When I was a teenager I would buy every issue of Fangoria I could get my hands on. In almost every issue throughout the 90’s there were ads for Chaos! Comics and their characters like Purgatori, Chastity, Evil Ernie, and of course, Lady Death! Being a horror-fanboy-metalhead, I ended up eating Chaos’ unique brand of comics up. I still to this day have a stash of the books in my closet somewhere. Though the company no longer exist, and the characters rights have been scattered to the winds many still exist in various forms.
In 2004 anime, now defunct anime distributor ADV Films decided to make their second animated film an adaptation of Brian Pulido’s Lady Death. I stress that while this is a movie based on the character from Chaos Comics, this seems to be the more tempered version that would come out later, with a more medieval tone, and less sexuality and violence (and of course no connection to the greater Chaos! Universe).
The film follows Hope, a naive young Swedish woman in the 15th century who is the daughter of Matthias. Matthias it turns out is a physical manifestation of Satan. When this is discovered, he disappears and Hope is burned at the stake. Hope, now Lady Death ends up in Hell with a weapon known as Darkness. She rebels against her father for dominion over Hell.
I would like to say this movie is as awesome as it sounds, and is the movie LD deserves. It is not. The animation is quite low budget, the script by Carl Macek…was a script by Carl Macek. In all honestly it just didn’t capture the tone of the Lady Death I knew, which OK I get. This was not the Chaos Lady Death, but it still was not that interesting.
The Blu-ray was solid, however. It is a 1080p transfer that has solid colors, and brings out whatever details are here. Audio is handled with German and English HD 5.1 tracks with sound clear and crisp. Extras include some BTS featurettes and a commentary track. Stream it.