THE ROUTH OF BADNESS
DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT Starring Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington and Taye Diggs
Directed by Kevin Munroe Written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Tiziano Sclavi Fox
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night – the subtitle implies the
first of an ongoing series. Fat chance, seeing as it earned approximately $4.5 million at the box office, on a $20 million budget. Eep. Given the popularity of comic book adaptations right now, that’s quite a feat of fuckuppery. But don’t blame the source mate-
rial. The film is based on Italy’s most popular ongoing comic series, about a supernatural private detective – think Darren McGavin’s Night Stalker character in the crime-noir world of a Dashiell Hammett story – which we’ve already had a taste of thanks to 1995’s excellent Cemetery Man, the surreal horror-comedy starring Rupert Everett. If you’ve read any of Dark Horse’s English-language adaptations of the series, you know that Dylan (named after poet Dylan Thomas) is a ragged, morose bohemian, carrying all sorts of emotional baggage, who’s constantly thrown into hu-
morous supernatural situations. There’s also a touch of the surreal in the comic (e.g., the character’s screaming doorbell, his Groucho Marx-like assistant), which is absent here. With its quirky characters, ironic one-liners, rubber-
suit monsters and mystical-object-threatens-the- world narrative, Dead of Night is like an over-plotted episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dylan (Brandon Routh), with the help of cowardly sidekick Marcus (Sam Huntington, who’s fun to watch), investigates a murder that throws him back into the supernatural world from which he retired after some bad shit went down. It’s a place where vampires own nightclubs, werewolves work at meat-packing plants and zom- bies can shop for black-market body parts. Cool stuff, but as our heroes try to find a dagger capa- ble of unleashing a super demon, the double crosses cross each other out and Dylan gets tossed into walls by monsters with tedious regularity. And forget the bad lighting
and dialogue – pin this one on a hero without any edge. Routh,
who was perfect as Clark Kent/Superman (two of the starchiest characters ever created) in Superman Re- turns, is a boring Dylan Dog. He never bruises, he’s got a nice, pretty face and, when not battling evil, ap-
parently spends his time waxing and tanning his buff chest. He’s more smarm than charm, and worst of all never seems to be in any real danger – a detective so soft-boiled, someone should dip a piece of toast in him. Seek out the comic, see what could’ve been, and
try not to get a headache from slapping yourself on the forehead.
DAVE ALEXANDER
HARRIS AND HENRIKSEN DO NOT A HENRY MAKE
CYRUS: MIND OF A SERIAL KILLER Starring Brian Krause, Danielle Harris and Lance Henriksen
Written and directed by Mark Vadik Anchor Bay
It isn’t Henry – it isn’t even Ed Gein – but this serial
killer origin story, based on “shocking true events,” isn’t a total write-off either. The second feature from writer/director Mark Vadik racks up a satisfying body count (and a pretty decent cast) with what is obviously a cripplingly tiny budget. The film begins as tabloid journalist Maria (Danielle
Harris) investigates the rural Midwestern legend of Cyrus “The County Line Cannibal” (Brian Krause). Without much in the way of eyewitness accounts, Maria gets a call from a mysterious tow truck driver named Emmett (Lance Henriksen), who claims to have known Cyrus personally. Over a lengthy inter-
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