Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

To me sometimes it seems that American filmmakers underestimate the American public by making these kind of movies. I'm big fan of the comic book Dylan Dog and it is really shame that the authors did not follow the comics in any essential aspect. I'm not even talking about changing of location or lack of Dylan's assistant Groucho, but a complete lack of any sense for original comic. Dylan Dog is not suppose to be an action comedy, it is a comic with eerie atmosphere and a small dose of humor. Dylan Dog is an eccentric and a loner who has a very large sexual appetite that manifests in his constant one night stands. Torn between the life we live in where he is the subject of ridicule and the world in which he works where he becomes a hero. Tales of Dylan Dog are not about monsters, vampires or werewolves. Those creatures only serve to subtly explore the stories about great philosophical themes like life, death, loss, monsters in people and people in monsters, grief, happiness, love, etc., leaving the end most of the times incomplete for reader to interpret. At the end I assume that people who love movies about vampires and werewolves will love this mediocre movie but it is a shame that American filmmakers have not had the courage to take inspiration in uniqueness of this comic and make it something more rather then cheap copy of movies we already saw for like hundreds of times..

This movie is on screens right now in Italy so I hurt myself truly bad in watching this. Before I start just two words, Dylan Dog comic in Italy is like Spiderman's in the States, that kind of popularity. If you cringed watching Spiderman 3 with all that venom crap (I did) the same feeling is here with this movie. Sorry, this is not Dylan Dog, this is a barely watchable action horror movie with some extravaganza but it's not Dylan Dog, one of the best seller Italian comic book, scripted by Tiziano Sclavi, a true genius. This movie is a bad example of film making related to a comic book, it's about wasting money without even knowing the original story, the mythology and last but not least all the characters. Miscasting maybe, fast production or simply they didn't know what to do with this subject. The main flaws: We have no Groucho, it's impossible to see Dylan Dog without his natural ironic iconic assistant Groucho. - No Xarabas (Dylan's father and his main nemesis as well). - No London (instead we have New Orleans, nice, but it's not London) we see a Scotland Yard mug on his desk, maybe just an hint or simply some good stuff for trivia games. Probably this is the most relevant hint about a weak production, filming in Europe would cost immensely. - Brandon Routh. Brandon Routh, he's not Dylan Dog, it's pretty difficult to see him without the red cape and even that movie was bad. Maybe this happened cos no Italian production was enough powerful to make a movie like this and selling the rights is always a bad idea when there's no knowledge of facts, no story depth and again we are too much far from the essence of the comic book captured perfectly by Sclavi's visions. All got ruined all along this movie, you put a young good looking cast, all iconic monsters but this not enough. For a better result go watch Dellamorte Dellamore a.k.a. The cemetery Man, first vision of Sclavi, Dylan Dog takes shape on Dellamorte Character and there's no mistake. In the end of each tale Dylan Dog remains always full of doubts and insecure while Grouch keeps his Irony. Once again a complete waste of time, money and resources just to show. Bad, even worse of what I expected. Unfortunately this movie goes with all those bad exercises like The hulk movies, Ultraviolet, the Spiderman trilogy, Fantastic Four's, Superman Returns and so on. Watch only it if you don't know anything about Dylan Dog.

It is really a shame that Sergio Bonelli Editore sold for few dollars one of his best characters and left the movie director completely destroy it. I wonder how many episodes the director read because I have the impression that he has no idea at all about Dylan Dog. He should have at least taken 5 min of his time to read about the character on Wikipedia. Even the more simple details have been ignored or changed. If the production had not enough money to film the movie in London and create a more credible character why they did not just based the story on a new invented one. They could have saved the money paid to Sergio Bonelli and the image of such a nice comic.........

source: Dylan Dog: Dead of Night