Search - Rise: Blood Hunter (Unrated + Digital Copy) on DVD

GREAT "B" MOVIE

Margaux Paschke | New York | 02/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Hence, the four stars. I'm going out on a limb here and I know I'll get booed but I liked this movie and thought it very good for it's genre. I realize people don't like it when you go against the popular vote but I wanted to provide another voice. I'll skip summarizations as that has been already been provided but give my thoughts (for the two cents they're worth) instead.

I gather the Amazon Review person didn't watch the same movie because there are a lot of errors in that summary. I'm also confused over the starring roles listing. Robert Forster was on screen for maybe two minutes - a nice cameo by him and a few others. 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). All of acting was good, even the minor characters, with two main characters standing out. 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."

Bladette

Sky | New York | 10/17/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you're a reporter and you're given the choice between doing a story on a strange Goth Cult that act like vampires or doing a story that puts you deep in a war-torn area in the middle of fierce fighting...choose the latter.

After what pretty much amounts to a straight to DVD release in the US, I was surprised to see that Rise - Blood Hunter had some pretty popular stars: Lucy Liu ( Charlie's Angels / Charlie's Angels Full Throttle ), Michael Chiklas ( The Shield - Seasons 1 - 5 ) and a group of other actors that you'll say, "hey, I just saw that guy in...." However, after watching the movie, I was more surprised that this group of actors even took roles in what was more like a fair-at-best Blade Trilogy spinoff.

Rise - Blood Hunter (aka just "Rise") is one of those films that starts with a teaser-glimpse of the end, then the movie unnecessarily jumps all over from past to present throughout the flick. This made for a more discombobulated story flow than it did for an interesting way to tell a story. The plot (after much back-story) surrounds the plights of a rogue vampire (Liu) that crosses paths with a cop looking for the cult (or person...or thing) that killed his daughter.

Rise has its tense moments, but they are few and far between, and the film is a tad bit predictable. It's also sexy at times...kinky even. But even Lucy Liu hanging upside-down naked couldn't get a big enough...er...um..."Rise" out of audiences to keep this movie out of the straight to DVD crossbow sight.

Rise is no collector's item.

"

2.5--Lucy Lui what have they done to you ?!?!

Jenny J.J.I. | That Lives in Carolinas | 04/22/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"While Rise: Blood Hunter isn't a terrible film, it's a predictable one. This is meant to be a revisionist vampire film (no one actually uses the word vampire in the movie) but these are the same trendy vampires that have haunted the screen since Blade. Is it too much to ask someone to try and shake up the vampire film the way Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red did with Near Dark? Or Larraz did with Vampyres (over 30 years ago)? Can't we just get a little Nosferatu around here? Instead what we have here is a journalist by the name of "Sadie" (Lucy Lui) who discovers that a young goth girl she briefly covered in a recent article has been found dead and a hidden message she left behind may lead to her killer's whereabouts. What she discovers is a secret underground group of vampires, who feed on unsuspecting women. Sadie becomes their latest victim, but instead of being left for dead, is turned into one of them. After she awakens in the morgue, she must come to terms with her new self and is enlisted by a mysterious Spanish man, who gives her the means and know-how on how to find and destroy the vampires that turned her.

This movie proved to be another interesting take on the vampire mythos. The vamps in this flick are fangless and really show no signs of being Nosferatu, with the exception of their strength, lack of a reflection, and thirst for blood. They're not afraid of crosses, and we're not shown whether the old garlic theory works on them. Sadie doesn't even use wooden stakes to kill them; instead she seems to use metal bolts shot from her small crossbow. Although the flick is very slow-paced and doesn't offer a whole lot of the typical vampire action we're accustomed too, it does show a different side to the legend, by following Sadie from the moment she awakens in the morgue, to how she gradually copes with her thirst, and eventually finding strength in herself to confront those that harmed her.

The whole sequence where she awakens in the morgue, to her trip to a homeless shelter, where she feeds on her first victim, was somehow mesmerizing to me. I also liked a scene where she finally accepts the fact that she needs to feed and picks up a hitchhiker in a secluded road. From the homeless shelter to her reactions and awkward dialogue with the hitchhiker, the film seemed to portray a kind of realism behind vampirism and the need to feed. That, and my general interest with revenge-type flicks, led me to enjoy the movie mildly. Since this isn't your typical vampire film, there's no flying, clawing, or neck biting, so the gore is kept at a minimum. There is, however, a lot of blood spurting and bolts to the heart. In the end, what it lacks in gore and action, it makes up for in story.

"

Great "B" Flick

Margaux Paschke | New York | 05/28/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."