Sure, in the end, Blade wasn’t that deep, but in comparison to Batman & Robin a year before, which also had a storyline about a hero facing the lost of his father figure, it was downright Dickensian. Indeed, one of the overarching themes of the 90s was camp, either a movie was embracing it or it was appreciating it ironically. Not only was Blade appreciating its comic book roots seriously, it was appreciating its horror ones, too. At a time when characters in most horror movies spent their time pointing out how what was going on was like something out of a horror movie, in Blade arms are chopped off, people are set on fire, and it seems like someone’s drinking blood out of someone else’s neck every couple of minutes with a minimum of smart alec comments.
Blade would re-orientate the genre, and not just the comic book genre. In Blade’s black on black leather uniform, and the movie’s old world meets new technology aesthetic, it’s easy to see the influence on future franchises like Resident Evil and Underworld. The inspiration would go beyond the potent mix of monsters, guns, kung-fu, and the prominence of black leather. The look of Blade, as conceived by director Steven Norrington and cinematographer Theo van de Sande, featured the heavy use of blue and black in the way scenes were lit, which would practically become a template for action movies in the years to come.
More specifically, in terms of comic book movies, not a lot specifically about Blade carried over. You’ll note that the black leather look was picked up by the X-Men in 2000, and certainly Blade marked the beginning of more serious-minded and grounded comic book movie fair, but there were a couple of things that it did differently than many of the Marvel films that followed.
