Wicked City (1992) proves to be incredibly strange and oddly entertaining.

I really love the 1987 anime this is based on so I should rightfully hate this live-action version because it pretty much takes the great story of the original and repeatedly runs it over with a freight truck until only a gory mess remains then it sets that on fire until dancing on it with neon tentacles. Yeah, I think that's an accurate summary of how this treats the source material. But... this film is so crazy weird and kinda similar to the anime like a long lost mutated cousin that I rather enjoyed it. I had no idea what it was going to do next. The opening scene is pretty much straight out of the anime minus the nudity (come on guys) then it goes haywire with a demon drug, kung fu, wire fu, non-demon cops that still have powers, a psychic-projected plane (I think?), the aforementioned neon tentacles, etc. It's really all over the place and the English synopsis said something about "Rapters" but in the subtitled version I saw, they never mentioned "Rapters" once so I'm thinking someone took some liberties with the dubbing or someone got confused on the packaging. Confusing is a good word to describe this movie although you can pretty much follow it but why they threw all this extra stuff in a blender with the already-fantastic anime is a good question. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to put their own stamp on it and it is certainly unique so I guess they achieved that but it's very odd. I do like the inventive FX with some of the demons. Unfortunately, I wonder if any great live-action adaptation of an anime can really be done because they all seem to turn out inferior to the source. I did really enjoy Parasyte: Part 1 and Part 2. Those actually had pretty good CGI too, which surprised me even more but even with those, they're certainly not better than the anime. They're just a good adaptation, which is maybe all we can hope for. I guess the same argument can be made for books vs. films but sometimes, I think, films have surpassed the books. Or I have no clue what I'm talking about and there is some 5,000 lb levitating purple blowfish here with a bazooka and nunchucks forcing me to write this. It's definitely the latter, and that about sums up this movie.

Review: Demon Knight (1995)

For anyone who says the '90s suck, you can't ignore Demon Knight. Not to mention, Scream (the first one is a masterpiece), Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers, etc. Besides damn good actors with smart writing and awesome effects, you get everything a horror fan needs: boobs, blood, and beasts. You may not know his name, but William Sadler is an incredible actor with a barrage of kickass credits on his resume: Die Hard 2 (underrated in my opinion), Hard to Kill (vintage Seagal! hell yes), Solo (uhm, yeah, probably shouldn't have listed that), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist, etc. He can actually take a buffet full of ridiculous exposition and make you cram it in your mouth like a zombie on a fresh kill.

Then there's Billy Zane. His performance here is perfect. Hilarious, sinister, over the top but completely believable and fun. He nails it, and he has a whole catalog of great lines in this.



They really took the time to get the script right, and it shows. The first draft was actually written back in 1987 (two years before the series debuted on HBO) when it was set to be directed by Tom Holland as his follow-up to Child's Play. In the '90s, all the excellent demon makeup and effects were almost scrapped because of budget problems. Another draft was actually created where the Collector was a Bible salesman that used a legion of guys in black suits with sunglasses (WTF). Luckily, Universal ponied up some more money for the monsters. A demon movie without demons? Only in Hollywood.

CGI was just starting to rear its ugly head, but fortunately, the few times it shows up in the film (mainly for the blood seal FX and some lightning rays out of the demons' eyes when they die), it works and still holds up well. Of course, all the practical FX are outstanding and don't show their age at all.

Forgot to mention Dick Miller from Gremlins. Yes, he's in this, and as you must know, he's awesome. Even the little supporting roles have incredible actors in them.

If you haven't seen it in a while (or haven't seen it at all? aaaggghhhh GET TO DA CHOPPPAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!), it's guaranteed to get you in the Halloween spirit.