Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie Review

Dylan Doggerel

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater July 26, 2011

An early candidate for biggest flop of the year, Dylan Dog--an adaptation of the popular, long-running Italian comic book series by Tiziano Sclavi--is a disappointingly derivative monster mash-up that forgoes the surrealist, sadly Romantic tone of its source material, preferring to steal liberally from Hellboy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and HBO’s True Blood instead. Yet screenwriters Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer--who penned 2005‘s Sahara and the upcoming Conan the Barbarian--don’t even do a good job of being imitative. Fans of the original comic will be naturally disappointed that the film only pays lip-service to Sclavi’s creation, but newcomers to the world of Dylan Dog will be bummed out too, if only because the movie is such a monumental bore, with rote supernatural characters, poorly staged (and edited) action sequences, flat attempts at comedy, and the distinct lack of a dramatic pulse. Forget Dead of Night, this one is dead on arrival.

Dylan Dog

Former Man of Steel Brandon Routh plays Dylan Dog, a New Orleans-based neo-noir private investigator whose business is the usual gumshoe stuff-- extramarital affairs, women in distress, and of course, acting as a middleman liaison between the “breathers” and the living dead. That’s right, Dylan is a paranormal P.I., protecting humans and monsters alike. Or, at least, he was, until the love of his life died during a case involving a vindictive werewolf clan. Now, he’s given up the supernatural and is back to doing mundane stakeouts of cheating husbands, with help from his golly-gee-whiz assistant, Marcus (Sam Huntington), who desperately wants to be promoted to a full partner. Dylan’s old business cards--which read, “No Pulse, No Problem”--are still floating around, though, and when he gets a call from Elizabeth (Anita Briem), a woman whose father has just been mauled to death by a lycanthrope, our hero agrees to take the case. (But only, I should mention, after Marcus is killed and subsequently resurrected as a friendly, non-cannibalistic, hot dog-eating zombie. No kidding.) Turns out Elizabeth’s dad, an antique importer/smuggler, had the inside scoop on an ancient artifact known as the “Heart of Belial,” a demon-blood-infused cross that has the power to turn he who wields it into the most powerful evil being on the planet.

The needlessly convoluted plot eventually involves a kind of three-way undead gang war between the werewolves (who own a meatpacking plant), the zombies (who have a “Body Shop” where shufflers can go looking for recently deceased “spare parts”), and the vampires, led by Vargas (Taye Diggs), a gold-grill-fanged “trueblood” who runs a nightclub called The Corpus House, where he sells vampire blood to “breathers.” Let’s see, multiple “races” of supernatural creatures feuding in southern Louisiana for dominance? A vamp who owns a night club? Humans addicted to “V”? Sound familiar? If not, you’re definitely not watching enough HBO. That Dylan Dog could be this shamelessly imitative of True Blood is almost beyond belief, especially considering the wealth of potential storylines in the ongoing original comics, which have been published continually since 1986. Comics are routinely bastardized and bowdlerized on their way to the big screen, but rarely to this extent. There are a few inside jokes for fans-- Dylan’s clarinet, for instance, which he plays in the comics--but it’s clear that this adaptation is Dylan Dog in name only. Gone is the social commentary of the graphic series, replaced by eye-rolling banter between Routh and Huntington, and dippy one-liners like “Now, it’s dying time,” and “Do the crime, pay the fine.”

Routh is tasked with providing the typical droll, hard luck private eye voiceover as well, but the one-time Superman has the charisma of a corpse. It certainly doesn’t help that the script is loaded with cringe-worthy lines that I imagine would be nearly impossible to read with a straight face. When Dylan discovers the lifeless, zombie-ravaged Marcus, he all too seriously intones, “With all the dead bodies I’d seen in my day, you’d think this would be easier. But it wasn’t. Marcus...(long dramatic pause)...was my friend.” You almost feel sorry for Routh when he has to climb a tree to examine some lycanthrope fur: “You know what they say about werewolf hair; it doesn’t lie.” Leaving aside the dumbed-down nature of the script, even the “genre” elements of the movie--the comic book-ish action, the monsters, the scares--are clumsily staged and executed. The film had a $20 million budget, but at times it feels like a made-for-TV movie, with cheapo special effects and goofy, outdated creature make-up. This is a production that just doesn’t work on any level. Famed Italian novelist, philosopher, and essayist Umberto Eco once said, “I can read the Bible, Homer, or Dylan Dog for several days without being bored,” but I imagine he’d be dozing by the end of the film adaptation’s first act.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dylan Dog shuffles onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's a bit dark and a little soft, but otherwise suits the movie just fine. Shot on 35mm, the image has a natural filmic appearance that hasn't been swabbed with DNR or artificially highlighted with edge enhancement. Grain can be quite thick at times, and while it's never a distraction, it does cut down on the degree of clarity. Fine, high definition detail is certainly visible in most close-ups, but wider shots tend to have a slightly fuzzy quality. This isn't a picture you'd ever refer to as "tack-sharp" or "pristine," but it is what it is--serviceable. Color is heavily stylized for much of the film, with white highlights that are pushed to more of a creamy tone, and moody green and blue lighting at night. Since the majority of the story takes place in relative darkness, it does become somewhat of a problem that black levels are dense to the extent of routinely crushing shadow detail into oblivion. This is partially the intended look of the film, I'm sure, but it does go to unnecessary extremes. In general, the image seems dim; if your screen is prone to glare, you'll want to make sure there are no bright light sources behind you while watching. There's some slight noisiness during certain scenes, but I didn't spot any overt compression problems.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

At least the film features some decent action/horror sound design, represented here by way of a punchy DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. The output from the front channels is strong, and the rears are put into frequent use for various effects as well. Magnesium flares pan from left to right. Zombies moan and grunt and groan from all directions. Vampires shriek with high pitched intensity, and during the climax electricity arcs and sparks in the space around your head. Elsewhere, the surrounds are used for light ambience--general chatter in the "Corpus" nightclub, for instance--and to fill out the rather generic but dynamically solid soundtrack by Klaus Badelt. The mix has a beefy, if sometimes exaggerated depth, and punches--in particular--land with supernatural intensity. Dialogue is clean and easy to understand throughout. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no special features on the disc, not even a trailer.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dylan Dog bombed at theaters--recouping less than $5 million of its $20 million budget--and it's not hard to see why. I imagine poor word-of- mouth kept comic book film fans away in droves, and the Blu-ray will likely suffer the same fate, perhaps generating a few sales this week but quickly tapering off. If you have to see Dylan Dog, you'll probably be able to find it in a bargain bin in no time.