Trailer Tuesday: Solomon Kane

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I've written quite comprehensively about Solomon Kane before, but this last week the trailer finally debuted online... and while it's not exactly setting the world alight it's still pretty damn nifty nonetheless. I especially like the "infernal" encounter and Kane locking swords with what bears a striking resemblance to Diablo's Archangel Tyrael. For what is essentially an indie production, Solomon Kane apparently has top notch effects and a suitably expensive-looking production design. Then again, the film did supposedly cost $40 million!

Anyway, watching the trailer for the film, centred on Pulp author Robert E. Howard's second most famous fictional creation (Howard also created Conan the Barbarian), Solomon Kane comes across as a dark, gritty and completely serious melding of Constantine, Van Helsing and Hellboy, but set in the 16th Century, with a grim hero (Rome's James Purefoy) whose path to redemption leads him on just the course of violence he was trying to escape from.


Although the trailer lays out the film's plot quite nicely, the exact storyline of Solomon Kane, the movie, is as follows:

Spend your life cutting men down with your blade and robbing them of their wealth, and word of your exploits is sure to reach the devil, who is always on the lookout for new souls. Meet Solomon Kane, the invention of Robert E. Howard, the legendary creator of Conan the Barbarian. Howard published his sword-and-sorcery stories in the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales, and his influence on the fantasy genre is rivalled only by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Armed with a rapier and flintlock pistols, Solomon Kane dresses in black, his pale face and cold eyes shadowed by a hat. He is a true rogue, blasting and slashing forward on a mission of pillage and plunder in war-torn North Africa in the late 1500s. When the devil lays claim to his hopelessly corrupt soul, Kane escapes only to face the sobering truth: in order to seek redemption, he must renounce his wicked ways and devote himself wholly to a pious life. His new-found piety is put to the test when he is forced to return to his murderous ways to save England from the grasp of evil.


Although Solomon Kane doesn't yet have an official site, the blog of screenwriter-director Michael J. Bassett is a great source for news on the film - which incidentally is intended to be the first part of a trilogy.

Solomon Kane doesn't seem to have any big distribution deals yet (it's screening at assorted film festivals at the moment), but it should be hitting cinemas worldwide sometime in early to mid 2010 - even if there's curious mention on Wikipedia of a 28 October 2009 release date for the United States. I'm really hoping to see Solomon Kane on the big screen. I would be exceptionally disappointed if the film went straight to DVD locally.

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