Smith Vampire Hunter D

   

     Vampire Hunter D is a really rad flick because it combines vampires and cowboys, two entirely bad ass forms of life, and thrusts them in a post-apocalyptic universe with no immediately apparent timeframe.  I suppose the vampiric characters in Vampire Hunter D are pretty cool, but characters of the more western persuasion had horses. Horses really grab my attention.  So I'm going to focus on those. I was disappointed with the opening of the film because it introduced Doris' beautiful white horse, Luke, and immediately showed him being eaten by dinosaurs. In my opinion, dinosaurs aren't even worth feeding. Let's be serious, they couldn't even survive a meteor shower. Horses, on the other hand, remain one of natures most relevant and useful products.  The worst part is that they killed him just after the audience learns his name.  At the time of Luke's departure, I was prepared to see him develop as a character and maybe have a few more fight scenes or a love interest. The one saving grace of Luke's fate is that he died quite nobly. His master called for his assistance and he hopelessly fought a bunch of monsters because it was his duty as a horse.

     One thing about which I feel sort of conflicted is the mechanical nature of the world's horses.  On one hand, robots are where it's at; On the other, however, it is a completely unnecessary bastardization of the most flawless animal on the planet. Regardless, they look really nice and they allow their riders to pull off cool stunts.  One cool horse stunt occurred when D sprung from his running mechano-horse and glided across a chasm.  The horse machines are great, but I wouldn't call them horses. Maybe more like running cars that you sit on top of instead of inside of.

Horses.