Blade

***Blade*** is a 1998 American vampire superhero action horror film starring Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff, loosely based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name.[3] Snipes plays Blade, a human-vampire hybrid who protects humans from vampires.

The film was directed by Stephen Norrington and written by David S. Goyer.*Blade* grossed $70 million at the U.S. box office, and $131.2 million worldwide. It was followed by two sequels, *Blade II* and *Blade: Trinity*, both written by Goyer who also directed the latter.

## Plot

In 1967, a pregnant woman is rushed into a hospital where a C-section is performed on her to save her baby. She dies, but her child lives.

Three decades later, a seductive woman (Traci Lords), leads a young man to arave club. He at first has fun, but he notices other people staring at him. He casually bumps into the club owner, later revealed to be Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), a young upstart in the vampire community. The music peaks when blood is sprayed out from the sprinklers above (a blood rain), and most of the people reveal themselves to be vampires. In the middle of the carnage, the armor-clad vampire-hunter Eric "Blade" Brooks (Wesley Snipes) arrives and expertly slaughters a number of vampires in the club, leaving Frost's right-hand man Quinn (Donal Logue) alive and horribly burned as the police arrive on the scene.

While Quinn's body is being examined in the hospital, he awakens and kills the examiner by biting his neck. Blade tracks Quinn down to a hospital, but he is able to bite a resident hematologist, Dr. Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright), before escaping once again after Blade severs his arm. In an act of mercy, Blade brings the injured Karen back to his lair and introduces her to Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), his mentor and weaponsmith. Karen resolves to study vampirism and find an antidote before she becomes a vampire herself. In working to find a stable, viable cure, she soon discovers that the anticoagulant EDTAreacts explosively with the vampire infection.

Meanwhile, Frost clashes with his vampire elders of the House of Erebus. He believes that vampires should rise from the shadows and enslave humanity while the elders believe in the subversive rule of (both human and vampire) society through their influence with police, politics, finance and real estate. Moreover, because he was not born a vampire as they were, Frost is shunned for his radical views and reckless activities. Frost studies ancient vampire lore and comes to believe that he can awaken La Magra, the Blood God, to gain absolute power. Together with his minions, he kidnaps, mutilates and kills the chief vampire of the region by exposing him to the sun, and imprisons the others.

Blade combats Frost's various minions in an effort to uncover his ultimate plan. After another encounter with Quinn and Frost's lover Mercury, Whistler explains to a suspicious Karen that Blade's mother, Vanessa, was attacked while pregnant and that Blade is a half-vampire hybrid with all their superhuman strengths but none of their weaknesses except the blood thirst. After witnessing Whistler give Blade a serum to counter the thirst, Karen successfully develops an antidote to cure herself of vampirism. While Blade is out on an errand, Frost and his crew manage to invade Blade's lair, kidnap Karen and mortally wound Whistler.

Blade gives the infected and horribly beaten Whistler a gun to commit suicide, then arms himself with a number of weapons and a large supply of EDTA. He storms Frost's penthouse, overrunning the bodyguards, and soon discovers Vanessa (Sanaa Lathan) -- his own mother, whom he believed long dead -- in Frost's bed. She reveals that Frost was the vampire that bit her while she was pregnant with Blade and caused him to become the Daywalker. More guards arrive and attack Blade as Frost intimates a long since sexual relationship with Vanessa and proclaims himself as creator of their "family". Thunderstruck, Blade is defeated and taken (with Karen) to the Temple of Eternal Night for Frost's blood ritual sacrifice.

The temple antechamber drains Blade's blood and filters it through the ancient channels of the temple. Karen escapes the pit where Frost had put her and feeds Blade her blood, thereby restoring his strength. Frost sacrifices the elder vampires in a mystic ritual and painfully gains the power of La Magra. However, the unintended result was not the awakening of the blood God, but the culmination of the dead elders' souls that fought absorption as the energies consume Frost's body. Vanessa attacks Blade forcing him to kill her.

In the melee, Karen secures a shotgun from a guard, shoots him dead and kills Mercury with concentrated garlic spray. Blade furiously cuts through Quinn and Frost's minions before engaging Frost. Frost's new powers make him immune to Blade's conventional weapons, so Blade injects him multiple times with EDTA, causing Frost to explode. As the pair leave the temple, Karen offers to cure Blade but he chooses to forgo the cure in order to continue hunting vampires and asks her to develop a better serum.

An epilogue finds Blade observing a vampire attacking his date in Russia, indicating that Blade's new campaign has spread into Europe.

## Cast

* Wesley Snipes as Eric Brooks / Blade: a half-vampire "daywalker" who hunts vampires.
* Stephen Dorff as Deacon Frost: an upstart vampire leader who emerges as Blade's primary enemy and who wants to conquer the human race.
* Kris Kristofferson as Abraham Whistler: Blade's mentor, weaponsmith, and surrogate father figure.
* N'Bushe Wright as Dr. Karen Jenson: a hematologist who is bitten by the vampire Quinn. She stays with Blade to remain safe while she finds a cure for herself.
* Donal Logue as Quinn, a cocky lead minion of Frost's.
* Udo Kier as Gitano Dragonetti, the head of the House of Erebus.
* Sanaa Lathan as Vanessa Brooks, Blade's mother, believed dead, who became a vampire and lover to Frost.
* Arly Jover as Mercury, Frost's second lover and second in command.
* Kevin Patrick Walls as Officer Krieger, a "familiar", or human servant, of Frost's.
* Tim Guinee as Dr. Curtis Webb, Karen's ex-boyfriend who later becomes a decomposing zombie.
* Traci Lords as Racquel, a seductive vampire who leads a man to the blood rave.
* Eric Edwards as Pearl, the obese records keeper.