Writers: Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer
Based on: Comic Book Series written by Tiziano Sclavi
Released: 2011
Labels: Action|Comedy|Monster|2010's
Based on one of the world's bestselling comic book series with over 70 million readers worldwide, "Dylan Dog: Dead of Night" blends horror and humor set in the backstreets of New Orleans...a city with a long and storied history with the supernatural. The story revolves around Dylan Dog, the world's only private investigator of the undead with a business card that features his slogan, "No pulse, No problem."
Having left the world of the supernatural behind after the death of his wife, Dylan is pulled back into action to solve the murder of a mysterious woman's father. Along with his zombie assistant Marcus, he finds himself drawn into the middle of a battle between the clans of vampire, werewolf and zombie for possession of a rare artifact to control both the mortal and monster world. Dylan must go where the living date not in order to solve the case, save mankind and keep his partner from losing any more body parts. (Taken from Official Website)
It doesn't take much investigation to discover that Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is hated by fans of the original Italian comic book on which it is based. This seems to be because the filmmakers have not even tried to stick to the original concept and feel. The biggest complaints are that the movie makes light where there should be dark and that major liberties have been taken with key characters and settings. So putting the source material aside let's look at this film as a piece of horror genre cinema.
The film places it's flag firmly in the camp (pun intended) of horror-comedy. The interplay between the characters is rife with wit and sarcasm, much of which is well written and entertaining, particularly the relationship between Dylan Dog, played by Brandon Routh and his un-dead sidekick Marcus, played by Sam Huntington. If this pairing seems familiar, thats because they played Clark Kent/Superman and Jimmy Olsen respectively in the 2006 film ''Superman Returns''. Routh's fresh-faced-superman good looks doesn't really lend itself to a portrayal of a hardened PI for the supernatural underworld, but his strong physicality backs up the role. Overall the acting is good throughout including a small but fantastically campy performance from Peter Stormare (Fargo).
The realtively low-budget of $20M ensures that this movie looks like a TV pilot rather than a cinematic experience, and the special effects are certainly akin to the production values of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. The Werewolves are very much in the B-movie humanoid style, the Vampires are dark, hip and hedonistic (as they always are nowadays), and the Zombies provide the comic relief with some nice gags about diet, spare body parts and a support group.
The story is a bit tired in an ''ancient artifact has power to release mythical beast from slumber to wreak havoc on the world, it mustn't fall into the wrong hands'' type way, but the regular introduction of new un-dead creatures and scenarios keeps you interested along with some tidily directed action sequences.
As you can imagine there really is no depth here but it is an enjoyable romp and very easy to enjoy for what it is.
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