History YMMV / SolomonKane

* FairForItsDay: For a 1920's pulp series with stories set in Africa, it manages to be less malicious than most. The nasty stereotypes are there, yes ("The Moon Of Skulls", in particular, is pure "Yikes!" with a side-order of "Oof..."), but they are not used exclusively. There are several black characters who are well-rounded and sympathetic, not least N'Longa.

* WhatAnIdiot: Sure, Josiah Kane, [[spoiler:give your lands and wealth to an evil sorcerer in order to heal your badly injured eldest son. Because we all know Faustian pacts have a long history of ''not'' backfiring. Oh, I'm sure all those thousands of people on your lands won't suffer under his rule and even if they do, what's the suffering of hundreds next to one {{Jerkass}} son's health? What could go wrong?]]

* FairForItsDay: For a 1920's pulp series with stories set in Africa, it manages to be less malicious than most. The nasty stereotypes are there, yes, but they are not used exclusively. There are several black characters who are well-rounded and sympathetic, not least N'Longa.

* OlderThanTheyThink: People have said this looks like ''Film/VanHelsing'' and/or ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'', but Robert E. Howard was probably the first to use the black clothes/nice hat[=/=]BadassCape (or [[BadassLongcoat Longcoat]]) combo for a monster-hunter character -- way back in the 1920s.

* OlderThanTheyThink: People have said this looks like ''Film/VanHelsing'' and/or ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'', but Robert E. Howard was probably the first to use the black clothes/NiceHat[=/=]BadassCape (or [[BadassLongcoat Longcoat]]) combo for a monster-hunter character -- way back in the 1920s.

* CompleteMonster: Malachi is an EvilSorcerer who becomes a SorcerousOverlord in ''Film/SolomonKane''. Considering himself the Devil's servant, Malachi ingratiated himself to Josiah Kane to bring Josiah's dead son Marcus back to life, but restored him as an undead abomination bound to Malachi's will to serve as his [[TheDragon Dragon]]. Malachi took over the lands and has the innocent kidnapped for slavery, or simply murdered. Others he just turns into flesh eating abominations. Malachi later has the leaders of the resistance against him crucified and when Solomon Kane confronts him, Malachi tries to sacrifice the innocent Meredith to open the gates of hell and send Solomon to eternal torture-as well as the rest of the world.

** The Devil sending a 30ft lava monster through an equally giant portal to kill a 6 foot Solomon is a bit corny by itsef (and kind of clashes against the atmosphere of the rest of the film), but the design of the thing looks more like something you hit repeatedly until its HP bar reaches zero than a movie villain. This was, in fact, one of the most criticized points of the film.

* WhatAnIdiot: Sure, Josiah Kane, [[spoiler:give your lands and wealth to an evil sorcerer in order to heal your badly injured eldest son. Because we all know Faustian pacts have a long history of NOT backfiring. Oh, I'm sure all those thousands of people on your lands won't suffer under his rule and even if they do, what's the suffering of hundreds next to one {{Jerkass}} son's health? What could go wrong?]]

** "[[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Red_Shadows Red Shadows]]": The vicious bandit [[EvilCounterpart Le Loup]] ("The Wolf") is a scourge on the French countryside where he [[RapePillageAndBurn rapes and murders]] at will. Attracting the attention of Solomon Kane when he slaughters an entire village and keeps the women to gang-rape before killing them as well, Le Loup pursues one wounded girl, catching and raping her before leaving her for dead when Kane finds her. [[DirtyCoward Sacrificing his men to Kane when he needed to escape]], Le Loup flees to Africa where he allies with a ruthless chieftain named Songa and assists him in oppressing his own people, complete with blood sacrifices, before attempting to have Kane killed at last.

* TearJerker: the poem ''Solomon Kane's Homecoming'' has a very somber tone and greatly humanizes Kane by showing that, rather than an unyielding engine of vengeance, he is an aging, weary man who would like nothing more than to settle down and live out the remainder of his days in peace. [[AndTheAdventureContinues When he leaves his hometown for yet another journey]] at the end, it feels like a straight-up DownerEnding.

* OlderThanTheyThink: People have said this looks like ''Film/VanHelsing'' and/or ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'', but Robert E. Howard was probably the first to use the black clothes / NiceHat / BadassCape (or [[BadassLongcoat Longcoat]]) combo for a monster-hunter character -- way back in the 1920s.

* VindicatedByCable: While the film isn’t as well known as ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'', ''Film/SolomonKane'' has gotten good reception over the years, has a sizeable fanbase and is considered a pretty good adaptation of it’s source material.

* FairForItsDay: For a 1920's pulp series with stories set in Africa, it manages to be less malicious than most. The nasty stereotypes are there, yes, but they are not used exclusively. There are several black characters who are well-rounded and sympathetic, not least N'Longa. And this is in spite of the author being virulently racist, even by the standards of the 1920s.