User Reviews

First of all, the critics of this movie are really over-exaggerating. Just because everybody isn't an anime geek that drools over animated (i.e. NOT REAL) females that are nothing more than lines drawn on a page doesn't make this a horrible movie. It's funny, I think I even heard Ralph Bakshi mentioned in one review. Yeah, the guy that did Wizards. sigh. Anyway, I didn't mind the story of a "heroine" in hell wanting to take out Lucifer. Gave it a more "casual watcher" appeal than to see a bunch of evil killing machines wanting to outdo each other. It wasn't spectacular by any means, but it's a cartoon for pete's sake. Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to offend the fanboys. I mean "animated feature". Whatever. Cremator was a cool character and they gave as much of a story to the main parts without overdoing it. Not something I would watch over and over but wasn't a waste of the time I spent watching it. I did wonder if things died in hell, did they just come back to hell? That was an anomaly I think you have to suspend disbelief about so you don't get a headache. Another thing was that they could have had a much better ending battle. But it was a basic animated movie with more violence than what you'd want a kid to be watching, so I didn't expect the moon and emmys. And for all of you freakshows that want "nudity" and "realism", here's an idea. Watch a movie with real people in it and quit complaining that you don't get to see "cartoon porn".

I must say that I was sort of thrilled when I found this animated movie by sheer luck on Amazon. I had been reading the Lady Death comics back prior to 2004, and then stopped, and gotten out of the loop, so I had no idea that an animated movie was in the works. And by sheer luck I happened to come across it, so of course I bought it to see what it was.

First of all, if you are familiar with the art style found in the Lady Death comic books, be warned that there is an Anime/Manga style influence to the art style in the animated movie. This might not sit well with just anybody, but personally, I found it to be alright. Although the original art style would have been (and is) better. However, I will say that in itself, then this particular art style was alright, and there were some nice details and appearances to some of the damned legion that were seen in Hell.

The story, quickly summarized, is about Hope, the daughter of Matthias, who finds out about her father's dark and unholy secret. Burnt as a witch, Hope calls out to her father and ends up in Hell. Here she sheds her identity and becomes Lady Death, hellbent on taking revenge on Lucifer, the Lord of Lies.

Right, well the storyline itself was simple and easy to follow, and would be a great introduction to those not having read the comic books. Was it impressive? Well, yeah, if you haven't already read the comic books. If you have read them, then this approach to the story of Lady Death is sort of a mediocre one.

If you watch this animated movie, forget what you know from having read the comic books, and just watch this for the entertainment. It have what you need in an animated movie; demons, carnage, Hell, and scantily clad women.

Not a bad Storyline from a more then well known character.

However the story seems to end to soon and leave you expecting there to be a series of movie.

In other words seems to be a incomplete story as well as seeming incredibly short & you feel a bit ripped off due to this.

The animation is OK But could be better tho to it having a bit of a dole style effected the whole movie by making it kind of boring in a way leaving only the story to keep it going.

The Storyline itself does not save it enough to make this a Great movie it barely makes it a half decent movie.

Scoring a 6 out of 10

I am a huge fan of the comic book series, but this movie fell way below my expectations. I expected a Heavy Metal 2000 kinda feel to it.....slow moving, bad dialogue, lots o' blood.....but this was worse than anything I could have imagined.

The plot line is almost the same as the comic, but the good points pretty much stop there. The characters don't have the energy or spirit that drew my attention in the comic series. The movie only covers a small portion of the comic, and the portion used is more slow and boring than later parts. The focus in the movie is on the insignificant events instead of the more interesting overall plot of the comic book.

With the right people working on this project, it could have been amazing. Sadly, it wasn't that way, so now there is yet another terrible movie that few will see and even fewer will love. My copy will surely collect dust for years until I finally throw it out.

I enjoyed the "Lady Death" comic series. I enjoy anime. Let me rephrase that. I enjoy well done anime. This isn't well done. The script follows the comic series closely, the voice acting is competent, but the animation is every bit as wretched as an episode of Pokemon, and that can't be considered a compliment no matter how you twist it. With better animation, a whole series of direct-to-video films could have been launched. Now I pray that doesn't happen. Films like this have one shot to make it, so one would think that the producers would spend the money to make them beautiful. If they did that, then they could even slack off a bit on the animation quality of subsequent entries into the series. Instead, this one started with crap and has nowhere to go but downhill. I won't deny that some of the backgrounds are gorgeous, but animated film focuses on that which is animated... characters moving about. It is there that "Lady Death:TMP" fails dismally.

First of all, I'd like to tell you that I'm into comics, anime, animation and such stuff. It is true that everyone has his own preferences, but you can trust me on this movie. I'll be objective. To begin with the story - it's OK. Follows the story line of the comic books as far as I'm familiar with them. But the animation... Well, it's not actually terrible, but it's definitely cheap and mediocre. It would be a lot better if they didn't try to imitate the anime style and sticked to the original comic book style drawings. If we pretend not to see the rare sloppy effects like fire and lightnings you could tell that the movie is made about 10 years ago and even more. Looks a little bit like the original Vampire Hunter D from 1985. Take a look at Heavy Metal FAKK 2000 for instance - 4 years ago they made a movie that looks a hell lot better! In addition to this the voice talents do nothing remarkable, the music is nothing special. So all in all - it lacks atmosphere. I watched it, but I cannot tell I really enjoyed it. It just does not capture you. There's plenty of blood and violence, but that does not impress me at all. May be it will be shocking for someone who was never watched more mature oriented animations and sees animated blood for the first time (is there anyone around?), but I don't think this is the audience for this movie. So they could add a little nudity and spice to it. The chicks around Lucifer were quite tasty, and hell, we have Lady Death herself! There are few sexy looks, but that's not enough. Instead of Bill Brown's music I think it would look better on a hard rock / heavy metal soundtrack. All in all - the movie isn't that bad, but if you want something better take the original Heavy Metal, Heavy Metal FAKK 2000, Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice or Wizards maybe. And of course - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

Well, I can honestly say that this is the first time that I experienced a film that had literally no meat or potatoes in it. The entire film felt like it was just the salad with no main course. The story line was fallible and laughable, the characters were one-dimensional, the realism was out the window, and the animation was done by four-year olds. Does that cover it? I have never been more embarrassed for a concept in my entire life. I have never read the comics or seen the other programs with this character, but from the looks of the other reviews I am not off base with my observation.

To begin, the story moved too quickly. For someone new to this character and situations, I needed more built into creating the reasons instead of finding the solution. I have seen other Anime (if you could call this one an Anime) that do great things with their characters because they take the time to develop them. There was nothing set aside for Lady Death. In a few short scenes, we see her train with Cremator and instantly become this aggressive she-beast of Hell. This was hard for me to swallow, considering moments before she was introduced as this weak and feeble woman controlled by her father. Suddenly, she is immersed with hatred and can do battle with an existence that has been around for millions of years. This was absurd. The presentation of Lady Death was poor, to say the least. I felt as if she was nothing more than an animated character instead of a desperate woman with revenge on the mind. For me, it just didn't work. She was nothing more than eye-candy for prepubescent boys wanting to ogle the mass quantities of skin that she suddenly grew on her chest when training with Cremator. Oh, I felt sick just watching her. The same goes for the character of Cremator. Who was this random person? The explanation they gave wasn't enough, and instead I was left with more incoherent babbling than actual development. It is a very sad day in Hell when we forgo characters to show more violence and action, especially in an animated feature.

Next, there was Lucifer himself. Let me just say that I think I could do battle with the King of Hell and survive. He was weak, his voice was laughable, and he just didn't represent the image that I had in my mind. It was as if Disney was in control and wanted to make him semi-PC. He lacked the darkness and corrupt nature that Lucifer embodies. He was not the ruler of Hell, but instead just a lackey that had a bigger place to live. Speaking of living or dying, how can you die again in Hell? That was a concept that definitely needed more explanation. Most of the characters were worrying about dying, when they didn't even consider the option that they were already dead. That is how they got to Hell. I think it was this level of thinking that ruined the film for me. I didn't quite capture the notion that your soul was still in a solid body in Hell, but that could just be me … or maybe it was because there was NO DEVELOPMENT in this story. There was nothing built, just preparing.

The battle sequences were hysterically bad. The animation in this cartoon felt like it was made in the early 90s. There was nothing impressive about the way that this film was drawn. Why are we, America, so behind on animation? It is huge in Asia, and it is creeping in hardcore here because we keep making films like Lady Death that do not challenge or use any part of imagination. We are cheap, and this film shows it.

Overall, this film was bad. The animation coupled with the horrendous voice work was cheap. I had head somewhere that this film as in production for a long time, which is hard to understand because I think I could have made this film on my credit card. The production was horrendous as well as the story. Nothing was developed, leaving huge gaping plot holes that nearly everyone fell into. The strength of the characters was missing, and nothing was explained. I wasted my time with this one and would like to warn others so that when Death does come, you don't find yourself in my state and regretting the fact that you wasted 80 minutes on this piece of garbage.

BLAH!

Grade: * out of *****

There's really no way to beat around the bush in saying this, Lady Death: The Motion Picture just plain sucks. Aside from the fact that the main character is a well endowed blonde running around Hell in a leather bikini with occasional spurts of graphic violence, the movie seems to have been made with the mentality of a 1980's cartoon based on a line of action figures. The bad guy himself even talks like a Skeletor wannabe, has the obligatory inept henchman, and lives in a lair that looks to have been patterned after the domain of the villain from the old Saturday morning Blackstar cartoon. Just don't expect any humor other than the sometimes howlingly bad dialogue. At other times it feels like the kind of anime tale better suited to hentai, yet there is no sex, no tentacle rape (Thank goodness!) and very little sex appeal, this despite the physical appearance of the title character. There is simply no adult edge to this material, unless you count the half-naked heroine and bloody deaths. Essentially, what we have here is a feature length episode of She-Ra, Princess of Power, but with skimpier clothes and more gore.

Although not the best Anime I have ever seen but I enjoyed Lady Death.

I have never read the comic book and just saw this at the video store and decided to give it a chance.

The animation was OK, I got the sense of the 80's anime from it which is what set it off for me. Why everyone else hates that is beyond me.

Character development was fine. I like how they brought the transition from Hope to Lady Death around. for you who don't like it, obviously wasn't paying attention. Lucifer tells you how it happens, and she used his words.

Creamtor was a nice mentor/soldier for her. his dark bruiting style was perfect for this kind of movie.

I think everyone here who has bashed this needs to take another look at it and reconsider. cause everything people have bashed this can be said about everyones favorite anime Vampire Hunter D

And it falls squarely into the category of "awesomely bad" - ie a movie drunk students would rent to get a kick out of. I was at the sci fi movie festival and all I remember is a wave after wave of hysterical laughter as this movie premiered. Other critiques will better describe this movie's fecal nature, and I felt oh-so-bad at the poor guy from the production company who had turned up, obviously to gauge the audience's reaction. What he got was the sci fi equivalent of a drunken student audience, and after a "serious" anime movie, I think it was "sky blue", the audience was in a sombre mood, and then this movie opened and within seconds everyone in the room was rolling in the isles. I will bullet point the worst parts;

Script: The funniest, and worst part of this movie, it clunks along a linear and predictable road with the occasional ill-thought-out aside. Rubbish, but eminently laughable.

Animation: Poorly done, and put together, if you can put up with drab backgrounds and gradually skimpier costumes for the heroine (I know I can!), then watch out for the montage where she "trasforms" from a Swedish peasant girl into LADY DEATH!!!

Characters: So one-dimensional its painful, there is a brief backstory (with side-splitting lines of dialogue) and little light is shone on the actual motivation behind some of the main characters.

So, in a nutshell, if you've got a captive audience and a few beverages lying around (try and make sure they're alcoholic to ease the pain), then slip this movie into the DVD and get in a "mystery science theatre 3000" mindset. There is no other motivation to watch this movie other than to laugh at it, and its not meant to be a comedy. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE ALONE. It could possible be even more boring to watch solo than "New World" with Colin Farrell as you won't be able to have a laugh at the ridiculousness with a friend or two.

I also saw this amazingly bad piece of "anime" at the London Sci-Fi Festival. If you HAVE to watch this thing, do so with a large audience preferably after a few beers, you may then glean some enjoyment from it.

I found the dialogue hilarious, lodged in my mind is the introduction of Cremator. The animation is awful. It is badly designed and badly executed. It may have been a good idea for the producers to have hired at least one person who was not colour blind.

There's nothing else to say really, this film is a failure on every level.

Oh my GOD this was so bad! The story was weak - at best - and the animation was flat and lifeless - even childish. This film takes itself far too seriously...unless of course they meant to be funny. I saw this last week at the London Sci-Fi Festival and the entire audience was laughing at every scene. I think my favourite was 'shouldn't you be studying medicine at Oopsalof'! And I also think they were trying to see how many times they could cram in the character Nicalo's only line 'we will be together...it is our destiny.' I'm sorry but after the first time, the words lost all meaning.

And what was with the apple?

I recommend this as a lesson to Americans: You cannot animate, so please don't try. You only embarrass yourselves.

Being a fan, this effort was embarrassing. But I am biased. Being a fan of the comic series, I was set up for a fall. The comics are beautiful. This title deserves the $100-150 million budget, and would spawn a trilogy, and 2 guaranteed spin-offs: Evil Ernie and Purgatori. And 3 one shot spin offs: Cremator, Bedlam, and the Dead King. If I won a huge $200 million dollar lottery, I'd pay to make these movies (as long as I get consulting rights on Evil Ernie so I could re-define zombie flicks). They'd be balls- to-the-wall and if they get an x-rating then whatever, who cares? Anyway, back to this little flick. It sucked, I've seen it about 4-5 times and liked it more each time, but that doesn't make it suck less, I just enjoyed it more. If and when this is given the proper treatment, it will be ART. Read the comics.

Not all comic book adaptations have found success in live-action. From what has been produced in the past, it takes a lot of meticulous work and tedious time to produce a product everyone will like. Sometimes, the better route is to ditch the live-action bit and start off with an animation feature instead. It's less costly and could prove as a valid test to show whether a certain character has enough draw power to bring in enough viewers. Sadly, this motion picture attempt just didn't cut it for viewers, as did I.

The lead, Lady Death is taken from the same name character from a now debunked comic book company called Chaos Comics. Unfortunately, by the time this motion picture was released, Chaos Comics went bankrupt. So, that's not a good sign right there, if the main comic distributor is out of business before the movie is even released,...the turnout probably won't be that successful. This ended up coming true but not because of popularity, it was more because of everything else. The two components to this film that really bring the quality down are its animation and writing.

The majority of writing was done by Carl Macek, the same guy who wrote the screenplay to Heavy Metal 2000 (2000), the slightly bit more entertaining sequel to the animation cult classic, Heavy Metal (1981). But that's not to say that movie, or this one for that matter is really that entertaining. Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) was a little bit better because it actually focused on a character and not just a compilation feature. The same is here too but the reasoning behind various subplots are practically left untouched. After being accused of being the lovechild of Lucifer, Hope (the heroine) is burned at the stake and upon her death, decides to take vengeance on Lucifer for the cause of her death.

This particular plot may be simple enough but upon deeper analysis, there are a lot of holes within the story. For example, it's not even explained to why or how Hope turns into Lady Death or how she even decides to come up with the name. Another unexplained subplot is if Hope really was the lovechild of Lucifer. Was it all a lie or did she truly have dark powers that she had no idea of. And if that was the case, how did she learn how to use her power? It's questions like these that are not answered, which can lead to a very disconnected and possibly boring watch between viewer and the screen.

Plus, the dialog isn't too deep either. One of the most repeated lines in this film is "Desire equals power" and its not that difficult to understand the first time it is said, yet it is stated several times as if everyone will forget. Adding to the frustration is the disjointed and choppy animation. There were even some frames where the character stopped moving completely and was zoomed out of the frame; almost like no one would notice. Even the continuity wasn't kept in line, which seems legit that no one was taking this animated picture very seriously. But it's baffling though, the animators are not even credited here so....were they professionals? What's going on?

As for anything else, it's OK. The music provided by Bill Brown was appropriate for the setting but it didn't make the experience any more meaningful. The actors who lent their voices to their designated characters also did a fair job but again, the dialog didn't help them make their characters very memorable. The art headed by storyboard artist Dan Schaefer looked good but for these few things, that's about all I can give it for the attempt that was made. But to say it'll capture even the smallest bit of the viewers attention is a little bit of a stretch.

This poor adaptation of the Chaos Comic heroine has respectable performances from its voice cast but the overall product is horrendous. The writing is bare bones with minimal explanations to anything, the dialog is repetitive and animation is almost to the point of insulting.

I personally liked this movie and am alarmed at the rating's some people have given it. It is a movie based on a comic book and it is animated, now if you don't like comic books or animation then of course you won't like this movie so why did you watch and bother to rate it is beyond me. Though, if you are a fan of Interesting, strong characters and heroic(sexy) women kicking butt and saving the world(hell) you will love this movie. I thought the story really pulled me in and it was a very cool movie. Quite anime-esque or more like some of the American movies following this new trend of adult animation. Like Titan A.E. meet's the live action version of Punisher. In the end I highly recommend this movie the comic buff and super hero fan or anyone with an open enough mind looking for a fun movie.

As a lover of the comics, I really hated this. In full fairness, I didn't finish it, because it's awful, so my review is based off the first few scenes. The animation, the voice acting, all of it was just not good at all. Stick to the books, sorry to the creators and those involved if you read this.

I've never heard of these comics. I saw this for free to watch on youtube and at first I thought it was some Christian sort of film to help their followers fight away temptation.. then again the cover art and all the cleavage. Then I thought this was some obscure 80s animated film I had never heard of. Nope not that either.

This film was garbage. It had this hand drawn sort of style to it that looked like something out of the 1980s so to find out this came out in 2004 that's inexcusable unless it was a look or style they were going for. Sort of like all those pretentious rock bands who use older gear to get those "vintage" tones.

The voice acting was awful. It seems like the voice actors weren't even in the same rooms. If anyone has ever played the video game resident evil 1 it's ALMOST that bad. The female lead is so generic. I don't need some dumb sexy woman sort of voice but this was a joke. I'm kind of curious where the budget of this went.

I found the film was too short. I know animation is expensive but the amount of corners cut is inexcusable. Sure there is character development and everything but it's another Steven Seagal plow through everything sort of movie for the most part. Everything is too convenient. If anything this is a poorer made version of the movie Heavy Metal 2000 mixed with some elements such as Spawn and so forth.

I love the movies and own the comics, the comics are different then the movie but still I'd give it: 10 out of 10. It was awesome. If the movies got anymore awesome. I would have her babies. And I am female. Read the comics you won't regret it. Yes in this movie since Brian P. the artist for her died we don't get nearly as good artistic work. I mean seriously don't get me wrong these people did great, but different versions for different people. Different Strokes for different folks as the saying goes. Any guy who doesn't go bonkers over her is insane, or does not like women, or you know just plan insane. If I could count on my fingers how in love and how many times I have read the comics I would run out of fingers for sure, but hey there is always toes.

It's a very good movie, not only for the fans of Lady Death comics, but also for those who like animated movies/series of adventure and fantasy.

The film is about a innocent girl who is about killed for something she hadn't done, but for be who she is daughter of the ruler of hell, Lucifer himself.

Then she seeks revenge...and the rest you better see it from the movie.

I liked the movie a lot, the characters are like the original comics, form Chaos. I never had the chance of read the the first parts of the story in comics, only the last ones, after the passages in the movie, so I cannot tell you if the events are exactly like the comics, but...one way or another it's the story of Lady Death!

All i hear about is how poorly the animation is done. It may not be up to par with what everyone expects, but look at it this way. Would you expect perfection in hell? It is my belief that the animation was made dry and gritty on purpose. It was great to see her character transformation in this movie, considering it will probably be as close to live action as we will ever get. I hope for a sequel very soon. If we want live action, i think we may be better off with Chastity or Purgatori. I don't think Lady Death would transfer well to film. But be that as it may, It is my own personal belief that all the naysayers about this movie are DEAD wrong. No pun intended.