Games, movies, comics and books. Whichever your poison may be, we all instinctively have a morbid curiosity for the unappealing among them. The kind that look just tantalising enough for you to want to take a small bite. 
Screen Savers is on hand to take a chunk out of the bitter and satisfy your cravings. We check them out, so that you don’t have to!
BloodRayne is our movie for this week. An Uwe Boll directed film that I was tempted to give a lighter treatment based on the possibility that I might end up getting challenged to a boxing match (as Uwe Boll has been known to do).
What’s it about?
Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a human/vampire hybrid known as a Dhampir. She has lived a life of enslavement as a sideshow attraction for a circus located in a vague European country in a presumably medieval setting. I say presumably as Raynes attire is fresh off the rack from Hot Topic. After an awkward attempted assault scene by a vagrant, Rayne ends up escaping the circus and joins a gang of disinterested actors dressed as vampire hunters.
This Michael Madsen led troupe of vampire hunters decide that Rayne is sound enough and they can’t be bothered killing her. They band together in order to accomplish the same end goal. Madsen makes Rayne a member of his troupe that is seeking to murder a powerful vampire named Kagan (Ben Kingsley). Fortunately, Rayne is well up for this as she is Kagan’s daughter who loathes him for the cruelty he displayed towards her mother in the past.
A fortune-teller warns Rayne that the only way to defeat Ben Kingsley is by giving him a sizable pay cheque and first class tickets to Germany. Truthfully, she reveals that a talisman and a magical eye will guide the way to Kagan, enabling her to get the revenge she desires. All of this is based on a PS2 game of the same name that handles its subject material vastly better.
Who is in it?
A shocking amount of well-known actors in bizarrely chosen roles. I have a belief that the Uwe Boll method of choosing his cast involves two paper cups. One cup is labelled ‘Actors’ and the other is labelled ‘Characters’. Inside one cup is an assortment of roles in his current movie that 
he is making and in the other cup is a list of big names that will work for the amount of money he will offer. The casting process is Boll pulling out one from each cup.
Ah, Michelle Rodriguez! Great. I will contact her in the morning. She will be playing the role of… a British vampire hunter who is the daughter of Billy Zane. Well, I don’t think Michelle has an English accent in her range and she is almost definitely around the same age as Billy, but sure, fuck it!
It isn’t even the bizarre miscasting that is really the worst aspect. There isn’t one person aside from our lead who cares about this movie. Michael Madsen is ambivalent in every scene he appears in. Michelle Rodriguez is unwilling to step outside her bad girl persona in a character that obviously needs more attention to illustrating the leadership qualities that she apparently has according to everyone. Ben Kingsley and Billy Zane assuredly had one day of shooting each as they barely appear in the movie, yet still manage to have a subdued uninteresting performance. At the very least, if you are on set for one day, make it a performance to be remembered. There is a distinct feeling of holding back from all involved. This was never going to be a classic, but it could have been enjoyably cheesy had there been a modicum of effort.
Is it really bad?
It is quite bad. Whilst not expressly as bad as Dead or Alive last week, It suffers a lot from bad writing and being slow overall. There is never really a moment of feeling riveted even among scenes of excessive gore. It is quite a tall order to sit through it, despite its one hour and twenty-minute run time. Where I give props to BloodRayne is in its makeup and practical effects. Therein lies an additional problem, though. The blood work is of the Evil Dead variety – comically over the top as if it is meant to be satirical. This would work efficiently if the tone of the movie was not so dour. The contrasting style of wanting to be taken seriously versus the improbable impalements and goofy amount of blood 
spewing out of cadavers is ludicrous. The make up artists who worked on this were squandered and would have been put to better use in a comedy.
Above all else, BloodRayne falls down by virtue of its muddled script. The acting on hand might not be up to scratch, but there is very little to work with at the same time. Emotion is hard to find in the dialogue. Characters never bat an eye at the death of a vampire before them or the killing of an innocent. Investment is nigh impossible when the characters are written to be undeterred by everything. A plot filled with remorseless killers moving from one victim to the next is a byproduct of a script without direction.
Familiarity with vampire lore is cast aside in favour of rules plucked partly from the game, but mostly out of thin air. Water can kill vampires. Only those blessed by a magic eye can stand against it. This would be an interesting plot point had it been explored further. It comes into play twice. The first is to torture our protagonist. The second is idiotic, given that it is during a water trial designed to kill vampires that is triggered by grabbing the aforementioned magic eye that grants immunity. It is lazy storytelling when you introduce a concept to an established lore only to have it be ultimately inconsequential.
Relationships in this movie are alien to human nature. Exposition and bemoaning parental roles are the bread and butter of the dialogue. Conversations are forced to the point that nothing being said is ever a genuine interaction. Basically, there is no realism or urgency to these characters that we are being told care about each other. An insulting example of this movie’s idea of a relationship involves Rayne and one of the vampire hunters hooking up precisely a minute after meeting. The only common factor ever shared between the two being a dead parent.
Do not misunderstand me when I say that BloodRayne is truly fascinating. It is jarring, flippant and hackneyed in execution. The only reason I kept going was disbelief at the lack of effort on the part of the writers, the director and the actors. The saving grace of this movie was the effects team and, funnily enough, the lead, as she conveyed certain interesting traits that surprised me. If you would like to see the good moments of this movie, watch the last four minutes. Rayne sits upon a throne and a montage of the film’s bloodier scenes are played. It roughly sums up the only reason you are watching in the first place; blood.
What vampire movies should I watch instead?
30 Days of Night, Fright Night, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Lost Boys or Interview with a Vampire
BloodRayne didn’t get my blood boiling, nor did it suck the life right out of me. It left me pining for a movie that isn’t so mired in mediocrity.
