While I had heard that Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was based on a comic book series, I hadn't heard of it before this film and even now, I've only done the due-diligent web-based research to have a better understanding of the original material in order to get an idea of how well the Italian comic translated to the big screen. Unfortunately, it looks like it has lost something in the translation since what seems to be a fairly interesting topic and comic series ended up becoming a campy horror film that really leaves a lot to be desired.

A couple of promotional materials billed Dylan Dog as a "comedy/horror," so I hoped that was true and was the intended result of this film, because it is only under the thought that Dead of Night was intended to be campy and over-the-top that it is tolerable.

Dylan (Brandon Routh, Superman Returns) is a private investigator and most of his cases involve cheating spouses, but what his friend and flunky, Marcus (Sam Huntington also from Superman Returns as Jimmy Olsen), doesn't realize is that he used to be an investigator for a supernatural underworld that permeates New Orleans. That was long ago, and the fact that he no longer does that kind of work has to do with his now dead love whom Dylan still thinks about constantly.

Dylan believes all that is behind him until a normal case turns into a series of events that brings him back into the underworld and onto a pretty big plot by someone high up in the supernatural community. Unfortunately for Marcus, these events also start off with him getting killed and turned into a zombie.

It's pretty obvious that people who really enjoy the mental game that was the comic wouldn't really like this film adaptation, but even looking at it as if it weren't weren't a comic-book re-interpretation doesn't do Dylan Dog: Dead of Night much good. It's hard to tell if the story is making homages to other shows and movies of the same genre (i.e. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood), or if it is simply plucking the ideas and using it for its own. The least of these is the idea of vampire blood used as a drug or those same vampires having the same basic prosthetics applied to their face that you would see in Buffy when they get mad or hungry. I guess that really depends, once again, on whether or not the movie was intended to be campy or taken seriously. Hopefully for Dead of Night's sake, it was intended to be campy from the start.

To make matters even worse, there aren't any special features on this Blu-ray. It would have been nice to see something... anything. A featurette about the original comic might have been nice, or even a basic commentary. As it is, even the high definition picture and sound feel a bit wasted on this media since there isn't really anything that calls out for the better quality.

Best case scenario, rent Dylan Dog, and if there is a price difference between the two types, go for the cheaper DVD copy, since there isn't a reason to pay extra to see this on Blu-ray.