Blade (1998)

Film and Plot Synopsis

Blade takes place in a world where vampires walk the earth. However they have an enemy named Blade whose goal is to rid the world of all vampire evil. When he witnesses a vampire bite Dr. Karen Jenson, he fights it off, and takes Jenson back to his lair. Along with a man named Abraham Whistler, Blade attempts to help heal Jenson. At the same time, that original vampire named Quinn reports back to his master Deacon Frost. The deacon doesn’t have time for any crusaders because he has a big surprise planned for all of humanity.

‘Blade’ Movie Summary

Blade begins in 1967 as a pregnant woman is brought into an emergency room in a state of premature labor. The woman appears to have been attacked by something akin to a vampire, which likely caused the early labor. Doctors are able to save the baby, but the woman dies from an unknown infection.

Thirty years later, the child has become the vampire hunter, Blade (Wesley Snipes). Blade seeks out vampires in revenge for the death of his mother. His quest leads him to a rave club in Detroit owned by the vampire Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff). Blade kills several vampires before police arrive. Police inadvertently take one of the vampires to a hospital where he kills one of the doctors and feeds on hematologist Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright). Blade arrives and saves Karen. He takes Karen back to his safe house where she is treated by Blade’s partner and friend, Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). Whistler tells Karen that he and Blade have been hunting vampires for years using weapons based on the vampires’ weaknesses, such as sunlight, silver, and garlic. Since Karen has been bitten by a vampire, they tell her that she is “marked” and it would be best for her to leave the city. Ultimately, Karen chooses not to leave.

Meanwhile, at a meeting of the House of Erebus, a counsel of vampire elders, Frost, a leader of a group of younger vampires, is reprimanded for trying to start a war between vampires and humans. The elder vampires do not respect Frost and the younger vampires as they are not pure-bloods, natural born vampires. They are considered socially inferior. Frost responds to this insult by executing one of the elders and strips the others of their authority.

Back in the Detroit, Karen returns to her apartment and is attacked by police officer Krieger (Kevin Patrick Walls), who is a familiar – a human slave controlled by a vampire. Blade arrives and takes down Krieger. Blade interrogates Krieger, who provides Blade with the location of an archive that contains pages of the Book of Erebus, the vampire bible. While in the archive, Blade comes across Pearl, a morbidly obese vampire. Blade tortures Pearl with a UV light to gain information about Frost’s plan. Pearl reveals that Frost is planning to conduct a ritual to summon the vampire blood god, La Magra. Blade turns on the UV light and leaves Pearl to burn in the archive.

Blade returns to his safe house where he injects himself with a special serum. The serum suppresses his urge to drink human blood. Blade is part vampire and has many of their strengths and few of their weaknesses. However, the serum is beginning to lose its effectiveness due to overuse. Karen experiments with the anticoagulant EDTA as a possible replacement, but discovers that it explodes when combined with vampire blood. Karen synthesizes a vaccine that can cure the infected but learns that it will not work on a human-vampire hybrid like Blade. Despite her failure, Karen is confident that she can permanently cure Blade’s bloodthirst given enough time.

Meanwhile, Krieger informs Frost of what happened with Blade, so Frost kills and eats Krieger. After, Frost and his men attack Blade’s safe house while Blade is away. They infect Whistler and abduct Karen. When Blade returns, he reluctantly helps Whistler commit suicide and arms himself with special syringes filled with the Karen’s EDTA.

Blade goes to Frost’s penthouse to rescue Karen. However, he is shocked to find his still living mother, who reveals that she came back to life the same night Blade was born. That night, Frost took her as one of his loyal followers. Additionally, she reveals that Frost was the vampire the bit her in the first place. Frost and his followers are able to subdue Blade and they take him to the Temple of Eternal Night. Once there, Frost plans to perform the summoning ritual for La Magra.

During the ritual Karen is thrown into a pit to be devoured by Dr. Curtis Webb (Tim Guinee), Karen’s ex-boyfriend who was killed by one of Frost’s followers and turned into a zombie like creature. Karen injures Webb and is able to escape the pit. She finds Blade who has been drained of his blood, as Frost needed it to complete the ritual. Karen permits Blade to drink from her, allowing him to heal and regain his strength. At the same time, Frost completes the ritual and obtains the powers of La Magra. Blade kills all of Frost’s followers and sets himself up for the main event with Frost. Blade and Frost fight, and during the fight, Blade injects Frost with all of the EDTA syringes which cause the vampire’s body to inflate and explode.

After the battle, Karen offers to help Blade cure himself, but he asks her to create a new serum that will suppress his blood lust instead so that he can finish his crusade against vampires. The film ends with Blade in Moscow, taking on vampires in the snow.

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Additional Film Information

• Peruse IMDb’s article on Blade
• Learn more Blade information at Wikipedia
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