BloodRayne

Hey there, gang! Well I hope you enjoyed the review of House of the Living Dead as much as I enjoyed watching it!  Oh wait. That is, I hope you found it clever and witty but are completely scared off from watching the forty gallons of diaper gravy.  Speaking of diaper gravy, I am back with an Uwe Boll movie.   I understand if many of you want to jump ship at this point and I can't say I blame you.  For those brave few willing to go down the rabbit hole with me, I thank you. This film as quotes of non-stop action and incredible special effects. Uh huh. With a fairly ensemble cast, this filth-ridden stink nugget slaps its source material in the same fashion Paul W.S. Anderson did for Resident Evil. This is Bloodrayne.

Dhampir genes or Maybeline?

Yes, I did review a Bloodrayne movie.  It was the third one because...well Natassia Malthe is yummy and The Third Reich was the only one of the three films that came close to being ANYTHING like the actual game. Kinda...sorta...okay, not really.  Today's pile of steaming donkey flop hails from the 18^th Century in...Europestown? Europesburg??? Yeah guess what? Never mentioned what region of the planet it is. Medieval Romania perhaps?

Anywho, the fans of the two games will know the hunters gathering, the Brimstone Society is roaming through ancient Romania (seems easy to say that, than I don't have a damn cluesville) because of master vampire Kagan is searching for the ancient relics of Belial. Again, game fans will know this character as the first devil that was overthrown by Mephisto and his various body parts that were scattered all over the planet obtain certain levels of power that you would deem them unholy relics.

In derpity derp derp film?? Belial's an antediluvian vampire of great legend that his body parts make vampires unstoppable.

Subtle vampires. No wonder they're easy to spot.

So three members of the Brimstone Society hear tale of a dhamphir (Human/Vampire Hybrid, yes like Blade) hiding in plain sight in a freakshow for a traveling circus.

The girl Rayne (Kristanna Loken of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, BloodRayne, Painkiller Jane, Bounty Killer, The L Word and Burn Notice) has fewer weaknesses than normal vampires that...constantly gets contradicted. Holy water unneeded in these here parts, folks. Well or tap water does plenty.  Also the town is a bit too nonchalant with a vampire being gacked but whatever.

After leaving the circus were she fed on several members of the troupe (Yup, no thirst issues!) she flees to a neighboring town where a fortune teller explains that Kagan (Sir Ben Kingsley of Coronation Street, Gandhi, Bugsy, Schindler's List, Anne Frank: The Whole Story and The House of Sand and Fog) has become the most powerful vampire of all and the only way to defeat him is to seek out the various body parts of Belial to strengthen her.

Yeah she took a big steaming plot dump there, folks. That was a ton of exposition that relied heavily of a) Fortune teller recognizing a dhampir b) having knowledge of these legends and locations of primordial relics and c) that Rayne might even be up to the task as she was captured by humans for entertainment.    Apparently Kagan has also heard the rumors of a dhampir child IN HIS FRIGGIN KINGDOM...yet has been unable to find her. Really busting ass there, bub.

Now before we go further, let me point out why I am being so harsh to this film. First off, I loved these two games, Rayne is a solid protagonist, fearless and has a cause to help the humans as well as, get even with her undead dick of a dad. Secondly, the storyline using elements of myth, legend and Dante's Inferno just made for good story telling. Third, she got to razzle Nazis!!!!

This film?   NONE OF THAT!!!  Bad Touch Boll didn't give any love to the source material at all.

Back to our cinematic oeuvre. Yeah, I know things. I don't just watch crappy films and critique. Sheesh.

Moving along, Rayne gets recruited by the Council of Ninny Hammers as they plan to kill of Kagan once and for all. You know, that old chestnut.  But enough about deeznuts, we see that Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez of The Fast and the Furious, Resident Evil, S.W.A.T. Blue Crush) doesn't trust Rayne while her mentor Vladimir (Michael Madsen of Resivoir Dogs, Species, Kill Bill Vol: 1, Hell Ride and Vigilantes Diaries) does seem to believe Rayne can be forged into a weapon.  HEY!  Why that's like the game!  When in 1933, Mynce, Rayne's mentor argues with John about Rayne's power could benefit them rather than they kill her.   Jinkies!   You did something right, Boll! Yeah, don't let it go to that pinhead.

Can Rayne and the Knights Who Say Nee thwart Kagan?? What the hell is Meat Loaf and Billy Zane doing in this stinker?? Has Sir Kingsley wiped this film from his IMDB Pro account???

Aside from basically ignoring all the fundamental concepts of the game series, this is a dull, slow paced film with decent CGI, choppy editing, piss poor camera work (PUT THE CAM BACK ON A STABLIZER YOU DAFT KRAUT!!!) visual goofs and so much continuity issues.

The flick turned a decent hack and slash adventure game into a sword and sorcery goofy romp. VO actress Laura Bailey (Dragon Ball Z, BloodRayne, BloodRayne 2,Fullmetal Alchemist, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIII, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim- Dawnguard and Gears of War 4), the original Rayne of the games must have been embarrassed as hell to see this flick.

Just loved some of the goofs. Our "director" part of the crowd watching the dhampir getting tortured is wearing an Omega wrist watch in the medieval crowd, Black Powder from China is a stupid line. 18^th century. FLINTLOCKS been around a while that point...for say about oh...200 years, you ass! Kagan's half-assed henchman, a vampire was able to cross running water and ride his horse out in the daylight. Um, say doesn't that contradict at least two legends??

Non stop action? No one was seated during the Billy Zane dictates a letter scene!!! You want a realistic subtitle?   BloodRayne: The Colon Stopper! Never has your ass fallen asleep so quickly!

So yes if you need a film tropes drinking game, this is your movie. You want to take your brain off the hook for 94 minutes? This is your movie. If you want complex characters, fascinating epic struggle against good and evil and developed plot that would stagger the naysayers of the ages??? Go get a decent book. 

Hot Topic Actionwear!

House of the Dead

Back again my loyal readers...by the by, I thank you for that. This time around I want to do another video game adaptation to film. Yes I know that most of these are quite painful to sit through. When we have had such examples as Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon and Van Dumb's Street Fighter, it is understandable that this subgenre of film can be considered a turd in a punch bowl at a prestigious party. That being said, Paul W.S. Anderson's Mortal Combat, Jan de Bont's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Corey Yuen's DOA: Dead or Alive and even Michael J. Bassett's Silent Hill: Revelation are all extremely close to the original source material. With some of these games there was not a lot of character and story development and the story that was there may have been too far fetched for causal gamers to appreciate. With that in mind, I wish to discuss the diaper stain that is Uwe Boll's work. This is House of the Dead.

Icky, there's dust and bodies.  So not cool.

As a first person shooter game from the original arcade created by Sega, the story of two agents of AMS and all boss creatures are named after the Major Arcana of tarot cards created by the mad scientist Dr. Curien dabbling in biotech, the occult and even alchemy. Nifty and easy enough to follow, right? Whelp, screw all that mildly clever story telling. Instead let's have the patented Uwe Boll main character narrative over several chunks of the movie or I have been calling it "The Expositioner". No need for complicated story arc, character building or even agents of AMS or even Dr. Curien. Huh? Then you ask, "Well Jake, if this has no direct connection to the original source material, what is left?" Well let me enlighten you all. Boobs and zombies.

Yup, scantily clad jiggly girls and zombies that I suppose are close to Curien's creatures but no doctor on the scene. This is all supposed to be a rave on a remote island near Seattle. So no agents Thomas Rogan or G. Nope instead a gaggle of twenty somethings drinking, screwing and dancing the night away. 5 twenty somethings need to get to the island ASAP before all the booze and loose people are napping. They approach Clint Howard making yet another regular link-up with Boll via character actor alongside Jurgen Prochnow of Da Boot, Judge Dredd, The Replacement Killers and NCIS: Los Angeles as Captain Kirk. Yup Uwe Boll must be a huge Shatner fan. With an offer of a thousand clams, Kirk takes them to La isla de los muertos ( Island of the Dead, Gringos!) for the “Rave of the Century” but apparently no one does their homework like: mapping the area, safely having the dock set aside for incoming boats or here's something nutty, knowing the name of the island you are raving at.

MANGA LEAP!!!!

Our quintet of cannon fodder makes their way on the island to see the place is thrashed and no one appears to be around when a film freak and few of his red shirts tell them about the roving zombies shucking and devouring party goers like so many oysters on the half shell. Kirk's ship is under attack by the zombies and he is smoking a cigar to techno music for some reason...kinda pictured something of classical or opera like The Flying Dutchman as he one hands them with a 44. Desert Eagle. He makes his way back to the island with enough firepower to occupy France for the next two weeks. Will our collective heads of knuckle make it out? If they survive, will they skip raves again?

Aside from the creatures i.e. Zombies, there is nothing that resembles House of the Dead at all. Boll just made "Rave On the Island of the Dead", pocketed money on the back end and moved on to his next bastardization of a video game adaptation. The practical effects are on the cheap as you see plenty of rubber masks on the zombie extras, this damn 360 pan is done far too many times and they splice scenes from the arcade game as if that is to remind you that there is a link from the game to the film. The actors' performance feels stilted as if they are reading from cue cards and didn't have a script to consult so everything uttered sounds off and unnatural.  The lack of a stabilizer in the camera gives the patented shaky cam view that Boll thinks is awesome...for making viewers to puke from jarring zooms and pans.

Oh FYI, Takashi Oda the creator of The House of the Dead never bothered to give this acronym an actual title. They're just an international organization. Picture INTERPOL with X-Files.

Those guys kicked me out of the cemetery...sniffle.

Rotten Ramblin' On # 3: The Evils of Uwe Boll.

Well  folks I am having a wee bit of issue with Sound Cloud so we are going through Google Drive directly for this Rotten Ramblin' On podcast of Uwe Boll.  His movies, his legacy and his coniption fits.  THIS is NSFW and Adult Language!!!!  Guess I will have to sort out something for that later.


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9o0xM1p10TbSWJ2c1E4aHc2NFk/0B9o0xM1p10TbUjdyS0RVd3Z4NlE