The theatrical poster for “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.”
Comic book characters in movies have been around for a very long time, though not since the age of the serials have they been in such high demand as they seem to be today. Sure, Batman broke box-office records when it came out in 1989, and Superman before that had been a surefire winner (at least, until Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), but for many years, the two DC superheroes were the only ones to achieve any sort of positive recognition at the box office. Marvel, in particular, languished for years producing television series, made for TV movies, and low-budget schlockfests, be they good (The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby), bad (any Captain America film prior to 2011), or…well, depending on your point of view, either downright strange or a guilty pleasure (Howard the Duck or The Punisher – the first version). But now the shoe seems to be on the other foot…while DC can’t seem to get anything to jumpstart outside of its two major characters (see Green Lantern, wait, no, don’t do that), Marvel has had a string of successes (and, admittedly, some flops, but not by a whole lot), all leading up to what should be the major cash cow of 2012, The Avengers.
Of course, Marvel and DC aren’t the only publishing houses out there…putting aside smaller American companies such as Dark Horse for a moment, the foreign market has remained surprisingly untapped. Sure, there have been comics outside of America that have been made into Hollywood feature films (Judge Dredd and Tank Girl being among the most notable, if not necessarily the best examples), and Japan is perhaps the luckiest in terms of ported material (though if you saw Dragonball: Evolution, your definition of “luck” may vary), but for the most part, comics originating from non-English speaking countries have been virtually written off for years. But the good news is that, thanks to the successes of Marvel and DC, it appears that companies are beginning to look outside of the U.S. for new and interesting comic ideas. But will it last?
This past year brought us at least three films based off of non-English source material that you are likely to have heard of. The most recent was Priest, the 3D film starring Paul Bettany fighting vampires in a bleak, post-apocalyptic world that visually looked like a cross between Blade Runner and A Fistful of Dollars. Without going into too much detail, the original Korean comic by Hyung Min-Woo was mainly about the past with people fighting demons. Obviously a bit of a stretch from the original source material, it was widely panned. The third is The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (which will be released in December 2011), based on the comic books created by Belgian writer/artist Hergé. Although the last original story from the series was published over 30 years ago, the character is one of the few that has found resounding popularity throughout the world and in many languages, so Steven Spielberg is banking that it’ll be a winner. And then there’s Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, the film we are focusing on today.
Brandon Routh (left) and Sam Huntington in “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.” © 2011 – Freestyle Releasing.
The comic series Dylan Dog began in 1986 and, as of 2011 is still in print. Published by Sergio Bonelli Editore, it was created by Italian writer Tiziano Sclavi. It has been translated into several languages, including English (printed by Dark Horse Comics, who are possibly the third most successful in transferring their comic creations into movies, with hits like The Mask, Hellboy, and Sin City, as well as a few flops like Barb Wire and the infamous Son of the Mask). Dylan Dog lives in London on 7 Craven Road, in a sort of neo-noir world, where he investigates and solves cases revolving around the supernatural and the undead. His personality is that of a loner, though whenever he lands a female client, he often strikes up a romantic relationship (which tends to be over quickly in time for the next issue), and like many comic characters, he has an outfit he is never caught “dead” without: a red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans (he owns twelve identical sets). He also has an assistant named Groucho who looks and sounds like…um, Groucho Marx. While several stories are simple “find the monster and stop it” sorts of tales, many times they delve into introspection and dark humor, such as “Memoirs from the Invisible World,” where the storyteller begins to disappear after the only person in the world who ever even noticed he existed is murdered.
Stories like these have made the series quite popular in its native Italy, but oddly enough, the only movie property even remotely based on it was released in 1994. Sclavi had created a character in a novel, Dellamorte Dellamore, who later made an appearance in the Dylan Dog comics. The protagonist, Francesco Dellamorte, was played by Rupert Everett in the similarly titled film (known in English as Cemetery Man). In an odd mix of events, Dellamorte is intended to be an Italian version of the British Dylan, and yet is played in this film by an English actor, wearing Dylan’s outfit, with no appearance by Dylan Dog whatsoever. While its critical reputation is decent to middling, Cemetery Man has developed a cult following for its quirky humor mixed with bloodletting horror.
But now, in 2011, an official Dylan Dog adaptation has surfaced, and how does it stack up? Well, review after review panned the crap out of it. Critics viewed Priest on par with the Sistine Chapel compared to Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. It opened in less than 900 theaters in the United States on April 29th, closed three weeks later with a grand total of $1.1 million ($4.6 counting foreign gross) at the box office, and with its advertising budget, unless, like me, you caught one ad on the Syfy Channel, you may have not even known it existed at all.
Right from the start, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night has major differences from its comic counterpart. For one, Dylan’s home is situated in the middle of New Orleans, not England. He is now American, and played by Brandon Routh, no stranger to the comic book hero, having starred as the Man of Steel in the “okay” Superman Returns and the vegan-powered evil ex in the excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. His partner in all this is not Groucho, thanks to a disallowance of the Groucho Marx estate to utilize his appearance. The Dark Horse Comic release ran into a similar problem, having to paint out the mustache on the character and rename him Felix. The movie was not so lucky; they instead opted to create a new sidekick, Marcus (Sam Huntington). Based on his outfit, apparently it was not okay to option Groucho Marx’s looks, but it was perfectly acceptable to dress him up like Gallagher’s stepson without fear of legal reprisal.
Brandon Routh and Anita Briem in “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.” © 2011 – Freestyle Releasing.
The story opens with Elizabeth (Anita Briem) finding her father dead in what could possibly be called “The Scariest House in New Orleans” and seeing a hairy creature burst out of an upstairs window and run away. She seeks out Dylan, who refuses the case, as he’s retired after a particularly unpleasant event that cost him his standing in the undead community he “protected.” But when Marcus turns up murdered in his apartment (don’t worry, he gets better), Dylan dons his red shirt and jacket and goes investigating. He finds a lot of mystery as his search uncovers strange dealings involving the great vampire families, the great werewolf families, the great monster hunter families, giant zombie monsters, and a centuries-old artifact that is the key to bringing demonic forces into the world. And all this happens in a scant 108 minutes.
When it comes to cramming as much supernatural into one place as possible, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night makes Van Helsing look empty and reserved. I think the only monster without representation may be ghosts, but even one of those may be in the background somewhere. And part of that is the problem. Somewhere along the way, the makers started watching recent television and movies for inspiration, and it shows. The whole movie plays like True Blood meets Supernatural, with a little bit of Underworld thrown in for kicks. Heck, Huntington’s transformation into slowly-rotting zombie sidekick has its roots in the classic An American Werewolf in London, and is even played for the same sort of laughs. There is an amusing scene where the leads head to the zombie supermarket to find fresh parts for Marcus, but it’s little surreal touches like that which make the rest of the movie stand out as merely recycled product, like a Frankenstein’s monster made from parts of other more superior and popular films. And unlike much of the filmmakers’ inspiration, the result is a boring PG-13; the average episode of True Blood throws around twice as much blood, three times the language, and about 30,000 times more “adult situations,” and runs about half as long. I’d say given the horror comedy genre’s propensity for taking forgotten films and turning them into cult classics, the only really successful one to my knowledge to do it and not be rated R was The Monster Squad, and much of that film’s popularity stems from children saying a lot of stuff kids traditionally get into trouble for saying. (Well, that, and Dracula’s weapon of choice being dynamite, but that’s just a given.) So, as far as plot goes, what we have with Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is a nice stew of potential that is defanged long before it gets started.
For the most part, the acting in the film isn’t bad, though. Routh, unlike his comic namesake, doesn’t play up the romantic angle of the character (his relationship with Elizabeth does involve an evening in bed, but it’s kept low-key) and opts instead to keep things light, and makes Dylan more of a quip-meister and brawler. This is sort of amusing since there are numerous times he gets into fistfights with creatures that are very capable of punching a hole through his face. And when push comes to shove, despite his claims that he used to be a sort of “peacekeeper” between the various forces of darkness, he’s usually the first to whip out a gun and start blowing holes in everything that moves. So, yes, there are decent amounts of action, even leading up to a Blade-style fight scene in which numerous vampires are punched and kicked into oblivion (ooh, wait, need to add Blade to the list of aforementioned “inspirations”). But the standout of the whole thing is old-time ham flinger Peter Stormare (Fargo, Armageddon, any movie where you need a Swedish Christopher Walken). He’s not in it very long, but he packs more oozing charisma into his screen time than most of the cast does in much larger roles. Taye Diggs as the vampire villain (are there any other kind of vampires, honestly?) Vargas is too jovial, and isn’t quite as cold as his character ought to be. And Huntington’s just annoying, but then, he’s supposed to be. There’s a lot of focus on his character and his adaptation to the ways of the zombie underworld that, while amusing in the short term, does make the movie’s running time a lot longer than it should be, especially as the movie draws to an end. But even with such annoying character traits, it’s awfully nice to see characters that are actual characters and not just a random assortment of clichés about to get their faces torn off – as in they were in Final Destination 5.
One definite plus, though, and keeps this film in “guilty pleasure” territory instead of the “total loss” department, is the use of much-welcomed makeup effects. Sure, there is CG utilized here and there, but with the exception of the werewolf makeup (which looks less like a werewolf and more like they handed Kurt Angle a bottle of Rogaine and told him to have at it), most of the effects are real-time, and they are honestly very well-done. Though you may not know his face, Brian Steele has a long resume of playing monster heavies, ranging from Doom to Hellboy II to Predators, his zombie makeup looks great here. It’s detailed, creepy, and he is imposing, to say the least. Without saying too much, there is another character that has a fantastic full-body suit…at least, once it’s finished. (There’s a sort of halfway state where the monster looks like it has a big beer gut when it isn’t supposed to, it doesn’t look so much imposing as it does ridiculous.)
Amazon.com WidgetsUltimately, it’s nice to see something watchable come out of this genre every once in a while. Unlike its source material, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night isn’t very deep or thought-provoking, and except for the outfit and general premise of investigative detective doesn’t have much in common. Compared to the likes of, say, Thor or Captain America: The First Avenger, which do adhere closely to their source material and have seemed to hit all the right critical and financial buttons, it would seem the foreign language comic market is stuck right where American comics were in the early 1990s…more of a cash-in opportunity than as something to build upon and cherish. Compared to what could have been, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is a travesty in a lot of respects. But, as a PG-13 rip-off of every vampire/werewolf/zombie trope currently on the market, it certainly could’ve been worse.
RATING: TWO OUT OF FIVE
Release Date: April 29th, 2011
On DVD: July 26th, 2011
Rating: PG-13
Starring: Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington, Taye Diggs, Anita Briem, Kurt Angle, and Peter Stomare
Director: Kevin Munroe
Writer: Thomas Dean Donnelly
Seth Paul
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