Blade II is the second film in the Blade Trilogy. It was released in 2002 and directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Following on from the first film, Blade (Wesley Snipes) continues to hunt down vampires in Central Europe and is reunited with Whistler after the Vampires kept him alive on life support and moved him around to evade Blade's pursuit. The Vampire leadership contacts Blade to ask for his help to battle an even greater foe. A new breed of Supervampires named the Reapers has spawned from Jared Nomak, the original carrier, and they have started devouring and turning Vampires en masse. Blade teams up with the Special Vampire Unit, the Bloodpack, to destroy the Reapers before they have finished with the vampires and move on to wiping out mankind.
This film provides examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: When chasing the Reapers.
- Achilles' Heel: The Reapers are Vampire offshoots with specific qualities that make the other characters struggle to deal with them, like a resilience to garlic and silver. But after an Alien Autopsy-esque examination, they identify a handful of weaknesses to exploit.
- They're still vulnerable to sunlight, and in fact may be even more vulnerable than other Vampires. The "sunlight bomb" detonated in the sewers kills dozens of Reapers in an explosive manner, yet only manages to give Reinhardt what look like second-degree burns, assuming he avoided the brunt of the light like Nyssa did by going underwater.
- Their metabolism is so fast that unless they feed regularly, they starve to death within a few days, which makes them easier to track because they can't stay still.
- Being feral makes the behavior of the Reapers predictable. Nyssa learns to take advantage of this by harnessing pheromones from a dead Reaper that forcibly attracts them to the scent, which forces them into one location where they can be ambushed.
- Their hearts have a bone shell around them, a natural deterrent against stakes, but they did see an exposed opening if stabbed through the armpit. This was utilized by Blade to land a killing blow on Nomak.
- Action Girl: To last more than ten seconds in a fight with Blade makes anyone in this series a badass, and Nyssa takes on Blade in a sword fight. Despite Blade showing superior strength, she shows her fallen brethren how it's really done! In fact, excluding the final villains of the movies, she's the one to give Blade the most trouble, ending their fight in a draw.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- Even Chupa finds Blade already pointing a gun at Reinhardt funny.
- Nyssa gets two moments of this as part of her character development. When Blade shows off a Semtex-laden vest as his insurance policy for coming along, she can't help but smile in amusement. She does the same when she sees Blade's reaction to the rave going on in the House of Pain.
- Alas, Poor Villain: The death of Nomak, who was driven to kill his father out of revenge for making him the first Reaper. In a final battle, he is stabbed in the heart and chooses to drive the blade in further to end his suffering. Tellingly, he does so with a smile.Nomak: Strange…it hurts…it hurts no more.
- Alien Autopsy: Done in spirit, even though not technically aliens. They find a Reaper corpse and begin analyzing it to better understand its anatomy. After suffering in their first encounter by not knowing their weaknesses compared to regular vampires (silver and garlic are useless, UV light is their best bet, providing important information on how Blade eventually beats Nomak), this lets them be more precise and mow them down by the dozens.
- Alien Blood: Caused by
Executive Meddling from the censors. For some reason, they needed to have some of the characters bleed green to get an R rating, even if there are gallons upon gallons of red-coloured gore anyway. - Ambiguous Situation: Despite having a regular-looking Vampire daughter, Damaskinos seems to belong to a wholly different Vampire species, or at least a subspecies from the mainstream, or perhaps a form only very ancient Vampires like him acquire: he has grey skin, pointy ears, and blue blood, and he turns into stone rather than fire and ashes upon dying. However, this is never explained or even lampshaded. Similarly, it's never revealed whether the Reapers are in some way genetically related to him, given that they share his skin and ears and the patient zero was his own son.
- Anti-Climax: The feud between Blade and Reinhardt is resolved abruptly to make room for the more plot-relevant confrontation with Nomak.
- Anti-Villain: Some of the Blood Pack. Nomak is also a borderline example: while distinctly villainous, his danger to humans is more incidental than intentional, as he focuses on Vampires whenever he can.
- Apocalypse How: The heroes believe the Reaper Strain threatens to bring about a Class 3a for both Humans and Vampires, with the Reaper Strain already threatening to cause a Zombie Apocalypse in the Vampire race, and with Damaskinos positing that once there are no Vampires left, the entire Human race will be next.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- Nomak is a "carrier" for the Reaper condition, but carriers by definition are not affected by their carried disease/gene defect, yet Nomak clearly has most of the traits of the other Reapers (he has their general appearance, split jaw, heart shield, physical skills, and drug addict-like appetite for blood; the only difference seems to be that he has retained his intelligence). A more correct term would be a "patient zero" or "index case."
- Pheromones don't come from the adrenal glands, nor are they "nut juice." We can forgive the latter term, however, as it comes from a foul-mouthed non-scientist.
- There is really no way the needle glove the vampires were going to use on Nomak in the opening scene would be useful for getting blood out of the human body, because you can't reach five important veins at the same time with the needles positioned that way... but it does look really cool.
- Artistic License – Physics: When Whistler is explaining his anti-vampire arsenal to the Blood Pack, he notes the shotgun-mounted stake gun and claims it has a muzzle velocity of 6000 feet per second. This is comparable to the kinetic penetrator of an M1 Abrams tank gun. And it can apparently do this with compressed air. Forget pinning a vamp to the wall, this would plow through every squishy body in its path, regardless of how superhuman it is.
- Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Novak stands at the top of a staircase that is littered with fallen security guards. Director Guillermo del Toro acknowledges it as an homage to Frank Frazetta in the commentary.
- Bad Guy Bar: The House of Pain, a sadomasochistic vampire bar.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the opening, Jared appears to be crying when the vampires plan to kill him to take his blood. Then he starts laughing, leaving the vampires confused.
- Bald of Evil: Damaskinos, Reinhardt, Nomak, and the Reapers. Damaskinos originally had hair during filming, but it was soon removed because it made him look like Michael Bolton, according to Guillermo del Toro.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block:
- Blade does this. Even bringing the blade toward his face afterwards whilst Reinhardt struggles to push it through his hands.
- Earlier, a Reaper does this with Snowman's katana. He simply pulls it away, injuring the Reaper's hands.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Nyssa dissolves gently into sparkles, instead of violently charring away to a skeleton and then dust while screaming like every other vampire exposed to sunlight does.
- Big Bad: Nomak seems to be the main villain, being the leader of the Reapers. It turns out that Damaskinos is the true Big Bad all along.
- Black Helicopter: Blade is carried to a meeting with Damaskinos by a black helicopter.
- Blood Bath: Vampire Lord Damaskinos wades into a small but literal pool of blood. Later on, Blade is rejuvenated when he takes a nosedive into one such pool.
- Body Horror: The transformation into a reaper is painful and horrific (provided the victim has been bitten for long enough to properly drain them, as happens to Priest). The victim's hair falls out, their skin goes deathly pale, their jawbone dissolves, their chin separates into two pieces and sprouts fangs, and their tongue turns into a sucker. That's just what we see on the outside, and from what Nomak's final words are, just existing is painful for them.
- Boom, Headshot!: In their first encounter, Blade shoots Nomak in the head. It doesn't stick.
- Brick Joke: The fate of Rush. Blade lets him go during the opening, but leaves a dangling threat. In the ending, Rush is expecting to enjoy a private "show" only to see an unfortunately familiar face.
- Bulletproof Human Shield: Blade uses Rush as one when breaking into the base where Whistler is being held. It helps that he's a vampire, so his body is more durable.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Nyssa calls her father out for using her and her pack as bait, and for creating the Reapers using his own son. Then Damaskinos strangles her to be quiet, telling her the survival and ascension of their race is more important to him than his own family.
- Canon Foreigner: The film at large is crewed by canon foreigners, Blade and Canon Immigrant Whistler aside. Damaskinos, Nomak, Nyssa, Scud, and The Bloodpack are all unique to the movie.
- Chekhov's Gun: During the autopsy of the Reaper, Nyssa notes its masseter muscles are "bifurcated and overdeveloped, allowing for a much stronger bite". This sounds absurd given that Reapers' lower jaw is not functional, but merely a container for an internal proboscis, so they shouldn't have any use for masticatory muscles like the masseter. However, when Nomak eventually reunites with Damaskinos, he does bite him, with such force that he takes a good chunk off. It seems the Reapers can bite after all, with their masseters being probably meant to hold together the lower jaw pieces and compensate for their extra unstability while biting.
- Characters Dropping Like Flies: Only Blade and Whistler survive the film.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: When Reapers are "ashed," they explode in a flash of blue light, as opposed to a regular vampire's red-orange.
- Cool Shades: Blade slips on his signature sunglasses (thrown to him by Whistler, no less) right after he takes out Reinhardt.
- Cradling Your Kill: Blade carries Nyssa (who was infected with the Reaper virus) outside at sunrise to honor her last wish to see the sunlight, and die as a vampire.
- Create Your Own Villain: The government of the Vampire Nation recruits Blade to help them fix their own mess. Nomak and the entire Reaper sub-species were the result of the vampire leadership trying to genetically erase the typical vampire weaknesses. The Reapers turned out immune to garlic and silver, have a more efficient sucking tool, and their hearts are surrounded by solid bone ("Try and get a stake through THAT!"); but they're still just as vulnerable to sunlight/UV rays if not more, have a far more intense and unsustainable thirst, are in constant agony and borderline feral, and they can feed on and turn both humans and regular vampires while actually seeming to prefer the latter as food.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Nyssa gets an enormous amount of character development for a 2-hour film, gradually opening up to Blade about being a pureblood who didn't even get a choice on whether or not to be a vampire and how she's made peace with that (something that even Blade, a half-vampire, hasn't even come to terms with in himself). Best exemplified by her first and last scenes. When she takes off her mask for the first time, she's glaring daggers at her "most feared enemy". In her last, she's calmly accepting her death with a smile while warmly looking up at him.
- Dual Wielding: Nyssa and Assad both wield a pair of swords when they infiltrate Blade's hideout. Blade responds by wielding his sword in one hand and his sword's scabbard as a parrying weapon in his offhand. Earlier in the film, a pair of the mooks guarding Whistler dual wield fighting sticks or batons of some sort and Blade retaliates by dual wielding a pair of silver stakes as if they were daggers. Reinhardt also dual wields his gunblades as knives in the sewer battle.
- Dub Name Change: For some undisclosed reason, the European Spanish dub changes Scud's name to Scout, even inserting a boy scout joke about it.
- Dying as Yourself: A variation. Nyssa has been bitten by Nomak, and will become a Reaper. Blade gently carries her out into the sun, so she can die as a vampire.
- Enemy Mine:
- Blade teaming with the Bloodpack is shown as a necessary alliance between mutual enemies. Of course, the vampires later betray him and Whistler, although not all the members of the Bloodpack were aware of this.
- Jared Nomak also considers Blade a natural ally in his own war against the vampire race, although it's ultimately subverted since Blade never follows him up on his offer to join forces and eventually kills him, knowing he would just go after humans next.Nomak: Blade! What am I to you? Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Or another enemy?
- Even Evil Has Standards: While certainly not the most evil, Assad is nominally a bad guy and willingly serves Damaskinos. Even he's disgusted when Priest suggests killing everyone in the House of Pain "just to be sure", even derisively mentioning that most of them aren't even purebloods.
- Evil Counterpart:
- More Anti-Villain than evil, but Jared Nomak is a foil to Blade. They're both part-vampire mutants who despise and hunt the vampires, hoping to ultimately kill them all, and they both exhibit honorable traits. Even Nomak's active vendetta against his father for turning him into the first Reaper parallels Blade's sense of vengefulness against the vampire that bit his mother and made him the dhampyr he is (said vampire even compared himself to Blade's father once Blade discovered his identity). Where Blade and Nomak differ is that unlike Blade, Nomak is very much a threat to humanity as well as the vampires, albeit not wilfully; so for the world's sake, Nomak has to go.
- Nomak's father Eli Damaskinos contrasts Whistler in particular. They're both the elderly fathers (surrogate or biological) of at least one of the main characters, and they're both guilty of turning their respective children into tools for their own agendas — killing off vampires that threaten humanity for Whistler, ensuring that vampires take over the world for Damaskinos as he uses his daughter as a pawn and has cruelly experimented on his son. Unlike Whistler, who genuinely cares for Blade as a son, is loved by him in turn, and is also loyal and protective to the other few people close to them; Damaskinos ultimately considers his children and all his agents to be expendable for his ambitions, which drives his own children to turn on and ultimately kill him. Furthermore, Whistler is a genuine warrior who has proved more than once that he'll always go down swinging if faced with death; Damaskinos is a non-action manipulator, and proves to be a Dirty Coward who'll do anything to save his own skin when he sees the Grim Reaper coming for him.
- Reinhardt is a sinister man with a vampiric nature, dressed in black leather and shades, who has a cold, snarky demeanor, has a gang of sidekicks, and despises a particular category to the point of sadism (a much more disturbingly Real Life prejudice than Blade's fantastical and justifiable hatred for vampires). Basically, he's a twisted mirror of Blade who has all of Blade's very worst qualities and absolutely none of Blade's positive nor honorable traits: not Blade's defence of humans, not his capacity to care for his sidekicks and allies, not his honorable conduct as a warrior, not even Blade's badassery if Reinhardt's dismal performance against Blade in combat is any indication. Even Reinhardt's backstory of having witnessed his father kill his mother sounds like a parallel of Blade's origin, where Frost (who mockingly compared himself to Blade's father for infecting him) attacked and killed (the human version of) Blade's mother.
- Evil Laugh: Nomak lets one out when the vampires at the blood bank think they have him at their mercy, just before he reveals his true nature.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: The vampires' attorney makes one about himself, remarking that being a lawyer means that he's barely human.
- Fake Shemp: Wesley Snipes was not always available for each day of filming for this movie, as he had had three other movies out that year. Instead of waiting for Wesley to become available, the crew shot another actor (who was not Wesley's stunt double) for scenes where it was not necessary to see Wesley's face. The first scene being where Blade, Scud, and Nyssa are riding in the helicopter to meet Damaskinos. The second was after Nyssa performed an autopsy on the dead reaper and confronted Blade in his quarters about his attitude toward the Bloodpack.
- Fantastic Racism: The members of the Bloodpack are all purebred vampires (born of a mother and father who were also vampires), not ones who were turned later in life like the majority of present-day vampires. At one point, they visit the House of Pain, a night club where the majority of patrons are part of this "rabble". Priest hates them so much that he suggests just killing all of them on the spot.
- Fate Worse than Death: Nomak averts this when he kills Damaskinos instead of turning him, saying, "I've spared you my fate. You will die."
- Flower Mouth: The "Reaper strain" vampires have a tongue which looks like this (buried inside a mouth with a lower jaw that splits in two), the end of which unfolds in multiple flaps with several smaller, rope-like tongues inside it.
- Food Chain of Evil: A Reaper was the page image for a time, as they have knocked vampires off the top, and whilst they do attack the occasional human, vampires are currently their main source of food. The situation is lampshaded by Whistler.Whistler: "They're just shitting bricks 'cause they're no longer top of the food chain."
- Foreshadowing:
- During the Reaper autopsy, Blade is quite unsympathetic to Scud when the latter protests to being ordered to put his hands into the Reaper's maw, actually siding with his hated enemies over his own sidekick on the matter. This foreshadows that Blade doesn't care about Scud, because he knows Scud is a double-agent for the vampires.
- Also during the Reaper autopsy, Nyssa muses that they are as different from vampires as vampires are from humans, which foreshadows that the Reaper strain has made far too many evolutionary jumps all at once to be a mutation which occurred naturally. The Reaper also conveniently has so many biological defenses to things that commonly kill vampires, hinting that the strain was created by someone trying to eliminate all vampiric weaknesses.
- While demonstrating the UV light, Whistler points it at Priest, who's the first member of the Blood Pack to die (via sunlight, no less).
- Blade asks Nyssa why Nomak didn't kill her when he had the chance (and was probably dying for a drink of fresh blood to boot). They're siblings.
- When Blade tells Whistler to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Scud's in the background. A deleted scene would have placed even more visual emphasis on this.
- Free-Fall Fight: Blade and Nomak fall off a gantry mid-fight and fall all the way to the floor, grappling and punching each other the whole way down.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The Reaper strain was engineered to make vampires stronger, harder to kill, and immune to all vampire weaknesses. Instead, while partially successful, it also created a vampire variant with almost all of the worst qualities of vampires amplified. In a bit of irony (or poetic justice) Reapers are even more vulnerable to sunlight, tending to burst like fireworks when presented with even the slightest glimmer.
- Groin Attack:
- Blade kills one vampire by staking it in the crotch in the opening scene.
- A later example is horrifically self-inflicted. Snowman goes up against a Reaper in single combat, eventually pinning it to the wall with his sword. It then crawls up the wall backwards, splitting itself in half from belly to groin.
- Guns Akimbo: Blade, Nyssa, Reinhardt, and at one point even Scud shows up wielding a gun in each hand.
- Guns Are Worthless: Against the Reapers, yet they use guns instead of just UV flashlights that can actually harm them, and even then they're small...and attached to guns.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Reinhardt meets his end by being torn in two.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: At the rave, Priest dismisses the assembled vampires as mostly not being purebloods and Reinhardt has no problem shooting through them later if it means hitting the Reapers.
- Homage: In the commentary, Guillermo del Toro said he paid homage to Dr. Manhattan and I Am Legend. A Reaper explodes similarly to the way Dr Manhattan explodes and the heroes were bombarded by Reapers, much like the zombies' bombardment.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Lighthammer and his lover Verlaine, two vampire members of the Bloodpack.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: In a sense. Nyssa traps both herself and her father to face Nomak. As Damaskinos lies dying, she takes off her family ring and drops it near his face.
- Improvised Weapon: Nomak tears a concrete reinforcement bar out of a partly-demolished pillar to wield against Blade during their first fight. It still has a block of concrete at the end, allowing him to beat down Blade's defenses.
- Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Blade, along with his aged mentor Whistler and his new ally and mechanic Scud, are approached by the Vampire Nation to help them fight the Reapers, a far more dangerous subspecies of vampires who prefer to hunt regular vampires (while this would ordinarily make Blade their ally, the feral Reapers target humans who get in their way as well, and once they were finished with the vampires would simply move on to wipe out humanity). Neither side thinks the alliance will last, and the vampires turn on Blade first. The real twist is that the Reapers are a byproduct of the vampire Overlord Damaskinos trying to genetically engineer a new race of vampires to get rid of their only weaknesses. In a smaller example, Blade is betrayed by Scud right around the time the vampires do so as well, but Blade had completely anticipated him being The Mole and blows up Scud with an explosive device he (mistakenly) believed he had dismantled as part of his betrayal of Blade.Scud: So what do you think, B?
Blade: [sarcastic] Sounds like a plan.
Whistler: What do you really think?
Blade: They're gonna fuck us the first chance they get. - Intimidation Demonstration: As Nyssa approaches Blade before their duel, she whirls her blades around to display her swordsmanship. The scene can be viewed here
. - Jerkass Has a Point: When preparing to enter the House of Pain, Chupa notes that Whistler won’t pass as human inside. Whistler is prepared to go in anyway, but Blade urges him to post up on a nearby roof. As seen minutes later, there are well over two hundred vampires inside who would have torn Whistler apart without much persuasion. As the point of the mission was to survey the area covertly, it makes quite a bit of sense for Whistler to stay outside.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Blade knows that Scud was a traitor the whole time, but keeps him around for this reason.
- Knuckle Cracking: After drinking his fill of blood and rejuvenating, Blade gives his neck and knuckles a nice crack while limbering up to tear through a small army of Faceless Goons.
- Kryptonite-Proof Suit: The Bloodpack's Gratuitous Ninja outfits from their introductory fight scene.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Every kill by Nomak is a public service homicide. We see him kill countless nameless vampires, human mooks working for Vampires, a vampire drug dealer, Nyssa (who was happy to eat humans), and his own dad, the Big Bad himself.
- Laser Sight:
- Reinhardt draws his pistol and aims at Blade's heart, thinking how easy it would be to shoot him. Turns out Blade has already done the same to him. We're let in on exactly what they're thinking by their laser sights.
- At the Damaskinos compound, all the guards are pointing their lasersights at the camera constantly.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: For a supposedly elite team, most of the Bloodpack seem fond to separating from each other constantly, allowing the Reapers to attack them in isolation.
- Literal Splitting Headache: When Blade catches up with Rush in the end, he kills him with a sword thrust right to the forehead.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: Used to show Blade loading up during the opening credits. A second occurs before Blade and the Bloodpack begin the hunt in the sewers, and during this one, Whistler and the Bloodpack are shown loading guns, prepping weapons, and donning armor.
- Looks Like Orlok: Damaskinos, Nomak, and the Reapers are all pale and bald with pointy ears.
- The Man Behind the Monsters: The Reapers are clearly portrayed as feral animals who do little more than snarl and roar after being changed. Nomak is the only Reaper shown to have enough control of himself to make plans and talk, to the extent that he spares Whistler's life so that the human can deliver a message, where any other Reaper would have just torn Whistler's throat out the moment it had the chance.
- May It Never Happen Again: Near the movie's ending, the vampire king Eli Damaskinos reveals he has a tank full of experimental vampire fetuses in his lair, because he's been trying to create modified vampires that are immune to all their conventional weaknesses including sunlight so that they can take over the world in full, but the Reaper Strain which both the heroes and vampires have spent the movie trying to contain was the failed result of one of his experiments. After Blade kills Reinhardt, Whistler goes out of his way to destroy the tank, ensuring that Damaskinos' work can't continue and will die with the villains.
- Mercy Kill: Priest is bitten by a Reaper, and is quickly mutating into one of them. The others demand he be put out of his misery, so he's shot twice in the chest. However, he's mutated far enough that the silver bullets won't do the trick. Then a guy cuts half his head off, which also fails. Blade finally shoots a hole in the ceiling so sunlight will do the job.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: Reinhardt carries a pair of Beretta pistols that have huge circular blades extending from the grips to the end of the barrel, allowing them to be used as guns or bladed weapons. According to the weapon's designer TyRuben Ellingson, the weapon was originally designed for Blade but was given to Reinhardt during production.
- The Mole: Scud, though Blade already knows about him.
- Monster Mouth: The reapers have type 3 Monstrous Mandibles, which via Nested Mouths hides a protrusile Flower Mouth.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Reapers have a normal number of human/vampire teeth, but the proboscises inside their Flower Mouths are also visibly lined with extra fangs.
- Mugging the Monster: In the opening, three vampires try to forcibly extract blood from Jared Nomak. They realized the consequences too late.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: It turns out the Damaskinos family have this dynamic. Nyssa (Nice) is a diplomatic and reasonable Noble Demon who shows genuine compassion and comradery towards her teammates and none of the sadism that's prevalent in most vampires; Eli (Mean) is A Nazi by Any Other Name who'll sacrifice even his own daughter for his ambitions, and ultimately shows none of the other two Damaskinos' honorable qualities, to the point where they're appalled into turning against him; Jared Nomak (Inbetween) shows a bit more sadism and ruthlessness than Nyssa even without his lack of agency over his Reaper Strain, and he definitely has a lot more (understandable and partly even justified) vindictiveness than her, but he's still an Anti-Villain who shares his sister's trait of showing far more honorable qualities than their father, is only shown attacking people who deserved it onscreen, and while he does threaten all of humanity he legitimately has no agency over it.
- No Animals Were Harmed: The end credits feature a disclaimer that "No real Reapers were harmed during the making of this film".
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Priest resembles strongly the 90s "vampire" professional wrestler Gangrel.
- No-Sell: Reapers are immune to anti-vampire weaponry, even the deadly anti-coagulant from the previous movie. As a tradeoff, they go off like firecrackers in sunlight, compared to normal vampires being able to withstand exposure for a short period.
- Noble Demon: Nyssa is the only vampire shown to have any true sense of honor, discussing her diet as just the way she is rather than anything she takes particular pleasure in and expressing horror when she realizes what her father did to Nomak - her brother - in the name of his own agenda.
- Non-Action Guy: Scud, in contrast to the Badass Normal Whistler.
- Obi-Wan Moment: The film gives the same moment to a villain after a long, eventful battle with Blade: "It hurts...it hurts no more." — as he actually slides the sword deeper into his heart himself.
- Obviously Evil: The blood donation center at the beginning might as well have a flashing neon sign that says "run by vampires who will kill you for your blood" on the outside, from the dingy interior to the Nazi-esque uniforms and how clearly pleased the administrator is by Nomak's (ostensible) lack of anyone to care if he goes missing.
- Oh, Crap!: Scud is playing with a bomb he thinks is a dud...only it's not a dud, and Blade reveals he was on to him from the start, pressing a second button on the detonator...
- The Older Immortal: Eli Damaskinos is a vampire lord who seems to have been around since the dawn of their race.
- Outrunning the Fireball: Blade and Nyssa outrun the "fireball" created by a big box of "light grenades." Quite aside from the question of how these light grenades caused an explosion in the first place (or indeed, how the "blast front" flows round a curve of a tunnel in spite of the fact that light beams travel in straight lines) one wonders how fast Wesley Snipes must have been running, considering that light travels at the speed of - well - light...
- Playing with Syringes: Damaskinos intends to harvest Blade's blood, organs, and bone marrow to turn all vampires into daywalkers.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Reinhardt has a neo-Nazi look about him and asks Blade if he can blush being black (which was based on a real incident experienced by Snipes).note Blade even derisively calls him "Adolf".
- Production Foreshadowing: Scud wears a B.P.R.D. t-shirt. Del Toro had already signed on to direct and produce Hellboy (2004).
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Bloodpack are an elite group of vampire warriors formed to hunt down Blade. Ironically, they're only introduced to team up with Blade against the Big Bad. Ultimately some of them remain villains throughout the shaky alliance.
- Real Men Wear Pink: The vampire Chupa, the one who acts toughest of the Bloodpack, is shown watching The Powerpuff Girls (1998). Whistler nicknames him "Buttercup."
- Restraining Bolt: Zig-zagged. Blade slaps one on the back of Reinhardt's melon in response to Reinhardt's racism (and to assert his dominance over the Bloodpack). The device eventually makes its way into Scud's hands by the end of the film, who tells Blade it was fake, "just supposed to make [him] feel in control." Blade tells Scud that he'd been on to him the whole time and detonates it.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Nyssa Damaskinos is the daughter of Overlord Eli Damaskinos, one of the rulers of the vampire nation. Despite this, she is a member of the Bloodpack, an elite team of vampire warriors trained to hunt Blade. She actually gives him a pretty good run during their first encounter. It is also made clear that her father does not put a lot of stock in family (and therefore wouldn't have given her the job if she wasn't competent).
- Rule of Symbolism: On the commentary, del Toro notes that Reinhardt staking a Reaper's hand's to the wall before frying him is this.
- Same Language Dub: Much of Karel Roden's dialogue is dubbed by an uncredited English actor since test audiences found his Czech accent too thick.
- Samus Is a Girl: This may have been the idea behind Nyssa's first scene (though even before we see her face, it's reasonably easy to see that she has breasts, and to hear that her grunts of effort are higher-pitched), but it was fairly easy to see coming regardless. In fact, it would probably count as a genuinely surprising subversion of this trope if an armored antagonist were to wordlessly, facelessly appear, go toe-to-toe with the male protagonist using acrobatic moves, and then be revealed to not be female.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: The film takes place in Prague. Justified, as Blade mentions that he's been tracking Whistler for two years. The final scene takes place in London.
- Shoddy Shindig: The Bloodpack takes Blade to a hidden daytime vampire party in order to find the supervampires. A seemingly impressive rave, Blade and the Bloodpack think the party is absurd, juvenile, and beneath them.
- Shoot the Hostage Taker: Blade first encounters Nomak taking Nyssa hostage and just shoots him in the head, though it doesn't kill him. It's later revealed he was bluffing, as they're brother and sister.
- Shout-Out:
- Scud refers to Blade as "The Man Without Fear." He also quips "The Dark Knight Returns!" when Blade walks back into the shop early in the movie.
- Blade drawing his stake and slapping Reinhardt, then taunting him before doing it again, is an homage to a scene in the Western comedy Trinity Is Still My Name; here's the original scene.
- Throughout the first half of the movie, Scud is wearing a T-shirt with the B.P.R.D. logo from the Hellboy series. The catch is that the film came out two years before the first Hellboy movie came out. Apparently, Guillermo del Toro was thinking ahead.
- A couple to anime. Lighthammer is a whole one to the character of Nolt Marcus from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Snowman, being an aloof, katana-wielding Asian vampire with weird eyes who hunts other vampires as part of an international organization, could be considered a gender-flipped version of Saya from the Blood: The Last Vampire franchise.
- In the London scene, a customer briefly seen at the body booth place where Rush goes to feed is wearing an attire and haircut identical to those of Angel the vampire from the Buffyverse.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: Nyssa calls out Blade for his unabashed hatred of all vampires, pointing out that she was born a vampire and didn't have a choice in the matter. As such, she had to make peace with what she was. Notably, Blade appears to take this to heart. He's much kinder to her from that point on, warning her of the ten-second delay on the UV grenades, freely offering his blood when she is wounded in the sewers, and comforting her in her final moments as he carries her into the sunrise.
- Slow Light: The flashlights and Hollywood Darkness show how the light from a flash-grenade is somehow slower.
- Smug Snake: Reinhardt and Scud, neither of whom are anywhere near as clever or awesome as they seem to think.
- So Last Season: The anti-coagulate "exploding blood" compound devised in Blade is made into a close-combat gauntlet weapon. It would be particularly nasty to any regular vampire, but Nomak's abnormalities make him immune. He's shown reacting with the chemical and eventually expelling it.
- Suicide by Sunlight:
- When being pursued by the Reaper-ized Lighthammer, Verlaine chooses this over the prospect of being infected herself.
- After she's infected by the Reaper virus, Nyssa Damaskinos asks Blade to carry her out into the open just before dawn so she can see the sunlight and die while she's still a vampire. When the sun comes up, she disintegrates in his arms.
- Sword Sparks
- Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: Jared Nomak and Eli Damaskinos have this dynamic. They're both ruthless vampires whose actions ultimately threaten all of humanity if they're allowed to win. However:
- Nomak (Sympathetic) is an utterly tragic, tortured and honorable Anti-Villain who is only threatening to trigger a vampire (Reaper) apocalypse because he has no agency over the Reaper Strain driving him to feed and to consequently spread the infection, he's unafraid to fight himself, almost exclusively goes after people who had it coming one way or another during his screentime, has a legitimate and sobering grudge against the father who betrayed him and turned him into the first Reaper, and he dies with a modicum of dignity, peace and acceptance of his end.
- Damaskinos (Despicable), on the other hand, is entirely in control of his actions, A Nazi by Any Other Name who actively wants vampires to Take Over the World and enslave humanity, has no tragic nor redeeming qualities, is a Dirty Coward who'll throw every body but his own at a threat to his life, and plays the heroes dirtily and dishonorably; he's the one who turned Nomak, his own son, into the first Reaper to begin with by using him as a labrat and likewise threatens his daughter's life for his own ambitions, tries to save his own skin instead of taking responsibility for what he's done to his children, and he dies pathetically reaching out in denial of his demise for help from the very daughter he betrayed.
- Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Played with. Reinhardt has a small explosive in the back of his skull, courtesy of Blade. It is revealed that Whistler's replacement, Scud, is The Mole, and the supposed explosive he provided is a dud. The explosive is pulled out for some quality gloating time. Blade promptly reveals that he knew Scud was a traitor, "and no, it's not a dud." He hits the detonator and Scud is killed in the explosion.
- Team Power Walk: Blade and the Bloodpack walking into the House of Pain, with Massive Attack blaring on the soundtrack.
- Token Evil Teammate: It's more a matter of "token good teammate." The film is an Enemy Mine scenario in which we already know that every one of Blade's collaborators except Whistler and Scud is evil and it's a question of when rather than if they'll betray him. As it turns out, Scud was also planning to betray Blade from the start, while Nyssa and (possibly) Assad show a degree of respect for Blade and give no signs that they intended to betray him once the Reapers had been dealt with.
- Transformation at the Speed of Plot: The Reaper transformation is shown to be incredibly quick, about 20 minutes or so from the bite. However Lighthammer, bitten at the same time as the first test case, lasts hours without showing any outward sign of infection, although he may have received a more limited 'dose' of the Reaper strain since his bite was interrupted.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Nomak clearly has martial arts training, but his Reaper-augmented strength and agility are the reasons why he can hold his own against and occasionally dominate Blade.
- Unwitting Pawn: Subverted. Nyssa mocks Blade for agreeing to a meeting with his enemies too easily, but quickly shuts her trap, impressed, when it's revealed he was prepared to kill them all with a LOT of carry-on explosives at the first sign of treachery. Later in the movie, when Scud reveals himself and gloats at the heroes' gullibility, Blade corrects him by stating that he knew of his duplicity from the beginning, a fact he illustrates in explosive fashion.
- Villainous Exit Denied: Eli Damaskinos. After screwing over the heroes including his own daughter Nyssa, and being revealed to be the cause of the Reaper outbreak in the first place; when Nomak is rampaging through Damaskinos' base with intent to kill him, he tries to flee by private helicopter while throwing dozens of bodies at Nomak to buy himself time. Only for a disillusioned Nyssa to lock him in with the sunlight shutters before the helicopter pad, allowing Nomak to kill the man who made his life a living hell.
- Amusingly, the helicopter and the guards standing outside are gone when Blade re-opens the shutters, implying they realized their boss was dead and made their own exit.
- We Can Rule Together: Damaskinos tries this with Nomak. Unfortunately for him, he fails to sell it well enough.
- We Have Reserves: Damaskinos and Reinhardt's thinking in the climax, just throwing an seemingly endles supply of human familairs at respectively Nomak and Blade but to little use.
- When Harry Met Svetlana: Blade ends up working with a team of vampires led by Princess Nyssa Damaskinos against the far greater Reaper threat. Blade (a dhampyr himself) grows closer to Nyssa during their time together, more than any other woman he's been acquainted with throughout the films. He Did Not Get the Girl. She chooses to die in Blade's arms after she's been infected.
- Where's the Kaboom?: Happens with the bomb/leash that Blade put on the head of his vampire ally.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Reinhardt is armed with a shotgun in his final encounter with Blade, but doesn't shoot him. He just sends his mooks to attack Blade with sticks. And after Blade slaughters them all effortlessly, does he shoot him then? Nope, he just puts the shotgun down and goes after Blade with a sword. The ensuing results are quite predictable.
- Would Harm a Senior: Chupa, Scud, and Reinhardt all take turns in beating up Whistler. They all get sweet karma shortly afterwards.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Blade once busts out a vertical suplex. Later, Nomak hits Blade with an extreme version of the Savage Elbow Drop.
- X Slash: During the sewer battle against the Reapers, Reinhardt takes one Reaper down with an X-shaped double slice with his bladed handguns, cutting off the Reaper's head and hands at the same time.
- You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With:Blade: You obviously... do not... know who you are fucking with!
- You Will Be Spared: As listed in Brick Joke, Rush is let go as Blade says that he'll see him later. In the very last scene he does indeed, with hilarious results.
- Zombie Infectee: Lighthammer hides his bite until he starts to turn.