Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on April 29, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
”Even if you hate the movie, it’ll still look great,” said Rise: Blood Hunter writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez, introducing his film’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and acknowledging the contribution of double-Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll. As it turns out, I disagreed with both parts of that statement to different degrees; Toll’s images are good if unremarkable, and Rise itself, belying its long stint on the shelf, is a swift, efficient B-movie that doesn’t go anywhere surprising, but makes the trip an entertaining one. (Following its Tribeca screenings, the movie hits theaters June 1 from Destination Films and the Samuel Goldwyn Company.)
Gutierrez (who previously scripted and helmed cable’s The She Creature, wrote Gothika and contributed to the screenplays of Snakes on a Plane and the upcoming remake of The Eye) gets Rise’s ball rolling with an attention-grabbing sex-and-violence sequence. He then jumps back six months to reveal how Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu) was transformed from an ambitious reporter digging into the LA Goth scene into a victim of one of its more unpleasant factions. Rather than poser “vampires,” this group, led by the sadistic Bishop (James D’Arcy), are actual blood-drinkers who take exception to Sadie’s investigation of their misdeeds, and Bishop violently assaults her and leaves her for dead. The next thing Sadie knows, she’s waking up in a morgue drawer with a newly acquired taste for human plasma; good thing for her that a helpful alchemist quickly finds her, apprises her of her situation and arms her with a crossbow and a stock of silver arrows, the better to get revenge on the brood who made her undead.
Despite having this character on hand as a convenient source of exposition, Rise is one of a number of recent movies in which the word “vampire” never passes anyone’s lips. And as Sadie begins to experience life as one, Gutierrez casually dispenses with some of the subgenre’s conventions; she can walk in the sunlight (though it hurts her eyes something fierce) and first takes refuge in a church homeless shelter. But the film isn’t so revisionist as to pretend it’s about something other than vampires, and doesn’t shy away from their messy feeding habits. There’s a particularly squirm-inducing moment when Sadie first gives in to her hunger that proves it’s the small-scale makeup FX (here created by KNB) that often get the best, er, rise out of the audience.
As Sadie tracks and dispatches her “murderers” (a scenario with echoes of Kill Bill, in which Liu was on the other side of the revenge), the ghouls are also being pursued by a detective with a name (Clyde Rawlins) and an attitude right out of a hard-boiled pulp crime novel. Played by The Shield’s Michael Chiklis, he’s after them for killing his teenaged daughter, and his and Sadie’s paths eventually cross, with the expected early antagonism giving way to an expected partnership. Still, even if the basic circumstances of the climactic action are familiar, Gutierrez throws in a couple of unexpected nasty turns that keep things from becoming overly predictable. Throughout, the writer/director demonstrates a knack for pacing and occasional details—both dramatic and humorous—that maintain interest amidst the story’s conventional contours.
He’s also got the right actors in the leads, and has stocked Rise with a fun array of familiar faces in supporting and cameo roles. Liu adroitly handles the mix of dramatic and physical demands the part of Sadie requires, while Chiklis’ bullet-headed intensity is a fine fit for Rawlins. As the lead vampire (or whatever), D’Arcy delivers the appropriate menace, though both his lines and the British accent they’re spoken in are by now standard-issue for such supernatural baddies, and while Carla Gugino smolders persuasively as his femme-fatale second-in-command, she doesn’t get enough to do. Also part of the gang is the late veteran actor Mako (in his final screen appearance); Robert Forster turns up in the opening scene; and the film features appearances by the widely divergent music talents Marilyn Manson (not playing a creature of the night) and former boy-bander Nick Lachey as a good-for-nothing punk. Any movie that can find room for these two to both play against type clearly has a filmmaker with a sense of fun behind it, and touches like these help elevate Rise a couple of notches above the usual pack.
