Prior to
today, I considered myself a fan of the Muscles from Brussels AKA JCVD AKA Jean
Claude Van Damme AKA Christ. I really did. I’ve seen a lot of his
direct-to-video output, and I’m talking rentals, not waiting for them to wash
up on USA Netowrk like the rest of you wusses. I can do monologues from Street
Fighter on demand, though I sadly trail the prodigious talents of CHUD’s
own Jason Pollock in that department. Still, I had paid dues, hadn’t I? That
was what I thought…until I entered the hallowed pages of vandammefan.com.
The
message boards are the stuff of a Van Damme aficionado’s dreams. Just packed to
the gills with fellow obsessives, fantasy casting, and the like, plus all of
the minutiae you could ever want and more. But this article isn’t an extended
ad for vandammefan.com, no sir. You see they actually house a subforum there
dedicated to JCVD’s creative partner in crime, Sheldon Lettich. Lettich is the
writer/director of many a Van Dammage flick including Double Impact and Lionheart,
and their relationship has only solidified now that Jean Claude’s serving a
sentence in direct-to-video hell. Now, Lettich has started letting fans at the
site know he’s taking Van Damme into a brand new genre (for him, anyway), the
supernatural thriller.
Holy Blood (You may see it reported
elsewhere as Holy Brood, but they’re wrong) is being conceived as a flick in
the vein of “The Exorcist meets The X-Files,” with Van Damme, of
course, as the chief debunker/asskicker/. There’s not much more to report than
that because Lettich and Van Damme arekeeping the juicy details mum, but they’re
both looking to this being a significant departure from the JCVD canon, so
there’ll be no ghosts suffering slo-mo jumping roundhouses or the like. The
idea is to start shooting in
because The Man has a pretty packed schedule of DTV flicks lined up in the
interim. I’ll most likely see every last one because…..I’m so powerless.