DIRECTED BY: Toyoo Ashida

FEATURING: Voices of Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizô Katô

PLOT: Millennia in the future, vampires rule over much of the land; one woman fights back, enlisting the aid of a mysterious stranger in her quest to kill Count Lee, a vampire of great power.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Vampire Hunter D is undeniably a groundbreaking classic of Gothic anime that conveys a wonderfully realized retro-future. However, aside from some unlikely Bakshi-an monsters and a couple of bursts of eyebrow-raising gore, Toyoo Ashida’s film rests firmly in the realm of the traditionally fantastic.

COMMENTS: It seems only right that I admit to the reader from the start that this movie stands as the only anime film I have ever seen. Through all my years of pursuing leads on offbeat movies, I have somehow missed what is perhaps one of the largest figurative boats ever launched. That said, my experience with Vampire Hunter D has done much to open my eyes. With a limited budget and an unlimited tap of imagination and artistic talent, Toyoo Ashida and Ashi Productions created a stellar vision of a far-flung future world tormented by Dark Ages evil.

Beginning with the title card, “This story takes place in the distant future—when mutants and demons slither through a world of darkness”, the action quickly takes off as a young Hunter—armed with a cross, electric whip, and bayonnetted laser gun—pursues an obviously infernal beastie. The encounter quickly goes south when her horse is slaughtered and, from nowhere, a humanoid creature appears and bites her on the neck. Now she must find a way to destroy this powerful being before becoming a vamp herself. Fate provides her with the assistance of a mysterious stranger, whom she comes to learn is also a Hunter of considerable strength.

From that introduction, the movie proceeds apace with run ins with eldritch creatures, the haughty vampire “nobles,” as well as human scum in the form of a mayor’s son and his cronies. To ward off the nasties that lurk outside, city-dwellers have made barriers combing both the Old and New World Techs, using crosses and energy fields to repel the undead. As with all townsfolk living in the shadow of great evil, they are wary both of strangers and those possibly afflicted. This leaves the heroine, Doris, and the eponymous “D” with scant safe havens. Unsurprisingly (but still very satisfactorily), they seem to need none.

There are splashes of weird to be found throughout the movie. That “D” has two personalities (and, one learns, two faces) adds a compelling layer to his character. On the one hand he strives to maintain an honorable existence while fighting the scourge of vampires around him; on the other (in this case, left) hand, he harbors a secret about his true nature. His scuffles with a flippant space-warping mutant, a Golem that really likes the word “Golem,” a three-headed sex medusa, and ultimately the sinister Count Lee provide brushes with the strange. Particularly worth noting is the Count’s castle: a forbidding heap of ancient ruin atop a massive industrial wasteland.

With its little nods to Stoker’s original work (e.g. a property known as “old man Harker’s” and a strangely Victorian-looking portrait of an unspecified “ancestor”), neat twists in the vampire genre (the local sheriff sports a six-pointed badge with an overlaid cross), and its temporal mélange, Vampire Hunter D provides a unique take on the legend. Be warned, though: do your best to stop the movie after it fades to black on the final scene. Somehow, this chilling adventure is capped by what stands as one of the worst end-credits songs I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The middle of the film features a wonderfully hallucinatory journey across wasted landscapes into the chief vampire’s labyrinthine castle… the rest, especially the showdown with the chief vampire, is anticlimactic in comparison.”–Richard Scheib, Moria: The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (DVD)

Where to watch Vampire Hunter D