Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Director: Kevin Munroe
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.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Official Website

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night on IMDb

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night on Wikipedia

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La Horde

Directors: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher

Writers: Arnaud Bordas, Yannick Dahan, Stephane Moissakis, Benjamin Rocher & Nicolas Peufaillit

Released: 2009

Labels: Action|Zombie|2000's

A small tight-knit group of police officers seek revenge on the criminal gang that killed one of their ''family." The cops raid the gang's hideout high up a derelict apartment building in a run-down part of a French city. The raid goes horribly wrong, two cops and their informant are killed and the remaining cops end-up as hostages. Suddenly and inexplicably the informant rises from the dead and ferociously attacks the gang members. A bloody fight ensues and shortly the apartment is littered with bodies, bodies that soon re-animate and attack. The remaining uninjured cops and criminals successfully fight back but soon realize that the apartment building is under siege from a city full of these bloodthirsty un-dead. Reluctantly they team up and look for a way down to the ground floor to take their chances outside.

La Horde (aka The Horde) is yet another re-telling of the ''band of humans vs the un-dead'' story (of course that's no bad thing because there's no point of having one without the other if you set out to make a film in this genre). Romero's influence is here in bucket-loads with our motley crew holed-up in a large multi-level building, think ''Dawn of the Dead," but in this case the zombies (for want of a better word) are the fast moving, infected type rather than the shuffling, back-from-the-grave type and it's that, combined with the gritty urban setting, that puts us in mind of ''28 Days Later."  

What is interesting about this film is that it dwells somewhat on the characters back-story, their emotional reaction to the situation and to each other, in doing so it gives them some depth and motives for their actions. It could also be argued that there is social commentary here that highlights the film-makers' fears about mans' inhumanity to man and society's self destructive nature. 

Although apocalyptic, La Horde is never a somber film, there are some brief moments of levity (the ''chop off his leg'' scene is one to look out for) and the action is thick, fast and positively brutal. The quantity of blood splattering is magnificent and, as well as the extensive range of weaponry in use. The heroes are not scared to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the zombies which makes for some gory slapstick moments.

There is nothing particularly new that this film adds to the genre but it gives you all that you should want from a film of its kind, and it delivers it with a firm slap across the face!

La Horde theatrical trailer

La Horde at IMDb

La Horde at Wikipedia

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