Dylan Dog: Dead of Night – Film Fiasco

We're currently in the throes of the comic book movie craze and while the big budget offspring of Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment are mopping up at the box office, independent production companies are attempting to suckle at the golden teet as well.  In the past, independent comic book adaptations such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghost World, and Kick Ass all managed to achieve critical if not commercial success with respectable returns on investment considering the relatively obscure nature of their source material.

Even those adaptations that were too out there to find an audience, like 1994's Cemetery Man, based on the Italian novel by Tiziano Sclavi, managed to attract a cult appeal and following.  It only makes sense then that Hyde Park Films jumped on the bandwagon when it planned to release another Sclavi story with Dylan Dog: Dead of Night last year around Halloween.  And who better to bring it to the big screen than Kevin Munroe, the man who made an adaptation about anthropomorphic amphibians the most successful independent film of its time?  Seems like a good idea on paper, but you'll notice that this isn't Halloween.  This is the tail end of the worst movie season of the year.  You may also notice that Dylan Dog has made less than $1 million on less than 1000 screens.  If that's not enough of an indicator of the quality of the film, then allow me to edify you.

Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh) is a private investigator who drives a broken down jalopy around New Orleans on his way to the next investigation about spousal infidelity.  He's not proud of his occupation, but he doesn't have to be – to Dylan, all he wants is a life that remains the same.  You see, for a man who was once the appointed supernatural private eye of the entire city, he's content to photograph cheating husbands as opposed to investigating the wrongdoings of all the ghouls, zombies, vampires, and werewolves in The Big Easy. 

All his gopher, Marcus (Sam Huntington), wants is to finally be acknowledged as Dylan's partner after so many years of help and companionship.  Both of their desires are compromised when they're contacted by Elizabeth (Anita Briem) whose father, an antiques importer (read: smuggler), is killed by what appears to be a werewolf that was after a very ancient relic: The Heart of Belial.  Dylan, unwilling to return to the world of the supernatural for personal (read: poorly scripted and thin) reasons, only takes the case when something monstrous murders Marcus. 

But because this is a world where vampires run night clubs and werewolf families territorially run local business like mafia families, Marcus returns as the undead.  Though he's perpetually rotting, has lost all taste for human food, and lost the ability to ever shut the hell up, he's able bodied enough to aid Dylan with his investigation into the significance of The Heart of Belial, which is good, because the underworld isn't thrilled to see Dylan back on the scene after his dramatic and furious (read: inadequately tragic) departure years earlier.

The concept behind Dylan Dog writes a very large check that bounces badly upon its execution.  The idea of setting a hard-boiled noir thriller within the realm of the undead is a clever one and the moments when the film splashes around in these overlap areas are some of the more entertaining.  There's something to admire about the imagination behind equating werewolf families to the mafia or a literal body shop where the undead can purchase replacement limbs for their rotting forms, but these moments are too few, too far apart and overshadowed by all the noir genre tropes that Dylan Dog executes poorly.

Rife with redundant voiceover, Dylan Dog fails to set up Dylan as any type of tragic hero and fails to build up the focal conflict as one with any real consequences.  Supposedly the jaded detective, Dylan tells a tale of woe involving his girlfriend's death and the vampires he blamed/murdered for it, but with no real emotional connection established between him and her, it's hard to care.  This same affliction is transferred over to Dylan's relationship with Elizabeth, the woman he shouldn't fall for because she's both a client and mind-numbingly uninteresting.  If you can't guess her ultimate role in the film by the supposed "twist" at the end of the second act, then check your pulse – you may be as dead as the New Orleans' zombie population. 

Speaking of them, the entire conflict of Dylan Dog only bears any weight or significance if you care about the motley assortment of creatures and ghouls that populate Nawlins by night.  The Heart of Belial, stolen at the outset of the film and the relic every beast is supposedly salivating to get their clawed hands on, is an iron crucifix rumored to possess the blood of Belial, the ultimate undead beast and coincidentally, the only bad ass makeup job in the entire film.  When summoned, Belial answers only to its summoner and seeks to destroy all other undead creatures on the earth.  Think about that for a little bit – the primary danger behind summoning Belial is that all the zombies, werewolves and vampires on earth – creatures that have been reviled, feared and hunted in myths, legends and stories for centuries all over the world – will be destroyed.  Dylan Dog tries to convince you that this is a bad thing because they're just trying to make a living like the rest of us, but when the creepers are depicted as migrant workers at best and blood-thirsty murderers at worst, it's understandable if you're not coveting Belial's company well before he actually arrives.  At least by the time one of the four crowned princes of hell shows up, you'll know that Dylan Dog is almost mercifully over.