first. Almost killed him, too. Then I realized what he was. Blade’s mother was attacked by a vampire while she was pregnant. She died, but he lived. Unfortunately, he’d undergone certain genetic changes.

He can withstand garlic, silver, even sunlight. And he’s got their strength. 

Craig: This is one of those things that, that feels like comic book lore. It’s a lot of world building, but in a two, even a two hour movie, which is long to me, even in a two hour movie, you have to do it so quickly that it just seems like a lot of information.

Like, 

Todd: what? Yeah. 

Craig: What is happening? Like, who are you? Right. Why are you? Adopting vampire children. How did you rehabilitate him again? What is happening? There are like two or three different serums in the movie like there’s a good serum and then there’s also a bad serum and

Todd: That’s true the bad serums blue and others serums red I will say this about the movie and it’s a positive and a negative The positive is that they don’t spend a lot of time bombarding you with this lore. Like, you, you get bits and pieces of it, a lot of it is very expediently given to you in these just corny exposition dumps, you know, when one character happens to have a break in their life and can sit down and explain everything to the character who just came on the scene.

And so, and there’s a lot of blanks to fill in that we may, maybe get in the sequels, I don’t know. I don’t really remember. But yeah, so the movie doesn’t bother itself too much with that. But then again, for a two hour movie, it’s kind of surprising. So what does the two hour movie fill itself with? I think it’s a very slow pace.

Craig: Oh, see, I don’t know, maybe I didn’t think it was slow at all. Like, I always felt like stuff was happening. I mean, it felt very Action heavy to me, 

Todd: but I thought from the very beginning we know where it’s going almost within maybe the first 10 to 15 minutes We’ve we establish who the big bad guy is we establish what his goal more or less We’re a little fuzzy on the exact details But we kind of know what he’s trying to do and what he’s up against.

Then, there’s not a lot more mystery. We’re just kind of seeing them do the detective work and the moving from place to place and the fighting this guy and fighting that guy that’s sort of necessary to get to that point where we’re expecting to get to. You know what I mean? It’s not a lot of like, Oh, suddenly there’s a twist and the movie goes in this brand new direction that’s suddenly piquing my interest again.

At least that’s not how I see it. Felt about the movie. So for me, I did kind of get a little bored, even though there was stuff happening, I 

Craig: think, I think I understand. I got a little bored too. It’s really odd because I’m going back and forth between saying it’s heavily plotted. It’s not heavily plotted.

I think that it really is only because it feels like you are coming into this movie. I may be getting more heady here than is necessary. Like, all of a sudden, I’m just an observer in this world, and I just kind of have to figure out what’s going on. They don’t spend a whole lot of time explaining things.

It’s just like, here it is. Here is Blade. Here is who he is. Here is this bad guy. The bad guy’s name is Deacon Frost. He’s played by Stephen Dorff. Who is Stephen Dorff? Was Stephen Dorff The main kid from Monster Squad, is that? 

Todd: Was he? Oh, I don’t know. He started out as a child actor. I don’t remember all that he was in.

Um, he’s been in a lot of things. He’s a good looking dude. He 

Craig: was in one of those sexy Aerosmith videos with Alicia Silverstone. Yeah. He’s the bad guy, but then like, he’s kind of this rogue vampire. And then there’s also the, and he’s only a half vampire. Because he wasn’t born a vampire. He was turned into a vampire.

Wait, what? Like, right. The vampire lore here is also so like, it’s not the typical vampire lore that I’m accustomed to. And they’re not just going to, they’re not going to explain the rules to you. You just have to figure it out. That that’s what I mean. Like, I hear what you’re saying. I feel like I’m just all of a sudden.

I’m all of a sudden observing this world and they’re not gonna explain it to me. I just have to figure it out 

Todd: Yeah, and to its credit, honestly, I kind of like that. You didn’t hold our hand through it, really But then there are some times where the dialogue is a little silly. By the way, he played Glenn in the gate Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

That is what I’m thinking of for sure. Yeah So yeah, I mean, I get what you’re saying and I do, I do agree with you there. Like I kind of said earlier, it’ll stop every now and then to give you like a big exposition dump for some backstory that you need. But like I said, very early on, we see this creepy boardroom of older vampires.

And within that one scene, we learned that all of those vampires are like purebloods and they are like the establishment. They basically control the world, unknown to all of us. They’re in every sector of society and in power. And that’s the way they like it. But then this guy is the rogue one. Who’s a half breed who comes in.

It’s like, eh, you know what you guys, your old hat. You don’t know the way the modern world works. And we’re going to do things differently. 

Clip: Our livelihood depends on our ability to blend in and our discretion. Maybe it’s time. We forgot about discretion. We should be ruling the humans, not running around making back alley treaties.

Todd: And so he’s the loose cannon. And so he’s a threat not only to the world, but he’s also a threat to the current vampire establishment and the way they want to stay hidden. 

Craig: And it’s interesting. I like the way that they went with this. They went hip and cool. Like, in the comics, this was an old man. An old man who was like struggling with his mortality and trying to find a way to live longer and and here They went with this young hip looking guy, and I don’t really know what happened to 

Todd: Stevendorf.

I haven’t seen him He’s still making movies, it’s just not big things. It’s like, probably like, made for TV stuff. 

Craig: This is one of the most commercial things that he’s done since he was a kid. He didn’t like doing commercial things, and talked about that openly. He had his reasons for doing this when I don’t remember what they were, but like, He’s this cool, sexy, young guy.

And I think that works really well because he’s challenging all of us. Old tradition, right? At the same time that he’s challenging old tradition, he’s also using tradition to challenge tradition, which I actually thought was really interesting. Like all of these old vampires on this council keep telling them that he’s a big, dumb, dumb.

For trying to do all this research into their ancient vampire texts. They’re like, it’s a, it’s a dead language. Nobody can translate that. Meanwhile, he’s got a translating program running on the computer right in front of them. It’s clearly translating it. And he’s like, okay, grandpa, whatever. And then he does translate it, but that’s what I say.

Like, there are so many things going on. There’s this ancient text. And I want to talk about the person who apparently keeps the ancient text. I don’t know what’s going on there, but they’re not keeping it very well. Let’s put it that way. But then when he translates it, it translates into like digital.

Architectural designs. Yeah, it gets a 3d model Of a place of something like it looks like a I don’t know. It’s like a big cylindrical Structure or something and there are all kinds of runes. Oh my god There’s so much going on in this movie and I know that I’m jumping way ahead and we can totally jump back But my favorite part of the movie and when I say favorite part, I mean The most ridiculous part to me is that he translates the ancient language.

It gives him computerized architectural things for this huge structure. In the end of the movie, we end up in this structure, which is an enormous, Huge. We’re talking like, I don’t know, 10, like stories tall. They didn’t construct it. He just says, you all forgot about it. 

Todd: Yes. These geniuses forgot it ever existed.

Craig: But we found it right over here. Like, what? In our city. What? What are you talking about? It is enormous. Like it is the size of a building and, and it’s pristine and just, they forgot about it. I know, right? Hilarious to me. Hilarious. 

Todd: Yeah. That bit was pretty silly. I laughed at that too. 

Craig: What is the conflict?

Frost, he’s looked down on, the council looks down on him because he’s a half breed, but they all follow these rules. Like we have a treaty with the humans. It is. You know, we can’t just run amok and do whatever we want. We have to abide by these rules. And Frost, you know, the young, rebellious one is like, you know, Why do we have to do that?

They’re literally our food. We should be able to do whatever we want. So that’s the conflict there. And then obviously Blade is trying to stop the vampires. 

Todd: In general. 

Craig: Right? 

Todd: Frost is just making it a little more imperative. Because Frost has like, for example, a nightclub that you get to through a meat locker where it’s just populated by vampires and they bring victims in and then spray blood over everybody in the crowd.

You know, that opening, that, I thought it was the opening. What? 

Craig: Sorry, I didn’t mean to like stop you in your tracks. Yeah. But I, I thought that that, that scene was really hot. And when the movie opened and I saw Tracy Lourdes. Yes. And then I saw that she was not top build, but among the top build. Yeah. I was so excited.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: She is like sexy and she’s like leading this guy into this really sexy Sexy club full of sexy people and yeah, like techno music and strobe lights and everybody’s just like grinding on each other and it’s sweaty and just really hot. Oh yeah, I was so, so excited. And then I was super bummed that she wasn’t in the movie anymore, was she?

Todd: You know what’s funny about this is that that scene is the only scene I remembered from this movie from way back And I remembered Tracy Lourdes was in it and somewhere in my mind I thought Tracy Lourdes was right there beside the big bad guy through the whole movie and it’s not it’s this other girl I wish 

Craig: she were 

Todd: Yeah, I do too, because I’m a, let’s just say I’m a Tracy Lourdes fan and leave it, leave it at that.

Craig: Listen, I, listen, I am too, honestly, and not maybe for the same reasons, but she’s very, she’s a very interesting person. Yes. Her life and her career are so interesting, and she has made for herself a legitimate acting career, and I always enjoy her. I find her really. Fun to watch on camera. I don’t know if she’s ever gonna win any awards, but she’s compelling She’s compelling and like this was just perfect for her She looks like I don’t want to say a porn star, 

Todd: but she looks like a porn star, you know Like she’s just very sexy She’s a sex pot and always has been and I don’t and on the one hand like I don’t think she’s really tried to be anything But honestly, she claims she has but every role she’s taken kind of everything that she’s done has really leaned into that So, uh, 

Craig: I loved her in that movie except Do you remember that movie that we did?

Yes, we did. She was the mother, right? She was like the conservative. Mother. Yeah. I thought she was great. That’s 

Todd: true. I guess that’s one of the few roles when, yeah, she did that. Wasn’t she also in Serial Mom? Am I wrong about that? 

Craig: I don’t remember. I’ve only seen that time. 

Todd: Oh, John Waters kind of liked her.

He had her in Cry Baby as well. That was one of her earlier mainstream roles. Yeah, that was also very disappointing for me to see her in there and I thought I was going to be seeing her as I remembered through the whole movie and no, I think she dies in that club sequence actually. I think she’s one of the last vampires to lash out a blade and he, uh, I don’t know.

Craig: Well, and that’s the thing, there are multiple This is the first of many, many scenes where Blade takes out like a hundred people. Yeah, I know! Or, or vampires. 

Todd: He starts using martial arts at first. It’s so hilarious because I even said it out loud as I was watching this scene. You know, he’s doing all these cool martial arts, he’s got his kn his blades, his knives, he’s swinging around, he’s got some thing he throws and all that stuff.

And then about three quarters of the way through, he just whips out a god and just starts mowing people down! Oh yeah, yeah. Wait, he could’ve just done that from the beginning. I guess he just likes to have a little fun. Fun first handguns, 

Craig: shotguns, machine guns. Like they’re all automatic. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Like he’ll just stand in the middle of a room with a big old machine gun and just spit around and shoot a bazillion vampires. And, and, and he’s just, you know, he’s killing vampires. They, uh, you know, they’re bad and they kill people. And 

Todd: well, he’s searching, he’s searching for the vampire that killed his mother.

That’s his motivation. Oh, he is. Yeah! I didn’t even get that! Oh yeah, yeah. No, there’s a moment where he sits down and he admits this, uh, to the woman, Karen. Karen is the hematologist. Coincidentally, he meets a hematologist. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha He almost burns to death, he tries to burn to death a guy at this club, a vampire who he’s been facing off with for a while apparently and a sort of right hand man to the big guy, Frost.

Yeah. And she ends up helping her ex boyfriend, uh, Do a, what do you call it? Autopsy on the body. And of course the body comes to life and bites her ex boyfriend and then she ends up somehow embroiled in this and Blade visits her because he heard she was involved and is kind of trying to protect her but also use her as bait to lead him to others because he knows that now that she’s sort of had an encounter with the vampire they’re going to start coming after her and so they do and that’s how they get involved.

Craig: Well and she’s been kind of maybe bit. Yeah She might be turning into a vampire or maybe or maybe not but luckily she’s a hematologist So she can like make serums and 

Todd: stuff This is a good time to start talking about Kris Kristofferson Cuz what blade does is he gets in his blade mobile and he drives into the blade cave.

His blade cave is awesome Is a, uh, big kind of, it looked like a chop shop, but I guess it’s like an abandoned warehouse somewhere. That, uh, his buddy Whistler, played by Chris Christopherson, is in. And Whistler is his Alfred. Yeah. He’s the one who apparently developed the serums. He makes all of his weapons for him.

Gives him down home spun friendly advice. 

Craig: That’s, that’s the thing, like, he’s like, Alfred, like he’s not the prim and proper Brit. He’s like a rough and tumble, you know, American, America. Yeah. Oh, he’s seen shit. He’s definitely seen shit. Played by Chris Christopherson, who, Again, Todd, we’ve talked, we’ve said this so many times, and, and so often, I think that we do these tributes for precisely this reason, that these are just people who, they’ve always been there.

Kris Kristofferson has just always been there. Been there. I’ve always seen him in movies from the time that I was a child until now. I’m not a big country music fan. I don’t hate country music, but I don’t listen to it intentionally. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s me too. 

Craig: And so learning more about him, you know, I remember him from movies.

I can’t even tell you all the movies that I remember him from. From, he always kind of plays a similar kind of character. He plays that gruff American man. He’s very much a man’s man, like a masculine kind of guy. He’s got baritone bass kind of voice. He seems like somebody who, like, as you said, has been through stuff and you can trust him to shoot straight with you.

Like, yeah, it’s like a cowboy. Yeah, exactly. He’s a good old boy and he’ll shoot you straight. Whatever that means. That guy will 

Todd: shoot you straight. I like what you did there. I like what you did there. Well, one of his earlier film roles was Convoy. You know, did you ever see Convoy? No. It’s like a 70, early seventies movie based on a hit song.

Convoy was like his radio hit about truckers and CB radio. 

Craig: Yeah. I’ve heard this song. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, it’s like a novelty song. 

Craig: Like, I’m ridin 

Todd: convoy. It is, it is not at all like this rough and tough song. Like, the chorus kicks in like, We’ve got a great big convoy, rockin through the night. We’ve got a great big convoy, ain’t it a beautiful sight.

Come on and join our convoy, ain’t nothing gonna get in our way. We’re gonna roll this truckin convoy across the USA. That 

Craig: is gonna live on the internet until the end of time. It is bright and happy. I’m gonna pull that up at your funeral.

You know what? I wouldn’t mind one bit. It’s fine. And it’s a good segue because Chris Christopherson too was a country music singer and poet. songwriter. And he had some hits of his own, but he really was more, I don’t know if it was by choice. I, you know, I, I always think that’s really interesting. There are some songwriters who start out wanting to pursue their own performing career and it doesn’t take off.

But they are able to sell their songs and their songs become very popular with other artists. And it seems like Kris Kristofferson is one of those people. And then there are singer songwriters who are happy to be songwriters and to give their songs to other people like Carole King. You know, obviously Carole King has had a A huge career on her own, but she’s also written for many, many other people.

Anyway, that’s off topic. Chris Kristofferson. But no, it’s not. I, I didn’t know until today that he wrote me and Bobby McGee. I had no idea. That’s insane. And he dated Janis Joplin and he was in The Highwaymen. I do think I knew that. And the Highwaymen was him and Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and I can’t remember.

But this guy, like, this guy’s huge, huge in country music. I knew him as an actor. I recognize him as an actor. I’ve always liked him. Anytime he pops up, I like him. He was in a silly movie with Dolly Parton called, like, Joyful Noise. He pop, he pops up. All over the place. 

Todd: He just pops up all over the place.

Pat Garrett and Billy, the kid, a star is born, which is a remake of an earlier movie, but then that got remade into the Lady Gaga one with Bradley Cooper, which is really good movie, by the way. 

Craig: It is good. I would like to see, I would really like to see the Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson one, um, but like, I, I think I’m picturing those two men in my head, like Kris Kristofferson, Bradley Cooper, and I almost feel again.

I can’t say because I haven’t seen the Kris Kristofferson one, but Bradley Cooper was giving Chris Kristofferson in that movie. So I don’t know if he was borrowing, you know, I don’t want to accuse anybody of stealing, but it’s a very Chris Kristofferson vibe and he’s the mentor in this. And honestly, like I think this was the right choice to go with for the tribute for him, but we don’t get a lot of him.

He’s just tough. He’s been through it. Fix anything. Yeah, he can fix anything. He, he recognizes the truths of the world, like things aren’t always happy ending, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But he’s also a good guy. You know, he is taken care of blades since he was a kid and he helps him out and he’s Alfred or whatever.

Clip: I had a family once, wife, two daughters, then a drifter came calling one evening. A vampire. He toyed with them first. Tried to make me decide which order they’d die in. We kill as many of them as we can find. But it’s getting worse. Because of Frost. There’s something happening in the vampire ranks. There’s something big.

And at stake by life, that son of a bitch is at the center of it. 

Craig: What was interesting to me, and again, we’re running short of time, so I’m just gonna jump around, but in the end, the bad guys find their Batcave. Frost beats the shit out of Whistler. So much so that when Blade finds him, he’s under a bloody sheet and Blade pulls it off and thinks he’s dead, but he’s not dead.

And they have a talk. There are so many talks in this movie. There are a lot of talk. I feel like we could, we could approach this movie from so many different ways because there are so many monologues that I would love for you to cut into this. There are so many hysterical monologues. Like Wesley Snipes is constantly monologuing.

It’s hilarious. I’ve 

Clip: spent my whole life looking for that thing that killed my mother. It made me what I am. And every time I take one of those monsters out, I get a little piece of that life back. So don’t you tell me about forgetting. 

Craig: And he’s also constantly talking like Shaft, like, Motherf er, are you out of your damn mind?

Todd: I have so many Wesley Snipes lines written down here that are just too great. 

Craig: And I can only imagine that I don’t know. Maybe some of them were scripted, but I, I can only imagine that many of them were adlibbed. And I won’t do any more impressions, I’m sorry. Hahaha. 

Todd: But some of them were so funny. I’ll do one of my favorites.

It’s at one point where he gets Frost familiar. This is, it’s Frost familiar who, um, tracks down Karen. And uh, Wesley Snipes has to jump in and save her, and take her back to his Batcave. But at one point when he’s beating up on him and lets him go, he says, You give Frost a message for me. Tell him it’s open season on all suckheads.

Oh my 

Craig: god, yes, yes. So many, so many. All I was gonna get to was that Whistler tells Blade, You’re gonna have to finish me off. He’s like, no, I can’t do it.

And he’s like, all right, well, give me your gun. And Blade says no. And he’s like, give me your 

Todd: gun. Give me your fucking gun. It’s like, if he curses at him, he’ll actually do it. At first, it’s a nice, polite request. And then he’s like, okay. 

Craig: Yeah. So Blade does give him his gun and he walks away and he hears a gunshot.

And then we see Whistler’s hand fall down. Now I’m watching that and I’m like, what? Hold up, I am pretty sure that Chris Kristofferson is in at least one of the sequels. And he is! He’s in both! He’s in both of the sequels! 

Todd: He comes back. I guess. He didn’t shoot himself. He let Blade think that he shot himself to free Blade from the responsibility of having to take care of him.

But I have no doubt that Kris Kristofferson is enough of a man that he reached right over to his machines. He 

Craig: picked himself up. He rebuilt himself from the 

Todd: ground up like a used 

Craig: car. I’m sure he did. Wait, hold on. Let’s, let’s talk about Pearl real quick. I, I don’t even know how it happens, but they’re like investigating things and Blade and Karen are kind of like a little duo now.

And somehow they end up at a grocery store or a restaurant. They, they follow that guy that you mentioned before. There’s this cop that’s like a familiar for the really bad guy. They follow him to like a grocery store or something or whatever. And they’re looking for this person named Pearl. It’s so heavily plotted that I don’t even remember why they’re looking, but they, they find like this vampire library, I guess, 

Todd: Oh my God.

It’s through the freezer in the kitchen of a nightclub. And I love how blade is able to go in to this busy nightclub that looks like it’s full of bad ass, by the way. One other thing I noticed about this movie is it is chock full of Asians to the point where I was like, did I miss something? Is this supposed to be Chinatown America?

I noticed that too. There’s like one scene that’s outside in a park and there are Asian people walking around left and right and there are red lanterns hanging. It looks like it’s like decorated for Chinese New Year. 

Craig: Wasn’t this the club that was populated almost exclusively by Asian businessmen and there were teenage Asian girls.

Performing? There was like a J pop group. It was like a K pop. Uh 

Todd: huh. Yeah, to the point where I turned to Liz and I said to her Oh, look, it’s the sinister Asians again. This is like, you know, the sinister Asian trope I mean this was hot though, you know back then even the Matrix has these heavily Asian influences And then of course the movie being heavily martial arts styled, I guess All right, that means we got to put Asians everywhere, but always in this sort of no Asians have any prominent roles.

Let me put 

Craig: it that way. They’re extras. This may be getting too heady too, but do you think that that influx of that style in America at this time was because of the success of things like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, like, were, were we borrowing from 

Todd: I think this being definitely a Hong Kong style martial arts movie, the action is filmed in this movie like a Hong Kong martial arts movie would be.

Wesley Snipes himself is like a black belt in one of the martial arts since he was like 12. I mean he, he heavily wanted it in here and so I guess They decided, well, then that means we need to put a bunch of Asians in here, but we’re not going to give them prominent roles. No, we’re just going to make them looming in the background or walking around, or they’re going to be in trouble.

You know, like this, this little girl that the guy holds up at one point who bless her little heart does nothing, but just sit there and watch. 

Craig: Oh my gosh. That’s wild. You’re right. Like, yeah. Like was. Were they in a predominantly nat like, were they in Chinatown? Like, that’s what 

Todd: I’m saying, like I don’t think so.

I was really looking for it, and I thought for sure that was the case, but no, like, in the outdoor scenes when it’s daylight, except for that one, no, it’s like downtown New York or Chicago, and they’ve got, you know, Jewish delis and things in the background, all kinds of stuff, so. Hmm. It was almost like I don’t want to say offensive.

I don’t know. You can be your own judge of that. But I would say that if you looked at this and said this was borderline offensive, I probably wouldn’t disagree with you. Do we know where they filmed? Yeah, they filmed in L L. A. Oh. And mostly an empty shampoo factory that was no longer being used.

Craig: Interesting. The whole thing, the only reason that is even worth mentioning, because there is another big like gunfight and big fight in the library, but not before they meet. The keeper of the documents. Like it’s all so like, it’s so dumb. It is kind of dumb. It’s this enormous like Jabba the Hutt type vampire, which I read in the trivia, like he’s so fat because he’s lazy and he only eats the hearts of children and, oh, That’s really fat.

They had initially conceptualized him being surrounded by the corpses of children. That would have been exciting. They ultimately decided that was a little too much. This scene is really, like, I like it. I don’t know. As far as recommending this movie, I don’t know. It’s all right. It’s, it’s from a very different time.

If you like superhero 

Todd: movies, sure. Yeah. Gritty superhero action oriented movies with very little. of the smarmy tongue in cheek humor that you get in them now.

Craig: Available to stream for free. So I bought it. So, so, so now I have it forever or until Fandango goes down. But it’s just this big, like Jabba the Hutt kind of fat vampire. And Karen burns it with like a UV light. Like they have all of these. You know, technology things. She’s also, as I mentioned before, developed a bad serum that when injected into a vampire makes them explode.

She just 

Todd: whips that up with equipment that she just ran by and borrowed from the hospital. I mean, she had to have gotten like two big vans to fill up with these huge pieces of equipment that she just casually writes off as, Oh, I just borrowed a few things from the hospital. 

Craig: The final act all takes place at that big, like, Shrine, which is like a silo with Enormous deities carved into the walls and blah blah blah blah blah and what what frost is trying to do is And, and, and, and blade is the key because he’s special.

His blood is special. This is an ancient prophecy. This all gets so convoluted because his blood is special and they have to use it. To. Release the Blood 

Todd: God? The Blood God! Every time they said that I was like, Oh God, please call it something else. 

Craig: And then the Blood God is like a hurricane, and everything that it touches will turn into a vampire.

And it’s gonna be like the vampire apocalypse. But then it gets even more convoluted because at one point Frost like knocks Blade out and when he wakes up this like Coffin bed opens up and his mother is in it like all of a sudden Blades mother is around 

Todd: Yeah, that was a twist. I wasn’t seeing coming, 

Craig: but it’s also not telegraphed at all.

It’s not and When that coffin bed first opened, I thought at first that it was Karen, that they had Yeah Turned her into a vampire and like sexied her up, but it wasn’t, it was his mom And it turns out that his mom did die But was, you know, came back as a vampire and has been around all this time and as it turns out Frost is the one that turned her like When when that reveal came it was so late in the movie like it was so late Yeah, and I was like, yeah, really Jesus Christ.

I know I don’t fucking care. Like how is this gonna? 

Todd: Right. They don’t care. They really don’t it’s too late in the movie to get a reveal like this because when that happens you it Feels dumb Especially when it hasn’t been telegraphed, right? Like, oh, 

Craig: come on. I also didn’t like it, and I get that this is kind of a vampire thing, but it grossed me out that there were two scenes where the mom looked like she could not wait to get Blade’s dick in her mouth.

Like, again, I get it. They’re vampires. I get it. But, like, it was nasty. 

Todd: Yeah, and her one line about how you have to To remember I’m not your mother anymore. I’m like an entirely different creature. It still did not explain away. It was gross. Yeah. But blade is the key. Yeah. And they have this ancient thing that he can fit perfectly in, you know, cause they built it thousands of years ago, apparently, but it’s, it’s size just for him.

Craig: It looks like when Han Solo was in Carbonite. He got frozen in Carbonite, 

Todd: yeah. And he’s put in there, they take his shirt off. I thought they were going to strip him down, because, you know, as I remember, Wesley Snipes shows his ass in almost every movie he’s in, but apparently not in this one. 

Craig: Before I forget, this isn’t a Wesley Snipes tribute episode, but I don’t know, who knows, maybe it will be someday.

My favorite performance of Wesley Snipes, it’s not like I’m a huge fan of his, I think he’s pretty good. Fine, whatever. Yeah. He also, of course, has had trouble in his personal life. I think he had some trouble with his taxes, a little bit of time in prison. Whatever. 

Todd: Tax issues. 

Craig: But my favorite performance of his is in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Neumar, where he plays a drag queen, and he is fantastic.

Have you seen that movie? No, I’ve never seen that. Holy shit, Todd. Drop everything and watch it today. day. It’s that good. Oh my God. Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo, Wesley Snipes, all three straight men playing drag queens. They, they, they took that project and they went for it. Like they’re, they’re not making fun of drag queens.

They’re not making fun of gay people at all. Like they are giving really, really sincere. performances. Patrick Swayze will break your heart in that movie. He’s fantastic. Wesley Snipes is one of the best drag queens I’ve ever seen. And that’s so wild to me, because otherwise, he comes across as one of the most masculine Yeah.

men I’ve ever come across. Like, like, like this dude is a man. 

Todd: He’s a specimen. And I’ve always felt that I’ve always felt that man was just carved out of onyx. In To 

Craig: Wong Foo, he said that he emulated the women that were around him when he was a kid. And he wanted to, you know, those were strong women that he respected and he wanted to honor them.

Todd: Oh, that’s nice. Dude, 

Craig: I can’t believe you haven’t seen that movie. It is. The 

Todd: title was too long for me, so I 

Craig: But there’s okay, so in this movie there’s the big showdown at the end They’re gonna sacrifice all of these pureblood vampires to this blood God and there’s a whole thing and ceremony and like lightning comes down and strikes all of the pureblood vampires and Skeleton bats fly out of them Yeah.

Okay. All right. And then all of those skeleton bats fly into Frost, the bad guy. And now he’s not Frost anymore. He’s the blood 

Todd: god, I think. But he’s, he’s still kind of more or less Frost though. Just, just with bloodshot eyes now. Yeah. And I guess superpowers? Yeah. And superpowers. Because he can now fight people.

Blade more or less one on one. I suppose 

Craig: there were parts of this that I love now First of all I read that they were supposed to fight for just a little bit and then The blood God was supposed to just turn into a giant sea of blood that would yes overpower the entire city and everybody would turn into vampires 

Todd: the scene was shot and Rendered in everything and it was shown to test audiences and they hated it, right?

Did you watch it? No, no. I pulled it up on YouTube and you would laugh, you would fall out of your chair laughing at it. It’s a good thing they changed it. The CGI is so bad and the bit, it’s just corny as hell. 

Craig: Well, I will watch it, I’m interested, I just didn’t have time, but what, instead they just allowed the two actors to sword fight, I don’t know, they had to reshoot it, whatever, I don’t know.

It’s a good call. I think it was a good call. Yeah, yeah, and it’s a great, it’s very good, it’s a good sword fight. And it seems very equally balanced for Most of the first half of it, but then it almost appears like Frost or the blood God whoever he is now had just been toying with blade for a while Mm hmm.

There’s a point where it paused like the the fight pauses and Frost says My turn. And I, the second he said that, I’m like, that is from the Lost Boys. This is a tribute to the Lost Boys because it’s the exact, when David and Michael are fighting at the end and, and Michael kind of gets like, he’s pushing David toward, I don’t remember.

But one of them says, My turn. 

Todd: Oh, God. What I liked is, It becomes a bit more cat and mouse, Because at one point, They do leave the middle of that thing. And he kind of chases him around. And I remember him, Like, has to beat up a couple bad guys in his way, And he yells, Frost! And then he comes into the other room, And beats up a couple other bad guys, And when he’s done with that, he goes, Frost!

Craig: That 

Todd: was, that was hilarious. 

Craig: That’s what I’m, when I say I don’t think it’s aged that well, there are parts like that that I’m like, oh boy, like rolling my, like wowza, like, come on. And okay, so they fight and eventually Frost doesn’t know about the serum that if injected into a vampire first turns them into a garbage pail kid.

And then makes them explode. And those effects, like, I don’t care, I don’t mind watching them. They’re not bad. They’re, they’re actually funny. It’s, well, it’s funny to me. Yeah, it’s comical in a way. It’s funny to me that in 98 or whenever this came out, we thought, oh, look at what they’re doing there. That’s new and different and something that you couldn’t do easily with practical effects.

Hurrah! Today, it looks silly. It’s silly. And stupid and comical. It looks like they’re intentionally trying to be funny and maybe they were, I don’t know, but it looks stupid, but Frost doesn’t know about those. He just thinks that it’s Blade’s serum that he takes to make him not need to drink blood. So in their final battle, when it totally looks like Frost is going to win because he’s got these great superpowers or whatever, Blade manages to get his vials back and he shoots them all.

He ninja kicks one of them into Frost. 

Todd: Yeah. After he says his best catchphrase of the movie. 

Clip: Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate a bill. 

Craig: Oh my God. Yeah. And I read that like Wesley’s knife just said that at some point. 

Todd: Well, it kind of. It’s not, I mean, it’s just, it’s so weird. It’s such a weird line that it doesn’t seem like a team of writers really, you know, poured over it for days.

I I’ll just say that, but it’s iconic. It’s one of the few lines from this movie that everybody remembers. 

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, that’s it like, and then he and Karen, you know, Walk out and he’s like, she’s like, well, I can still give you that serum that will turn you into a human. That was something that they had talked about before.

Like if I can give you a serum and you’re just fully human, then they can’t use your blood to resurrect this thing or whatever. But they didn’t do it. But she’s like, I can still do it. And he’s like, no, there’s still a war going on and, uh, I gotta fight it and, uh, I need you to help me. Cut to Moscow. Cut to Moscow where he just fights a Russian vampire in the snow, which is hilarious, I guess.

Todd: It’s badass hilarious. At 

Craig: one point in time that they filmed it, that Russian vampire was supposed to be Whistler. Oh. But they brought Whistler back for the sequels, which I don’t remember at all. Uh, the movie’s alright. It’s okay. Like, there are really great, if you enjoy, like, Matrix style, Charlie’s Angels style, mid 90s, like, ninja fights?

Yeah. Sure. I think you’ll like this. Yeah, it’s fun. The, the fights are very, they’re, they’re well choreographed. It’s a lot of fun. 

Todd: They’re in those, they’re also in like those 90s environments that we love so much. Like there’s a room that’s more or less full of glass. Oh my God. The minute they walk in there, you know, okay, this is going to be a fight scene.

Craig: It’s not just full of glass. It is a room. I don’t even remember where this was. It was the house, like it was somebody’s house or something. And there were just all of these walls that water was Flowing down all the time. Yeah, and I it’s so funny. Like when I was a kid, I would see something like that I’m like, oh my god, that’s so cool.

I would want to live there and then as an adult I’m like, ew gross like it would smell like a f king pool in there all the time Everything would be all like wet and mildewy 

Todd: it’d be just like It was 

Craig: a cool set piece though. And there’s cool stuff to look at. Like, I just, I feel like I don’t know, even the superhero movies today and this may be to their credit, or there may be to their discredit.

Like I feel like they have more to say. Yeah. This is just more of an action piece. It’s a little bit funny in some places. It’s too long. The original cut was like two and a half hours long. They cut it down a lot. They entirely reshot the ending. So this is actually the result of heavy editing. It’s not bad.

I wouldn’t turn you away from it. I wouldn’t give it an enthusiasm. Recommendation. You could skip it too and not really be missing a whole lot, but it’s all right. Chris Kristofferson was just a cool guy. I, you know, I don’t know if this is his best thing. 

Todd: I’m sure it’s not his swan song. Yeah. No, 

Craig: I’ve seen him in other things where he’s been more endearing.

Like, oh yeah, he dies in that Dolly Parton movie and that’ll maybe make you shed a tear.

But he really did that. like a cool guy and I don’t want to get numb to this. You know, we, we’ve done this so many times now when we’ve talked about people who aren’t with us anymore. And I don’t want to get numb to it because my intent and I believe that your intent in doing it too really is to pay tribute to these people who gave us a lot of entertainment and joy in our lives and who though we don’t know them personally, we feel their loss.

And, and we just want to acknowledge it. We want to say, thank you, you know, for entertaining us for so long and, and for your contribution. And I mean that genuinely. 

Todd: And even though he was a sort of a secondary character in this movie, he is a leading man in many others. And he has been, he has won awards.

He’s been recognized as a pioneer in the country music industry. He’s been credited with. of um, setting a new direction for country music back in the 70s. I think they call it Outlaw Country. And an incredible writer. I was kind of shocked when I read about his early life because this guy grew up much like I did.

He had a dad in the Air Force just like I did and he just moved from place to place. But finally when he went to university, he went to university for writing. He graduated. at the top of his class. He went, got a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Yeah, 

Craig: yeah, smart, smart guy. 

Todd: Summa Cum Laude from Oxford and wrote pieces early in his studies that were like published in the Atlantic and won awards.

I mean, this guy, you know, there’s a couple other people that we have attributed who are the same way. It’s like we know him for one thing, but we forget that there’s a lot more that he has done that has certainly been recognized. It just wasn’t in our, our orbit. You know? The writing, the songwriting, the songs that we’ve enjoyed by other musicians that we didn’t know that he wrote.

All of this stuff, like, kind of a, did a little bit of everything, and yet, not out there bragging about it. Just doing his thing. Just kind of like the characters in his movies, just a guy Who’s really good at some shit and doing his thing and knows what he’s about and really good at it. Cool guy. Maybe in that way, it was a bit of a fitting tribute to do this one.

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Rest in peace. Good job. You will be missed. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to this podcast. We really hope you enjoyed it. Let us know what you think of Blade. If you think it stood the test of time. You Your favorite memories of Kris Kristofferson, all you need to do is find us online at any one of our places where you can chat back with us.

That would be our social media sites on Facebook, Twitter, on Instagram, and on our website ChainsawWhore. com. Just Google 2000 Chainsaw Podcast, you can find us there. Our Patreon page is Patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast. And join the crew back there for as little as five bucks a month. You can get lots of mini sodes.

Boy, we did a lot of mini sodes last month. We’re planning on doing more here as we come into the holiday season, giving lots of goodies to our patrons. So if you’re interested in any of that, get on over there and join the family. We have a lot of fun behind the scenes. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.