Rise: Bloodhunter

USA, 2007

Director: Sebastian Gutierrez
Starring: Lucy Liu, Paul Cassell, Carla Gugino, Robert Forster
IMDB: 5.0

"Sex and murder are the only REAL pleasures left to man."

Firstly I'll 'fess up ... vampire movies are one of my favourite genres, and Lucy Liu is one of my favourite ass-kicking actresses. Combine the two and what isn't there to love? To say I was looking forward to this movie is an understatement.

The movie starts promisingly with Sadie (Lucy Liu) luring a young supermodel-type back to her master's den for a bit of lesbo action. [Queue Hot scene #1: Lucy Liu tongue kissing a naked blonde supermodel - damn these guys really know their target audience]. Unfortunately, its all a ruse, as Sadie is only bringing the poor girl back for the depraved use of her master. It seems Sadie has had enough of her master though, and despatches him to hell with a crossbow before he can enjoy his breakfast.

This seems to piss off the powers that be, and pretty soon Sadie is kidnapped and brought to a mansion to pay for her transgression. Predictably, this involves being turned into a vampire in the age-old tradition of neck biting - in this case by a vampire couple who like to mix a bit of sex in with their vampirism. [Queue Hot scene #2: Lucy Liu in a vampiric threesome culminating in some tender, blood-soaked, post-coital affection]. Sweet.

Bishop: "Sexy Sadie, I honestly don't know what to do first. Fuck you, or kill you."
Eve: "Kill her".

Sadie however, is not aware of what happened, and wakes up in the morgue to slowly discover that she's not quite what she was before. Cos now she's an ass-kicking vampire!

This is a stylish, well-made Vampire flick with good acting and a decent budget. It's a sensual mix of sex and blood that is a staple of the best vampire movies. In fact, it's so well made it rises above 'b-movie' status - not an easy task for a vampire movie!

As far as movies in the Vampiric sub-genre are concerned, this one takes the realism route - producing a believable horror rather than a fantasy. The kill scenes are impressively realistic ... after a kill, faces and bodies are drenched in blood as you'd expect! Likewise, Sadie's thirst for blood poignantly portrays the gruesome desperation of being a newly-turned vampire in a raw and honest way.

It's not easy to bring something new to the vampire genre, and this film doesn't .... but what it does do is take the best aspects from many previous efforts, update them to 2007, and produce a slick, sexy vampire movie that should be in any vampire afficianados collection.

And of course, we get to see a vampiric Lucy Liu soaked in blood and kicking ass. That's good enough for me.

7/10

Screencaps

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Trailer