A lively British horror-action hybrid, Razor Blade Smile marked the starring screen debut of Eileen Daly, the goth Redemption host for its initial line of DVD releases around the turn of the millennium. These chic vampire bullet ballets got worn into the ground very quickly later on thanks to the likes of Underworld, but this one beat them to the punch by several years with about 1% of the budget.

Lilith Silver (Daly), a leather-glad vampire hit woman, got her fang-chomping start when she tried to save her boyfriend in a duel and wound up on the wrong end of a pistol. A vampire named Sethane (Adamson) "saved" her by transforming her into one of the undead, and now she passes the centuries by offing humans for money. Apparently being assigned targets takes the nasty decision-making process out of planning for dinner, and she covers up her feeding rituals by firing a few bullets into her victims' throats. In her off time, she hangs out at the local goth club where vamp wannabes lecture about what they think vampires are like, much to Lilith's amusement. However, things get complicated when a nasty sect called the Illuminati (signified by their cultists' gumball machine eyeball rings) get ticked off at Lilith for bumping off a few members, and she finds herself in deep trouble. To make matters worse, one of the cultists, Officer Price (Coote), keeps arresting her and chasing her around with a stake.

A patchwork of genre elements ranging from Blade to The Hunger to Innocent Blood, Razor Blade Smile marked the feature directorial debut for Jake West who went on to make tons of making-of featurettes, documentaries (Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life of Cliff Twemlow, Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide), and occasional narrative features like Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes and his best one to date, Evil Aliens. The pace here is fast, the visuals lush, the soundtrack involving, and there's even a nifty (if highly illogical) surprise ending which, now that you know, may not be much of a surprise. Italian horror legend David Warbeck pops in for one of his last appearances as "the horror film man" and explains what PCP is to our not very bright detective. The kitschy James Bond-inspired opening credits are a blast, too, not to mention the hysterically foul-mouthed end titles song. Seen today, it's a weirdly endearing time capsule of where the indie and horror scenes were as the '90s crept to a close, all shot in grungy and colorful 16mm before digital took over everything.

A-Pix bowed this film on DVD in early 2000 featuring an okay widescreen transfer, a 2.0 surround mix, and a trailer. That left a lot of room for improvement, with a subsequent U.K. DVD featuring a Club Death short (31m36s), a "Slices of Life" featurette (57m47s), the trailer, bloopers (6m45s), deleted and alternate scenes (6m39s), a gallery, a storyboard comparison, CG test shots, a shooting script, and a vintage 1997 Cannes-themed TV interview with West (6m11s) in front of the most '97 background imaginable.

In 2026, the film got a major upgrade as a three-disc(!) special edition from Severin Films in the U.S. and Nucleus Films in the U.K.-- which feature the same bonus features and have both companies' logos present on the discs. The film itself (on both the UHD and Blu-ray) looks true to its origins with a fairly thick and grainy appearance but with radically superior color and detail including some splashy red and blue lighting effects that look great here. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English track sounds good as always with some nice channel separation, and optional English SDH subtitles are included. A new audio commentary with West and production designer Neil Jenkins is a fun listen as is an archival one with West and Daly, covering the genre scene at the time, the state of the BBFC, the stunt horse rider for Daly, the resourceful costume creation, location scouting around London, the creation of the script after writing the initial story taking into account the buildings they needed, the influence of films like Blood and Roses, and more. Also on the first Blu-ray is the new West documentary Vampires Forever (95m22s), creating a snapshot of British vampire culture in the '90s with interviewees like West, Jenkins, Reece Shearsmith, Vampyria's Louis Ravensfield, Klif Fuller, Brenny Lewis, Ingrid Pitt, Rosie Lugosi, and more chatting about the influence of Universal and Hammer films, the appeal of the vampire aesthetic, the impact of '80s films like The Lost Boys, and the ties to nocturnal party and arts culture, plus some cool treats like a reunion for Twins of Evil fans.

The second Blu-ray is devoted entirely to bonus features starting with "Independents Day" (27m2s), a retrospective featurette about the film's production with West, M.J. Simpson, Daly, Coote, Mark Caven, and Kevin Howarth covering the creation of the film, a press decision that helped plug it to the indie horror public, the desire to cast Christopher Lee in Warbeck's role, and more. "Dressed to Kill" (8m52s) focuses on the film's costume design with West, Daly, and costume designer Dena Costello discussing the influence of The Avengers and updating the idea with rubber and fetish elements (not always friendly in cold weather), followed by "Dark God Rising" (16m) about the story's up and down continuation in comic format (which remains incomplete as of now), "Smiling Sharper" (13m16s) about the 4K restoration of the film decades after the prior flat letterboxed master, a 25th anniversary presentation of the film at FrightFest in 2024 (14m13s) including Adamson's last public appearance, and a vintage 1997 Cannes-themed TV interview with West (6m11s) in front of the most '97 background imaginable. Then "Terror Tarot" (12m57s) features Rue Morgue‘s Laura Hokstad doing a reading from the film's prop tarot cards, the "Slices of Life" making-of, the Cannes interview, the deleted scenes, blooper reel, still gallery, and storyboard gallery. Also included are a new 4K restoration trailer, a '97 Cannes trailer, the U.K. trailer, SyFy TV spots, a Film4 Children of the Night doc (20m39s) made by West about the real-life vampire concept, Club Death short with optional West and Jenkins commentary and a new 11m59s making-of, and "Vampire Advert" (3m8s) about West’s Hammer-inspired ad created for the 1993 Kodak Student Film Contest which tried out some ideas he later explored in his debut feature.

Updated review on August 8, 2026