Writer's Note: Didn't have a chance this week to watch any old movies, so I'm going to have to reprint an older review today instead of the usual Flashback Friday thing. But rest assured, I will have one for next week.
On the plus side, I've been playing catch-up on 2017's movies and I feel assured that I will have a top 10 (or possibly 15) of the year for you all soon. I know it's kind of late, but I hadn't seen the bulk of the Oscar bait type stuff this year until recently, so I didn't feel like I had a solid enough list as a result. I didn't want a lot of "what about this?" or "what about that?"- so, I waited. I'm sure you can understand, and hey, at least it will be out before the Oscars themselves!
The following review was originally published on Facebook on June 17th, 2015. Enjoy!
I was never a big superhero comics or anime guy. I mean, I liked Batman, the X-Men and Green Lantern, but that was about as far as it went. Instead, I read my uncle’s horror comics collection, stuff like Unexpected, House of Mystery and comic magazines like Eerie, Creepy and especially Heavy Metal, which, of course, was also a much-beloved movie in the early 80's. One of my first crushes was probably Vampirella, if I’m being honest. (And, okay, The Little Mermaid and Jessica Rabbit, whom I totally blame for my redhead fixation.)
Fast forward a bit and underground comics were all the rage in the late 80’s-early 90’s and onward and I certainly loved them. Comics like Todd MacFarlane’s Spawn, graphic novels by Alan Moore (Watchmen, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) and, of course, Neil Gaiman’s epic Sandman series. Another was Brian Pulido’s Evil Ernie, from which spawned the even better Lady Death, who was one of the biggest examples of the dark super-heroines that became de rigueur in the late 90's.
Yes, you can make all the comments you want about how such characters were un-PC, had unrealistic bodies- like something out of a Russ Meyer flick- and decidedly inappropriate, not to mention wearing questionably secure skimpy outfits that probably didn’t do much in the way of actual protection, but I loved them just the same. Hell, I even had “pin-ups” of a lot of them hung in my room, including LD, Witchblade, Elektra, Danger Girl, and so on.
Lady Death was arguably my favorite, though. She was such a bad ass. The daughter of the cruel Matthias, who forcibly recruited local young people into the military to fight in a war, he also was involved with black magic and was a fallen angel in disguise who fought in Lucifer’s war in heaven against God. When the town rebels against him, he escapes, but his daughter, Hope is captured. Faced with death, she makes a literal deal with a devil in which she renounces her humanity and agrees to serve a demon in hell itself.
Once there, she aligns herself with a local craftsman when she discovers her father is leading a rebellion against Lucifer himself. Dubbing herself Lady Death, she lead a rebellion against the Lords of Hell and eventually gets cursed by Lucifer, who declares she will never be able to return to Earth so long as humans walk the Earth. So, naturally, she begins her quest to kill all of them! (There was eventually a happy ending of sorts, which I won’t ruin here.)
In my early 20's in college in Nashville, I worked at a store called Media Play, first in the books department, then the much-coveted video department. This was when DVD's first started to become popular, but also when animes were all the rage. We had a whole section devoted to Dragonball Z, Pokémon, Sailor Moon and so forth, and would have Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic tournaments on Saturdays, which were packed to the rafters with full-blown fantasy nerds in all their dorky glory. (The release of Harry Potter books was also a big deal at the time, and we would stay open to midnight on those days to sell the books first.)
I was never a huge anime person, but I did see the biggies, a la Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, et al. That said, I was admittedly beside myself when word came around that Lady Death was about to be released as a movie. As soon as it came out, I snapped it up, and rushed home after work to check it out. At the time I liked it, more or less, even though I wasn’t huge on some of the changes they made to the original story, like that, instead of her being stuck in Hell until all life on Earth is extinguished, she’s stuck there until all of Satan’s allies on Earth are extinguished. Also, it’s implied that’s she the daughter of Lucifer himself, not one of his minions. In short, they made her more into an actual heroine than an anti-heroine.
I hadn’t seen it since, but picked it up on Blu-Ray recently and was actually pleasantly surprised by the results. Yes, the dialogue is pure comic book silliness and totally clichéd at times, and the voice-over acting is only passable at best (although a shout out goes to Christine Auten, who it turns out, is from Alabama, where I now live, and has gone on to become Anime royalty, having voiced stuff for such big-name titles as Full Metal Alchemist and Devil May Cry), but there’s still a certain charm to it, and the animation is pure Heavy Metal style goodness- or should I say evilness?
Fun fact: the Lucifer here was reportedly one of the major inspirations for the one in “South Park”!
Anyway, if you like this sort of thing, you should love this, and it’s always nice to see a woman kicking ass, even if she’s scantily clad in a dubious way. (Hell, especially if she is!) I can’t help but think it was this and stuff of this nature that is why I became such a huge “Buffy” fan and fan of all things involving women superheroes, a la Scar Jo’s Black Widow and Arrow’s Black Canary(s) (yes, there’s two of them, or were, at least).
So, if this sort of thing rings your bell, by all means, check "Lady Death: The Motion Picture" out. It’s good, camp-tastic fun, albeit an acquired taste for many. And why stop there? Check out the comics as well- they're even better, IMHO.
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