LADY DEATH (2004)

Cheerful title. This is not, as you might expect, about the wife of that bony fella that likes to walk around with a sickle and a permanent toothy grin, but instead is the story of the daughter of Lucifer, but I’m skipping ahead just a tad here, so let me start a little earlier......

Lady Death is an original animationed movie from ADV Films based on the 1994 Brian Pulido cult comic series. The story revolves around a young woman called Faith whose father is a nasty piece of work. He’s roaming the countryside harassing villagers and carting them off for some nefarious scheme. (Unbeknown to Faith, her father is actually the big evil one himself, Lucifer, who is on the earth to collect human souls.) Then poor Faith has to put up with the following: First her dad comes along and steals her boyfriend, then her castle gets destroyed and shortly after she gets burned at the stake. All in all a pretty bad day by anyone’s standards. There is a reason for the burning though, it wasn’t just random: The castle that she and her father lived in was besieged by a priest and a mob of locals that are just a little fed up with the antics of Faiths dad, and as they storm in with torches and pitchforks (you can’t have a good mob without torches and pitchforks) they see a ceremony going on involving the souls of the captured villagers and a portal to hell.This would look a bit suspicious to everyone except the most sceptic (or stupid) and Lucifer realises that he’s been found out and decides to level the house. A little extreme maybe, but after the mini armageddon the only things left alive are the priest (protected by his staff and cross) and faith (protected by her heaving cleavage). The priest then decides that Faith should burn to atone for the sins of her father, even though Faith has nothing to do with anything at all.
So, Faith burns, goes to hell, sees her father for what he really is and refuses to have anything to do with him. This doesn’t please daddy so he casts her out of the relative luxury of his castle (situated in the bowels of hell, next to the river Styx ) and into the wastelands of hell. Whilst in Lucifer’s Castle she sees that both her boyfriends’ and her mothers’ souls are trapped in limbo and realises that it was Lucifer himself that put them there. This spurs Faith on, helping to unlock some supernatural powers that had, up until this point, lay dormant and she vows that she will (with a host of zombies/ghouls/etc by her side) lay siege to Lucifer’s castle and destroy him. And so is borne Lady Death (and her skimpy outfits that only just manage to tame her ample bosom).

The animation in the film was, after the last few films I’ve seen, a welcome change. They were not the CG type which have disappointed me so much recently. They were more like a contemporary children’s cartoon. Don’t turn your nose up at this however because it worked. Whilst I was watching this I was trying to think of something else that I could compare it too, and the closest thing that I came up with were the new(ish) Batman cartoons, although this was far more violent and risqué. All of hell was pictured as greys and blacks, Lady Death was a contrasting brilliant white. There was a lot of blood too, but rather than being fine sprays and streaks, it was more like blobs of ketchup. It was animated in a really simple – but effective – way. The last few animations that I’ve watched I found myself enjoying less than I probably should have done because the animation techniques employed detracted from the rest of the film. I couldn’t help thinking “this could have been done so much better”, but the way it was all done for Lady Death was inspired and added to the already strong story. I stress that this was not the best looking animation I have ever seen – not by a long way, but the simple drawings and effects worked brilliantly and I salute the animators for not going too far towards the realism end of the scale.
So, the animation was good, the story was good and concept was good. So why have I not given this film 10 out of 10. Well, to get a perfect 10 a number of criteria have to be filled obviously, but I think that there should also be an unquantifiable ‘wow’ factor too. You have to watch the film and come away with that feeling. You know the one I mean, I can’t describe it but I’m sure you understand. And although I enjoyed this film a lot, and will be watching it again, it didn’t leave me with that feeling.

There are some good extras included on ADV Films DVD. Along with a fine directors commentary, there is a ‘Visions of Hell’ featurette that show you some of the key backgrounds without any of that messy animated stuff over them so that you can appreciate them properly. However, my favourite part of this extra is the evolution of the characters. You see them first as sketches and then, after a number of stages, as they are in the final version of the film. This slide show of ideas is definitely worth watching, giving you a slight insight into the minds of the character developers. Also included in the extras is a more in-depth documentary about the animation production team. This too is well worth a look as it gives some more background and fleshes out the whole package rather nicely

If you have a chance to watch this film then I would. I hope that there may be some more, and this is a fantastic start to what could be a good little series. Let’s just hope that if they do make a series out of it, they decide to continue using this winning formula.

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