Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

RISE: BLOOD HUNTER (w/ DC) (DVD MOVIE) Product Description

Great "B" Flick

Hence, the four stars. A quick summary goes as follows: a female reporter (Blake) researches into secret parties that have teenagers going missing. She gets a little too close to the story when she discovers a vampire cult and ends up missing herself. Sort of. Blake does manage to find one of the missing teenagers, a cop's daughter. The cop (Michael Chiklis) also tracks down Blake and decides to do whatever is necessary to get his daughter back.

All of acting was great, even the minor characters, and there were entertaining cameos throughout this movie. Robert Forster was there and gone in a flash. Marilyn Manson played a bartender without all the make-up (it took a while to recognize him) and Nick Lahey plays a small time crook who doesn't think about the whole picture (working for a vampire cult is never a good idea). But the two main characters are the ones that kept me glued to the screen. Sadie Blake (Lucy Lui), a supposed unwilling victim and The Bishop (James D'Arcy), an Englishman who charms his way past a woman's barriers. These two are the ones to watch and scenes containing them sizzle. The cinematography is amazing with it's color washes of reds and blues upon black. It's nicely filmed by a master.

There were nice twists here with the innocent turned against her will into vampirism.... or was she? We learn from Eve that her will to survive was so strong that not even The Bishop's feeding could kill her. That her survival instincts took over and that's what made her a vampire, not another vampire. She was lead in that direction but Blake choose her path. I found this to be an interesting character development. As the Alchemist points out, no one is really innocent. He also points out that she is different from them, that she possess a gift. Apparently, this gift is the thirst for life and not the blood she needs to sustain it (life being a relative term here).

This movie definitely left on a possible sequel note and although I would not mind seeing another installment, the straight to dvdness of this movie leaves little option for another. There were a few plot holes but that's what makes it a "B" grade movie so I let it go.

I recommend this movie for supernatural film fans that like a different kind of vampire movie. This is not a great film and doesn't really qualify as true horror (lack of scary parts - plenty of gore but not much genuine fear), but entertaining all the same. Maybe it's just me though because I hated Dracula 2000 and most reviewers loved it. May 28, 2008

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