Ok, we're on a zombie roll so let's try ATTACK OF THE SOUTHERN FRIED ZOMBIES. "Lonnie, a crop duster pilot, must lead a mismatched group of survivors to escape the deadly zombie horde after an experimental chemical intended to control the invasive kudzu vine--" Oh no. Why wouldn't you test it first if you're going to SPRAY IT OUT OF AIRPLANES. Ok, it's a test field and not downtown Charleston, but there's kids in the field drinking illicit beers. Zombism ensues.
The duster pilot is telling the scientists that southerners LOVE kudzu and "we even cook with it". I-- Like, I'm sure kudzu is edible but please be careful where you pick because anything, like, growing ROADSIDE isn't great for you, I'm pretty sure. They're cooking goats who eat the kudzu and feeding people at a festival, so I'm assuming that'll be a disease vector. There's some kind of weird jingoism where the scientists are a Japanese woman and a German man, and they don't understand the rich cultural ways of The Great American Sith.* (*autocorrect, and it stays.)
Two girls are kissing! Downside: all the men are sexualizing them and I'm pretty sure one of them is the sister of one of the infected boys which means she won't make it past the 30 minute mark. ....we are twenty minutes into this movie and I'm about to bail from sheer boredom. The big drama so far has been over competing meat pie booths. THEY'RE STILL GOING ON ABOUT PIES, WE'RE HAVING A FIVE MINUTE CONVERSATION ABOUT PIES. I'M OUT. Why would anyone make a zombie movie and then fill it with fair grounds bickering over meat pie ingredients.
Ok, maybe the problem was choosing a ZOMBIE movie. Let's try vampires. Oh hey BLOODRAYNE is on Amazon Prime. That was a video game, right? I love video game movies. The description says she's "part human, part vampire, and all woman." That's...not a good sign. [TW] Oh, and apparently her vampire sire raped her mother. I guess we're getting the sexual violence out of the way in the description. Huh, 5 replies already on my "hey BLOODRAYNE is on Amazon" tweet. That's either y'all telling me it's awesome or y'all trying to save me. NO TIME TO CHECK BEFORE PRESSING PLAY.
Oh no uwe boll. Like. I know...maybe three directors.
We're opening with Pretentious Medieval Art that supposedly proves vampires are totally real. I never know if these are fake. MEAT LOAF IS IN THIS FILM??? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SATURDAY NIIIIGHT. We're in generic Ye Olden Times.
Michelle Rodriguez is here I don't- Why.
Michael Madsen is here, I'm-
These are actual actors; I was led to believe actual actors knew about Uwe Boll by now. Uwe's name has been on screen four times now, you can't say we aren't warned. A bartender is giving them a lead on a carnival fortune teller; they're skeptical. A man walks up and asks for absinthe. A nearby mirror reveals he's a vampire, but honestly he ASKED FOR ABSINTHE. That's practically vampire movie shorthand for evil.
Why is there a fucking mirror on the bar, this is Ye Olden Times, that thing is expensive and drunks would break it. Is it just there for vampires. One of the hunters INSTANTLY stakes the guy; he crumbles into an ancient corpse and NOBODY IN THIS INCREDIBLY CROWDED BAR seems bothered. The bartender makes a quip. Ok!! Apparently this is normal!! I guess Rayne is already a vampire. She's a captive at the carnival. Water burns her skin, but drinking blood heals her. How can she have sewer levels if water burns her? All video games have sewer levels.
There's a young woman Rayne's age at the carnival and she's got an escape plan and I think they're in love. Oooh, right, she's a dhampir, not a vampire. The local Castle O' Vampires is upset about her being public (albeit against her will). [TW] A man tries to rape Rayne and she escapes the carnival, honestly movie, really? Jesus. I think he was a Black man, too, but I'm not sure because everything about this scene is super murky on my not-very-good tv, so don't quote me?? She's got, like, this Adrenaline Vision where everything is blurry and it's supposed to be artsy but it just makes everything hard to make out.
Oh, the hunters want to recruit her for help against the vampires. They arrive Too Late. Oh fuck, Rayne bit her girlfriend. The hunters kill the girlfriend, because honestly this movie. Hang on, the cats are fighting. Ok. Chip is just very frisky and Cookie is NOT, so there's friction. I wore them all out with the rainbow ribbon. Michelle's dad is a viscount and apparently part of the Hunter society, but he seems to have vampire marks on his neck that are accompanied by ominous music. You'd think you'd bite your mole in the thigh or something, but I guess No Homo rules trump subtlety.
On the road, vampires jump a family and Rayne jumps the vampires. Everyone knows what these things are!! They're so chill about using the word and everything! Is this alternate history? I'm not complaining, I just. Rayne has sensually sucked on TWO vampire ladies now so I am forced to call this a recurring theme. A fortune teller informs her where the plot is and the macguffin she needs to fetch. .....how are we only 20 minutes into this movie, it feels like hours.
The vampires appear to be moving in sunlight which, I mean, I know Dracula and everything, but it still seems vaguely wrong for the genre. Boy, Rayne just found the monastery "in the South" with no trouble whatsoever, huh. Her blood hunger really seems to come and go as the plot demands. Haha, nice, she found a puzzle room. Why...is the booby trap water? Does water burn ALL vampires? How do they...how...rain?? Oh my god, the Macguffin made water not burn her? I'm-
THE VAMPIRES WANT THE MAGIC AMULET OF WATER-NO-BURN. I CANNOT. I realize it's a creative replacement for sunlight, but water is in everything, it's most of what BLOOD is, this is just ridiculous. Well, now they're saying that sunlight does destroy them, so please kindly explain earlier. Lord God, how would vampires exist at all if sunlight AND water destroys them, like, I can't think of anything MORE ill-suited to life on this planet. Does oxygen give them a rash? That's the only way to make them even weaker than this.
OH, ok, the army from earlier was human thralls. Gee, movie, thanks for clearing that up now. This poor actress looks so uncomfortable with these ridiculous blades they have her using. Earlier in the movie: one tiny little drop of blood made Rayne go into a drugged rage. Now: hundreds dead from gushing sword wounds, she's fine. Rayne has been turned into the sexy sack of potatoes, which is unexpected when she's supposed to be the PLAYER CHARACTER AND PROTAGONIST.
Michelle appears to be picking up the protagonist mantle. Has there ever been a vampire--not a dhampir or daywalker or anything, just a REGULAR vampire--who hunted other vampires because it turns out that being turned doesn't brain wash you? SUNLIGHT burns her? But she was being hauled around in a carnival wagon with bars for walls????? PUTTING A VAMPIRE IN A BOAT KILLS THEM?? HOW DO THEY EXIST AT ALL.
The hunters decide to keep Rayne as a pet. Which is good because she NEEDS training. You'd think they'd give her clothes that aren't what her carnival captors dressed her in, but of course they have to match her video game look. Oh gosh, they seriously are offering her clothes. Hunter Boy tells her she hasn't got a lock on angst around here. This act of negging is apparently enough to spur her to jump him for sex and we get the contractually obligated tiddles.
Oh. Michelle knows her dad is a vampire. I just assumed that was some kind of reveal we were being set up for. I'm. She. Her dad, THE VAMPIRE, knows where the SECRET VAMPIRE HUNTER society is, and this is only just now become relevant????????? I gotta go get something to drink heavily. WHAT IS THE POINT OF TURNING A VAMPIRE HUNTER IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DEMAND ALL THEIR SECRETS.
Maybe the Big Bad didn't KNOW he was a vampire hunter? Maybe the guy had morals and didn't rat them out? WHO KNOWS, YOU GET TO MAKE UP YOUR OWN STORY AS THE VIEWER!! They're buying holy water, but I don't honestly understand why. Oh gosh the GUY WE ALL KNOW IS A VAMPIRE and we all know HE KNOWS THE LOCATION OF THIS PLACE attacked unexpectedly and our water did nothing against the human army WE KNOW THEY HAVE and which we know WAS LOOKING FOR US.
"How did they find us?" YOU KNOW HE USED TO WORK HERE!!! AND HE'S A VAMPIRE NOW!!! TAKE A BLOODY GUESS!!! My god, they're trying to set Michelle up to blame for this but it's NOT HER FAULT. Rayne, having spent her entire life burned by the merest touch of water, can now SWIM LIKE A FISH AND HOLD HER BREATH LIKE MICHAEL PHELPS.
Michelle is dead. God, the writing is just so bad.
You gotta love a big fight scene where the protagonist is SHACKLED for most of it. Men don't get treated this way in movies, I swear to god. I do love that she unexpectedly brought them the last relic in a little box and absolutely nobody opened it to check. Oh, and they lied to the audience by giving it the heartbeat sound effect as though it were in the box. Mentor is dead. He lasted longer than most mentors.
She straight up would've died without Love Interest. Twice.
With everyone dead, Rayne sits in the throne which ties in nicely with previous scenes in which uhhhhh she....wanted....to be royalty?? Yeah, no, I got nothing.
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