Blade(1998)

POOPER:
Blade (Wesley Snipes) kills Frost (Stephen Dorff) by injecting him with EDTA, an anti-coagulant which makes him explode.

Long Ending:
A man is brought to a hidden nightclub by an alluring woman (cameo by Traci Lords), hoping to have a great time. He is instead bullied by the clubgoers. The man grows more terrified when the sprinkler systems deploy and spray blood on the enthusiastic crowd below. The man learns that the club is full of blood-drinking vampires, and that he was brought there by the woman to be fed upon. Before the vampires dine, a mysterious man with superhuman strength and speed (and a ton of silver and garlic-based weapons) named Blade (Wesley Snipes) appears. Blade kills many of the vampires, saves the man from certain death, and lights a vampire named Quinn (Donal Logue) on fire. Quinn isn’t killed, and he later sucks on the blood of a hospital’s hematologist named Karen (N’Bushe Wright) so he can regenerate. Blade tracks down Karen and he injects her with a serum that will temporarily hold off the vampire infection.

The vampires (trying to keep their existence secret) try to track Karen down to kill her. She has no choice but to join Blade and his father figure, the elderly Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), in their fight against vampires. Whistler hunts them as his family was attacked and killed by a vampire many years earlier. He builds most of the weapons Blade uses. As for Blade, it turns out that he is a half-vampire/half-human. His mother Vanessa (Sanaa Lathan) was turned into a vampire while pregnant with Blade, leading to his condition. He has a vampire’s strength and speed, but also possesses the human ability to walk in daylight (thus earning the nickname “daywalker” in the vampire world). Unfortunately, he also has a vampire’s thirst for blood. Blade uses a serum to keep his bloodlust at bay. But he is slowly building up a tolerance to the serum, rendering it less effective.

They are tracking down a vampire named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) who, along with his lieutenants Quinn and Mercury (Arly Jover), has been making a lot of high profile trouble. Frost is reprimanded by the vampire council for drawing attention to vampires, but he stages a coup and kills their leader (Udo Kier). It turns out that Frost is attempting to perform a ritual that will call forth an ancient vampire god. To do this, he needs Blade’s blood. Frost attempts to get Blade to join him, but the hero refuses.

In the meantime, Karen develops a new weapon using anti-coagulant chemicals that causes vampires to explode, and devises a cure for herself. The cure may work on Blade too, but if it does, he’ll lose his powers. After Blade refuses Frost’s offer, Quinn and Mercury launch a sneak attack on his base while he is out hunting. They kidnap Karen and seemingly kill Whistler (though it’s revealed that Whistler survived the attack in the sequel). Blade tracks the vampires down, but he is taken captive after Frost distracts the hero by revealing that his mother Vanessa is “alive” (as a vampire) and living with him. In fact, Frost is the vampire that turned Vanessa into a vampire. With Blade captured, they collect his blood. Frost enacts the ritual, ingests the souls of the remaining members of the vampire council, and gets the powers of the vampire god.

Karen escapes her cell and frees Blade. She lets him drink her blood so he can rejuvenate. The refreshed Blade stakes Vanessa and beheads Quinn, while Karen kills Mercury by spraying essence of garlic down her throat (causing Mercury’s head to explode!). Blade then fights the god-like Frost. No matter how many times Blade slices Frost in half or lops off a limb, Frost recovers. Frost beats Blade up and jumps high in the air to deliver a killing blow. Blade manages to shoot numerous vials of anti-coagulant into Frost and avoids the attack. Even Frost’s powers are not enough to withstand so much of the drugs, and he dies in a bloody explosion. Blade and Karen go free. Blade tells Karen that he’s not ready for the cure as the war with vampires is not yet over. The film ends with Blade attacking a vampire in Russia.