BloodRayne (film)

BloodRayne is a 2005 horror/fantasy film directed by Uwe Boll. The film stars Kristanna Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane, and Matthew Davis. It is based on the video game of the same name from Majesco and the game developer, Terminal Reality.

The film was the third video game movie adaptation by Uwe Boll who previously made the movies based on House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. The film was critically panned upon its release, did poorly at the box office and was disliked by co-star Madsen.

Loosely based on the video game of the same name, the film centers on the character of Rayne (Kristanna Loken), an unholy breed of human and vampire called a Dhampir. Dhampir are unaffected by crucifixes and do not thirst for human blood. She is the daughter of the Vampire King Kagan (Ben Kingsley) who has gathered an army of thralls, both vampire and human, in order to annihilate the human race. She was conceived when Kagan raped her mother, and she later witnessed him killing her.

Sebastian (Matthew Davis), Vladimir (Michael Madsen), and Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez) are three members of the Brimstone Society, who fight vampires. They hear of a carnival freak who may be a Dhampir, Vladimir plans to recruit her in order to kill Kagan. Kagan is also hunting for her fearing she will interfere with his plans. Rayne escapes captivity at the carnival. On the road she encounters and saves a family being attacked by vampires. A fortune teller reveals to Rayne that Kagan has become the most powerful vampire in the land and resides in a well protected castle. She tells Rayne that Kagan seeks an ancient talisman, a mystical eye, and if it would allow her to gain an audience with Kagan. Rayne sets out to the monastery to find it.

Rayne shelters for the night at the monastery and later sneaks away to where the talisman is guarded by a hammer-wielding deformed monk. The talisman is protected by further booby traps and when Rayne lifts it from the pedestal the chamber floods with water. As Rayne hangs from the ceiling to avoid the water the talisman falls from the box but she catches the eye ball. Examining it closely the eye magically becomes absorbed into her own eye and when she falls into the water she somehow unaffected by it.

When she leaves the chamber the monks explain the artifact is one of three body parts which came from an ancient vampire called Belial who had found a way to overcome the weaknesses of a vampire. The eye overcomes holy water; the rib overcomes the cross; and the heart overcomes sunlight. The parts have been hidden across the lands. As Kagan wants all these parts, it becomes the heroes' mission to stop him.

Rayne is brought to the headquarters of the Brimstone society and they agree to work together to kill Kagan. Katarin does not trust Rayne and betrays Brimstone to her father Elrich who has fallen in league with Kagan, but seeks to betray him and gain power for himself. The location of the heart talisman is known to Katrin as her grandfather hid it in water filled caves. She seeks it out but Rayne fights and kills her for it. With the talisman attempts to gain an audience before Kagan, but he takes the heart and throws her in the dungeon. He plans to extract the eye as part of a ritual. He realizes too late Rayne had only given him an empty box and not the heart.

Sebastian and Vladmir intervene battling Kagan and his minions but both are fatally wounded leaving Rayne in a final battle against Kagan. As Sebastian dies he fires a final bolt from his crossbow but Kagan is too quick and is able to catch it, but Rayne is able to summon her last reserves of strength and plunge the bolt into his heart. The battle ended Rayne seats herself in Kagans throne and remembers with a smile, then finally leaves the castle and rides off into the distance.

• Kristanna Loken as Rayne, a Dhampir, half human, half vampire. Loken described director Boll as very relaxed and easy to work with.^[2]
• Michael Madsen as Vladimir
• Ben Kingsley as Kagan, King of Vampires
• Michelle Rodriguez as Katarin
• Matthew Davis as Sebastian
• Will Sanderson as Domastir
• Geraldine Chaplin as Fortune Teller
• Udo Kier as Regal Monk
• Meat Loaf as Leonid, a hedonistic vampire Lord
• Michael Paré as Iancu
• Billy Zane as Elrich. Father of Katarin. Has fallen in league with Kagan. Zane described it as a pleasure to work with such a decisive director.^[3]
• Darren Shahlavi as Priest

Filming took place in Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains. Filming also took place in Dracula's castle.^[3]

On January 6, 2006, the film opened in 985 theaters across the United States. It was originally to have played at up to 2,500 theaters, but that number dropped to 1,600 and ended up lower due to prints being shipped to theaters that had not licensed the film.^[4][5]

Billy Zane was involved with distributor Romar Entertainment and Uwe Boll later sued him for revenue owed.^[6]

In its opening, the film only made $1,550,000 USD.^[1] The film ended up grossing $3,591,980 USD (June 2006) on a budget of $25 million.^[1]

BloodRayne was universally panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of only 4%, meaning that out of 49 reviews only 2 were positive.^[7] It was ranked 48th in Rotten Tomatoes's 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s.^[8] Metacritic gave the film a score of 18% based on 13 reviews, summarizing the reviews as "overwhelming dislike.^[9]

Star Michael Madsen had sharply divided feelings about the film. While he strongly despised the film's final cut and production and has called BloodRayne "a horrifying and preposterous movie", he said he enjoyed working with Boll and would certainly work with him again if asked.^[10]

Laura Bailey, who was the voice of Rayne in the BloodRayne games, was asked at her panel at Anime Boston 2007 what her thoughts were on the film adaptation, and said "Oh God, that movie sucked. And that movie was so bad. I saw it on The Movie Channel and I couldn't even get through 20 minutes of it! It was so bad and it was kinda sad that they took that because I really liked the games."^[11]

Critics ridiculed Boll for hiring actual prostitutes instead of actors for a scene featuring Meat Loaf in order to save on production costs.^[12][13] They were allegedly only paid €150.^{[citation needed]}

Writer Guinevere Turner stated in the 2009 documentary 'Tales from the Script' that when she turned in her first draft of the film's script two weeks late, rather than asking for redrafts Boll accepted it and then made many of his own changes; and he then asked the actors to "take a crack at it".

Some critics were more forgiving of the film. Berge Garabedian of JoBlo's movie reviews described as the film as "actually pretty decent…for what it is" namely a video game adaptation, with a hot lead actress in the form of Kristanna Loken, and number of surprisingly fun and bloody action sequences. He acknowledges the dialog is poor and the story lame but says the film is "not as bad as you’d suspect" and an adequate bloody low-budget vampire film.^[14]

Steve Chupnick of the Latino Review gave the film a B rating, saying that although it was not a good film it was far from the worst he's seen and mentioned the Kristanna Loken nude scene as something in the films favor.^[15]

The film was nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards including, Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Kristanna Loken), Worst Supporting Actor (Ben Kingsley), Worst Supporting Actress (Michelle Rodriguez), Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. Bloodrayne did not win any, as it was dominated by Basic Instinct 2 and Little Man with seven nominations each.^[16]

In 2009, Time listed the film #6 on their list of top ten worst video games movies.^[17]

The film was number one on Gametrailers countdown of the worst video game movies ever. The reviewers from Gametrailers said that "every actor is miscast, every wig is too fake, every sex scene is too inappropriate, and every action scene is too improvised."^[18]

In 2007, a sequel BloodRayne II: Deliverance was made. Natassia Malthe replaced Loken in the lead role.^[19] Unlike the first movie, BloodRayne II: Deliverance went direct-to-video.

Due for release in 2010, a third, BloodRayne 3: The Third Reich has been announced, Natassia Malthe reprises her role as BloodRayne.^[20]

Next to the R-rated version which was shown in cinemas, a more violent unrated director's cut was published on DVD. Overall, the unrated version includes three extended violent scenes as well as an extended ending.^[21]

A directors cut version of the DVD included a second DVD with a full copy of the BloodRayne 2 video game.^[22]

• Official website
• BloodRayne at IMDb
• BloodRayne at AllMovie

• Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension
• BloodRayne review
• Interview with Uwe Boll^{[dead link]} – Now Playing magazine