Blu-ray Spotlight- The Blade Trilogy

When it comes to buying horror movies on Blu-ray, we have one issue; we already own so many horror movies on DVD, that upgrading them all to Blu-ray would cost a small fortune. There are some titles that we have to own in the best format available however, and so we open to you our Blu-ray Archives which consist of what we consider to be Must Own Horror Blu-ray's.

Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004)

New Line Cinema/Warner Bros./Warner Bros.
Price: $9.99-$19.99
Disks:All single, 50 GB discs
Video: MPEG-4 AVC
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1/6.1/7.1
Subtitles: Various, differing for each release.
Region Free

Wesley Snipes kicked ass as Blade, that's why. The Blade movies are fun, bloody, and laced with cheesy humor and one liners, so how can you not love that? If you go back to the time before Iron Man came along, the best comic book flicks weren't Spider-Man and X-Men, and they sure as hell weren't Daredevil, Fantastic Four, or the like; no, the best ones were movies like the Hellboy's and the Blade's.

Lots of people like the first two, but many seemed to hate on the third one, Blade: Trinity. We loved Trinity. The addition of Ryan Reynolds and his brand of snark, and the hotness of Jessica Biel suited us just fine. They're movies about vampire hunting, we're not expecting Shakespeare here.

Also, if you own one movie in a trilogy, you pretty much have to own them all. It makes us crazy to have just one. Luckily for us, all three movies are good enough to own.

Blade is a bad mofo. Can you dig it?

All three of these movies look great in HD. The first one looks the best, with a sharp transfer which is just downright pretty. The second movie is a little grainier and not as vivid, but that's because Guillermo Del Toro made it look as he wanted it to, which was not slick and pristine. Trinity suffers a bit in the crispness department due to being so FX heavy. All three movies look great though, so no worries here.

Being far from audiophiles, the 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 surround sound mixes sounded just fine to us. In our experience, DTS tends to make everything sound better, and these movies are no exception.

Del Toro's Blade II is our fave. The man is a genius.

Being three separate movies, there are plenty of extra features between them to keep the bonus lover's of the world happy.

Blade

• Featurette "La Magra", including the original ending
• Featurette "Designing Blade"
• Featurette "The Origins of Blade"
• Featurette "The Blood Tide"
• "House of Erebus", information about the different vampire houses
• Pencil sketches through production designs

 Blade II

• 5.1 isolated score
• Deleted/alternate scenes with director commentary
• A Pact in Blood: interactive collection of documentaries
• Director's Notebook: Interactive reproduction of director's notes with an introduction by Del Toro
• Art gallery
• Music video: Cypress Hill and Roni Size "Child of the Wild West"
• Blade 2 videogame survival guide
• DVD-ROM: Script to screen, hot spot

Blade: Trinity

• Widescreen and full-screen versions of the R-rated film
• 16-part behind-the-scenes documentary "Daywalkers, Nightstalkers & Familiars: Inside the World of Blade: Trinity"
• Alternate ending
• Blooper reel
• Goyer on Goyer: The writer interviews the director
• Galleries: VFX progression and weapons
• Theatrical trailer

Nightstalkers, baby.

The Blade Trilogy is a must own for vampire and horror fans alike. They aren't the perfect example of how amazing Blu-ray can look and sound, but they are damned fine additions to any Blu-ray collection. We mainly buy movies because we love them anyhow, the prettiness is just a really nice bonus. We'd be down for another Blade movie, anytime they want to make one. We even have the perfect plot idea...

Blade: Bitch Hunter. *Title aptly applies to both of them, actually.

Jessica Biel, Leonor Varela, and Traci Lords; the lovely girls of the Blade series. *Fun Fact: One of them was a porn star at 16, can you guess which one?