Vampire Hunter D (1985) Review: Cool Animation, Poor Story
Synopsis: A young girl requests the help of a vampire hunter to kill the vampire who has bitten her, and thus prevent her from becoming a vampire herself. | ![]() Watch now on Amazon |
Calamity Brains:
I’d like to think that if I first saw Vampire Hunter D as a child, I would have liked it. It’s hard to say if that’s completely true, though. Though it is animated, there is an awful lot of gore and (poorly-drawn) boobs, which makes it hard to recommend as a kid’s movie. On the other hand, I can’t recommend it as an adult movie, either.
While the art style is interesting, a lot of Vampire Hunter D just feels poorly drawn. D looks wildly different than every other character, which is partly reasonable as he’s the only one of his kind featured in the movie… but he looks so different he might have been drawn by a different artist. It’s distracting. There are also a lot of interesting monsters and mutants, but the effect is somewhat lost by their jerky movements and difficult-to-follow fight scenes.
I found the combination of fantasy monsters and a sci-fi environment interesting, but a lot of it didn’t make much sense. For example, humans have developed laser weapons… but the lasers don’t really seem to work against any of the invading fantasy monsters they’ve supposedly been fighting for thousands of years. Why have them, then?
The music is the most redeeming feature of the movie; it went well with the action and captured my attention often. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the writing. There are a couple of good lines, but the plot is fairly standard stuff. And it’s made extra banal by having Young Adult book level character development – people who’ve just met are immediately questioned if they’re in love; the main characters only have one desire each (and one of those is awfully stupid); D’s physiology isn’t really explained. But if you have the patience for under-developed anime or like the art form, it might be worth your while. Otherwise, this is probably one to skip.
Calamity Brains’ Rating: D+
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