Summary Capsule
Vampires and blood, natch
DnaError's Rating: Anime A to..um, D
DnaError's Review: You have to expect a certain amount of bizarreness with most anime. You have to be willing to accept big-eyed, pre teen heroines fighting in huge robots all to the tune of poppy synth music. However, there is a line which I put at utter weirdness when I watch movies, that line is a wisecracking hand. Sorry movie, but any kind of mood or drama you're trying to create will be ruined by the existence of a sidekick that is attached to the character's body.
Vampire Hunter D is one of the few anime movies to get a wide theatrical release here in the US. I'm pretty sure only AKIRA and Princess Mononoke are members of that club (I'm gonna get a thousand and 1 e-mails from basement-dwelling oaktus over this I'm sure.) To bad VHD (sounds like a new disorder.."doctor, my eyes are huge and I weigh 4lbs! Must be VHD!..) isn't as good as the others. Sure, it looks nifty enough, the impressively detailed backgrounds and designs give it a very cool Victorian-Sci-fi look. The kind of thing Tim Burton has wet dreams over. The opening flyby of the graveyard and the neo-Tudor houses, covered in crosses and lights is "muyo coolo". Animation is fluid and makes the oh-so gory and imaginative death scenes even more impressive in their fluid goriness. The problem is with the character designs. Yoshitaka Amano, the guy behind everything from FF3/6 characters to Sandman covers, did the original designs for VHD in the books. The work looks very nice when still, but animated..there is something extremely creepy about the way these goldfished-eyed, thin-leged guys move. It's nothing like the natural or near-naturalism of Miyazaki, it's just off-putting and awkward.
Yikes, all this and not one plot recap. Okay, kidnapped girl, half-vampire hunter, various half-human creatures dying in spectacularly violent ways, Pretty basic anime stuff. They're going for some High Gothic mood here but it's ruined every time VHD's TALKING HAND would pop in with wacky commentary. Plus I'd burst out into laughter every time Main baddie would push out a "Charrrrrrrrrrrrrlotte". Giggling is not the reaction you want in a horror movie. As it goes on, the movie seems to ramp up the camp factor to blinding limits, dissolving into the kind of puesdo-symbolic mush that mars a lot of anime. But hey, what more can you expect from a movie that both a talking hand and a guy with a mouth in his chest?
 2000 Rated R Action Horror Director
Starring
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Impressive use of light and creepy detailed faces?
Intermission!
The movie was planned for a VHS released but evenutally got a theatrical one.
This film is both a sequel and a remake of the 1985 anime Vampire Hunter D (in the same vein of Evil Dead II).
Official and Not-So-Official Websites
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Official Site
If you liked this movie, try these:
Vampire Hunter D
Akira
Princess Mononoke
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