“Cause and Effect Ratio: Blade (1998) and Devil May Cry (2001)”
10 min read
All of our strengths, none of our weaknesses, you got the best of both worlds.
–Blade
Greetings, all you intrepidly inquisitive individuals! I’m the Teal Time Mage, and nostalgia and mythology are my stock and trade; this is especially true for the ’80s and ’90s!
I’m overjoyed that the years of my childhood are getting quite the resurgence thanks to such films as BumbleBee and Captain Marvel. Video games have likewise sparked a massive interest in retro-gaming from the aforementioned eras with the release of “Classic” systems for the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sony PlayStation (the latter of which many, including myself, are hypercritical of); with the recent release of the Sega Genesis Classic, it’s high time to travel back to the ’90s swirls and Converse sneakers of yesteryear.
Comparing the two pop-culture genres, I couldn’t help but reminisce about all the great movies and games I’ve witnessed over the years, and at that moment I had an epiphany: is there a cause and effect relationship between the silver screen and the gaming system? Purely speculation on my part, but I hope to find the connections, both outright and obscure, between movies and retro games with a segment I call “Videogames and the Films that May Have Inspired Them”. These segments aren’t meant to be taken as truth or fact, but rather to get you, the reader, to ponder the realm of possibility. Bear in mind this article will contain spoilers aplenty, so if you haven’t seen or played either, I highly recommend you do, I’ll just wait here with my bottle of Surge and box of Gushers…alright, in the immortal words of Mario: “Here we goooooo!”
Ever since I can remember, the horror genre has been rife with two major archetypes: monsters, and monster hunters. For every Dracula, Imhotep, and Pennywise, there’s an Ash Williams, Buffy Summers, and Dr. Loomis. In the latter category’s case, what do all these veritable Van Helsings bring to the fold? Well, I believe it’s a combination of several different factors:
1.) A past traumatic history with a monster.
2.) Sharing genetic progeny with a monster.
3.) A preordained destiny that binds them to a monster.
Any one of these aspects can form the basis of a monster hunter, but combined together they raise the hunter to mainstream popularity. For the most part, these characters change little over the years, but sometimes, they change and evolve over time to fit the optimized mold. Two hunters, in particular, fit the criteria of the monster hunter, but also have changed over the years: the Vampire Hunter Blade, and the Demon Slayer Dante!
One of the most iconic vampire hunters of the ’90s, Blade originated as a Marvel comic book character in Tomb of Dracula #10. Originating as an African-British vampire hunter immune to vampirism and armed with wooden teak daggers, Blade made his live action debut in the 1998 New Line Cinema film of the same name starring Wesley Snipes; the film rebuilt the character in every way possible, redefining both the character and the superhero movie genre. Wesley Snipes changed Blade into an American Alpha-Hunter. From that point on, the character was known as the “Daywalker”, born half-vampire and half-human (also known as a “Dhampir”) with no inherent weaknesses save for the thirst for blood; it was this template of Blade which changed his comic book counterpart to match for the decades that followed. Currently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in the process of rebooting Blade, with two-time Academy-Award winning actor Mahershala Ali (well known previously in the MCU as the crime boss Cottonmouth in Netflix’s Luke Cage series) set to star.
In much the same way Wesley Snipes redefined the superhero cinematic genre, Dante from Devil May Cry helped to redefine the hack’n’slash genre of video games since the early 2000s. Originally conceptualized as the prototype for Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry broke off from Capcom’s flagship survivor horror franchise by introducing the protagonist Dante, a silver-haired demon slayer who’s the result of a union between a demon father and a human mother. Dante has stood the tests of time as one of the most popular video game characters of all time. At present, Adi Shankar (also a Netflix alumni from his work on the Castlevania anime) is busy at work creating a new Devil May Cry anime series for streaming.
From the onset, both characters share a kinship in their archetypes (I’m not just talking about their respective anime series): they share both an occupation as monster hunters and the fact that their genes carry the blood of their respective quarry. Our heroes fulfill the second aspect of a monster hunter I previously mentioned. And yet, is there a deeper connection between the two? Blade seemed to have come out several years before Devil May Cry, so there is a possibility that Wesley Snipe’s horror action film could have inspired the look, function and style of Capcom’s hack’n’slash game; but in order to truly grasp the links that bind them, we need to follow the tragic tale of both hunters through their backstories, journeys, and even fighting styles and equipment. Let us now go on the prowl for devils and vampires to find the hypothetical cause and effect of Blade and Devil May Cry.
It would be prudent to start with Blade and Dante’s physical and psychological characteristics, and how they possibly line up. Fashion-wise, they both wear a combination of tactical vests with long, flowing trench coats and matching colored pants in their respective palettes. In Blade’s case, he wears all black, a possible reflection of Western Gothic culture denoting a somber or tragic lifestyle (key examples of this can be found in The Crow, Ghost Rider, and Sandman comic series); for Dante, his color is red, reflective of those who carry a heavy emotional burden in Japanese culture (key examples of this can be Alucard from Hellsing, Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII, and Vash the Stampede from Trigun).
It’s curious to note that both our Hunters also use similar types of weaponry consisting of heavily modified semi-automatic handguns: Blade uses what appears to be an Uzi-Pro Pistol with an added under rail, grip protector, and an extended clip for housing all those silver bullets against the undead. Just like with Blade, Dante utilizes a pair of customized 1911 Colts with added compensaters on the barrels, grooved handle grips, and customized triggers to suit his preference for rapid firing (no doubt so that the bridge and chamber don’t break from excessive over-heating). Our silver-haired protagonist affectionately refers to his guns as “Ebony and Ivory”.
When firearms can’t get the job done, our heroes switch to their mutually back-holstered cleavers: Blade shows off his namesake by brandishing his sword, with what appears to be a fusion of a double-edged Roman Gladius with the sleeker Japanese Chokuto straight sword based on counterparts from Ancient China. In a large departure from its Resident Evil origins, Devil May Cry features Dante wielding a massive sword for hacking away at demonic foes for maximum damage; his principal sword (referred to as “Alastor”) is a two-handed double-edged European Claymore with a quad-skull engraved pommel topped off with a custom bat-wing shaped cross guard (and a favorite among immortal Highlanders sword fighting to Queen).
Seeing as how Devil May Cry was overhauled from its survival horror intention, is it possible that Director Hideki Kamiya based Dante’s revamped design on Blade? The latter vampire hunter has a distinct penchant for long coats, tactical vests, double-edged swords and heavily-customized handguns, after all. With that in mind there seems to be a passing familiarity; let’s look deeper into their combat styles, and whether or not there is more connective tissue.
In the very first scene of Blade there is an epic “blood rave” (that or the Kool-Aid man does house parties now) where our titular protagonist mows down legions of vampires with sword and gun in hand; techno music blares in the background as Blade utilizes several acrobatic flips whilst throwing a stylized glaive in a super-fast circular motion to slay several vamps in quick succession.
Dante, by that same vein (no vampire pun intended), encounters a cadre of killer demon mannequins on Mallett Island as techno-rock starts to play, prompting the player to ready for combat with our red-clad reaver’s unique gear bolstered by superhuman agility and air flips. I’d also like to note that similar to Blade’s glaive, Dante learns a technique called “Round Trip”, where he throws his sword in a quick-spinning circular motion that hones in on any enemies within reach. It’s fair to say that both our heroes share a certain “Stylish” type of combat despite being from two different mediums, but seeing as how Blade preceded Dante, did the Marvel Comics character help to inspire the red-clad Capcom poster boy? Let’s take a closer look at the psychological profiles of each of our hunters.
Blade was born from his dying mother’s womb, her injuries caused by a vampire’s bite; this led to Blade having an intense, if not pathological hatred of vampires (I recall in Nightstalkers #1, our vampire hunter had a complete psychological break when a boy dresses up as Dracula for a Halloween party, even going so far as to try and stake him with a broken chair leg). It was later revealed that Blade’s mother was killed by Deacon Frost, the main antagonist from the film and whose enzymatic saliva caused Blade to be born a dhampir. Dante has a similarly tragic backstory, as his mother and brother were killed by demons 20 years prior to the start of the game, motivating him to become a mercenary for hire in order to track down the demons responsible (giving special attention to supernatural cases, offered by clients who know “the password”). Dante’s demonic father Sparda had an old grudge with the Demon Emperor Mundus, the latter of whom manipulated events to draw Dante to Mallett Island in order to complete his revenge against Sparda’s family.
Both our heroes also suffer from a surreal type of Oedipal complex: Blade due to the fact that he confronts his surprisingly alive – and, by this point, vampiric – mother, (revealed to be in collusion with Deacon Frost) in an attempt to lower Blade’s defenses; our vampire hunter is tragically forced to stake her near the end of the film. Dante likewise undertakes the Oedipus ordeal in the form of Trish, the woman who prompts him to investigate Mallett Island by crashing her motorcycle into Dante’s shop. Trish is revealed to be a clone of Dante’s mother created by Mundus to coax him into the Demon King’s clutches; thankfully, Trish redeems herself by the end of the game and becomes Dante’s part-time partner for the remainder of the series. Both our hunters seem to suffer from both the loss of family as well as startling revelations about their biological mothers, which more than qualifies both our candidates for my previously mentioned first aspect of being a monster hunter. So then, can it be interpreted that the Blade film had a cause and effect on Devil May Cry? It’s certainly starting to look that way!
The last bit of possible cause and effect I want to touch on is the third and final aspect of monster hunters, that of the preordained destiny that binds hunter to monster. Blade qualifies because the movie states that in order for Deacon Frost to resurrect “La Magra” (a type of Blood God amongst vampires), he needs the blood of a Dhampir. This puts the two on a collision course.
Dante, by dual grand design, is destined to settle an old score with Mundus, who is intent on entering the human world on Mallet Island; this epic showdown is referred to in Mission 22 as “The Legendary Battle” (Dante even swears: “In the name of my father, I will kill Mundus!”)
Though both heroes’ journey seem dauntless, our hunters both wisecrack their way through their terrifying trials: Blade when he playfully threatens the voluminous vampire Pearl (“We’re gonna play a game of 20 questions. Depending on how you answer, you may walk outta here with a tan,” he warns) with a UV lamp, and Dante when he encounters the giant spider/scorpion Phantom in the cathedral (“I hope for your sake you got something more than that big body of yours,” he tells the demon). The journeys and trials of our similarly snarky heroes satisfy the final component of monster hunters. With Vampiric Gods and Demonic Emperors setting the stage for a fateful confrontation, it seems very possible that Blade may have served as the inspiration for Devil May Cry.
Utilizing my monster hunter model, one can find clear links between the film Blade, and the subsequent video game Devil May Cry. The first aspect reveals that both Blade and Dante suffered the loss of their mothers from vampires and demons, fueling their seething hatred towards their future prey with Swords, Guns, and “Style” (Oh My!). The second aspect shows that both characters share a bloodline with their intended targets, Dante as a half-demon, and Blade as a dhampir. The third and final aspect shows that both have dates with destiny and a final confrontation with their mutual nocturnal nemeses. One similarity is a freak of nature, two is a coincidence, three similarities reveal a pattern, and that pattern makes me believe that Blade served as the inspiration for Devil May Cry in its finished form.
Final Rating: Extremely Likely
The Teal Time Mage lives at a fixed point in time that is set between 1991 and 1997. Outside of his time vortex of nostalgia, he writes horror short stories, cosplays, and coordinates for various charity groups. Find him on Twitter @ArosElric, on Facebook @ArosElricCosplay, on Final Fantasy XIV’s Cactuar Server under the name “Aros Erlic”.
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