“Can’t rain all the time.”

Look, let’s be real, the opening through the rooftops and flames looks like shit. Like Queen of the Damned, which the more I think about it is really just tryna be The Crow. Made me nervous though.

I hadn’t seen this in at least 20 years and back then it was already up on a pedestal. It was a fav of my older, gothy, stepbro and I looked up to him. When he died at 21 this was cemented as a classic without the opportunity to grow out of it. I’ve been nervous to revisit it in case it’s 90’s ass. I shit on 90’s horror all the time but for a lot of other genres it’s one of the best decades. Fortunately, this is a gritty thriller before anything else.

The cinematic aesthetic is 90’s as all hell and the goth-grunge-grit is familiar almost to the point of cringe, but it never gets to that. It feels fresh and genuine. They knew what they were doing. It’s serious but it’s also camp. Tongue in cheek. They said ‘we’re making a comic and we’re gonna commit but it’s also still a comic.’ And an entire generation built their personality on it and continued to rip different elements and include them in everything they did, whether they knew it or not. But this fucks. It’s real cool. Even with some dated green screen and effects. This will sound real blasphemous, but the only film to come close in tone was Blade, it was just more corrupted by being a few years later. 

Brandon Lee’s performance is the gold standard of badass. The way he says “Is that gasoline I smell?” No one else could deliver these lines like him. Every scene he’s in is better. And he’s not tryna put on an edgy schtick nonstop. He’s just as heartfelt and caring and genuine as he is mopey or cocky or silly. Brandon Lee. Jeff Buckley. Heath Ledger. They have the same energy. I just can’t work out if it’s because of their tragic ends or whether they’d tapped into something they weren’t supposed to have. 

Anyway, don’t listen to me. I’m biased as fuck.

I didn’t remember Ernie Hudson or Tony Todd in this at all. That was nice.

And that mother fucking soundtrack holy shit. 

“You move, you’re dead!”
“…and I say I’m dead. And I move.”