Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"My mission is my own, and not of evil intent."

2005 R / Horror Action

Directed by:
Uwe Boll

Starring:
Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez, Ben Kingsley

Tagline

    Driven by revenge.

Summary Capsule

    Bloodrayne joins the half-human, half-vampire club, and becomes one of a million such folk hunting down Ultimate Evil.

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Justin's Rating: This is the day the music died.
Justin's Review: Not that all video games hold great storylines, but when you're a notoriously bad film director who acquires a game franchise that can be summed up in "Vampire vixen fights Nazis", you do NOT take out the word "Nazis" and insert the phrase "renaissance fair rejects" unless you want to be smacked like a bad, bad donkey, mkay?

"Meat Loaf in a white fluffy wig doing blood shots off of naked prostitutes! Not just movie prostitutes, but REAL hookers! This, I command!"
Infamous director Uwe Boll continues to march on with his slaughter of video game movie adaptations, all the while convincing himself that he's the movie messiah and merely misunderstood in his time. That's okay, he can have his delusions — but does he have to foist them upon us?

So far, the video games that Boll has massacred were not the most near and dear to a majority of gamers. Bloodrayne is no different. Despite the semi-cool "vampire vs. Nazis" hook, the Bloodrayne games were standard, easily-forgotten fighting games that only remained in the public eye because someone thought it'd be a great idea to throw Bloodrayne into a Playboy magazine spread. Seriously. Still, I would've tolerated even Uwe Boll doing this movie, if he just allowed us to vicariously enjoy some vampiric payback on the Third Reich. No such luck.

Instead, we get Bloodrayne: Brought To You By Cherry Kool-Aid, an overly gory, sloppy mess of a film that's just as incoherent and silly as Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead. One can only imagine Boll's preproduction sessions:

    BOLL: So everyone in the world hates me and I was laughed off stage at my 10th year high school reunion… I am the GREATEST director alive! I almost got Tara Reid's phone number — she was SO into me… oh, those luscious lips…

    ASSISTANT: Um, Mr. Boll? The movie?

    BOLL: Ah, yes! It shall be my most glorious achievement! You taking notes? Good. Michael Madsen with a giant hair metal wig! Horsies! Gypsies! Ben Kingsley raping people! Billy Zane! Dismembered vampire body parts! That chick from Terminator 3, but only if she agrees to go topless! Oh! Oh! And Meat Loaf in a white fluffy wig doing blood shots off of naked prostitutes! Not just movie prostitutes, but REAL hookers! This, I command!

    ASSISTANT: Hail Caesar!

I scarcely need more ammunition to torment Mr. Boll with, but when he continues to drop offal in my lap like Bloodrayne, how can I resist? If I didn't see his other two video game works, I'd say this is easily one of the silliest things I've ever seen. In comparison to Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead, I'd say it's in the top three. Arranged however you like.

Your greatest glee as a movie viewer subjecting themselves to Bloodrayne is to bear witness to a trifecta of bad acting, bad directing, and a bad story. You will howl with laughter at the pseudo-Proper English that spouts from every misconstrued line of dialogue. You will spend sleepless nights wondering who decided to put goofy wigs on all of the male cast. You will grow easily bored the fifty-second time someone slashes a sword and a veritable fountain of red Kool-Aid spouts from their chest. You will shrug in befuddlement while trying to figure out the mess of a plot involving vampire body parts, vampire hybrids, and your prerequisite vampire fighting organization known as "Brimstone". Which honestly sounds like a type of beer. What you will NOT do is respect the filmmaking instincts or find this "cool" except if you're watching this in a restaurant freezer.

There's a lot of overcompensating going on here, mostly in terms of cleavage and large swords, but can I just go back to the acting? It amazes me that these are fairly well-known and sometimes professional actors who got sucked into this mess, then gave it about 15% for the whole bit. Madsen looks drunk and disoriented (which he probably was, according to reports), Michelle Rodriguez tries so very hard to overcome her gag reflex in mouthing Victorian phrasing, Ben Kingsley tries to sound menacing with a dead possum on his head, and Loken is nothing more than a pair of breasts with a grumpy attitude.

No cliché, from the prisoner pretending to be "sick" to escape a cell, to the "I have to leave you because everyone I loves dies" scene, is left alone. Boll happily strips himself naked and rolls around in this stuff before breakfast every day, or so I'm told.

This is the type of film that can't be taken the way the director intended, mouths pursed in admiration and hands rising to clap in approval. If you're able to watch this to the very ridiculous end — one of the dumbest and most nonsensical endings of any film I've EVER watched, and that's saying a lot — without losing bladder control and requesting a friend to hit you with any hard object nearby, just to dull the pain, then you are my hero.


Meat Loaf does Macbeth


Hers are the magical bosoms


This is pretty much the director's own personal fantasy

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

  • Chicken decapitation in minute one!
  • Michael Madsen looks kinda girly with long hair
  • What's worse than slo-mo? Blurry fast-mo!
  • Ack! Horrible horseback riding exposition dialogue!
  • Nobody really questions it when you come by and decapitate and burn corpses
  • Billy Zane said "beseech"
  • Brimstone Fortress? Seriously?
  • If there are vampires and women, you just know they're going to do the whole "vampire lesbian" angle
  • Friends turn other friends into vampires
  • So… it's a body part scavenger hunt?
  • Boll sure loves the blood…
  • It's Meat Loaf, with a wig, and a load of naked prostitutes
  • The inevitable training montage
  • Everybody's got a sad story when it comes to vampires…
  • …and it always gets you vampire sex when you tell them
  • Every time someone in this film says the word "thrall", I want to giggle
  • Billy Zane doesn't like heads tossed in his direction
  • What the HECK is up with the ultra-gory montage ending? How does that make sense with anything?

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

    *gurgle*

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

    The half-naked prostitutes in the scene with Leonid (Meat Loaf) are actually real Romanian prostitutes. According to director Uwe Boll (at the Stockholm International Film Festival) it was cheaper to hire real prostitutes than actresses.

Groovy Quotes

    Rayne: My mission is my own, and not of evil intent.

    [said completely deadpan]
    Rayne: What do your loyalties consist of.
    Girl: You're the curious one.

    Bad guy: You, my dear, will stay here until the ceremony.
    Rayne: I know nothing about the ceremony.

    Kid: Can I see your teeth?

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End Credits

This review page was last updated on 6.9.06

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