Bloodrayne (2005) is fun, bloody trash - Review

I can't in good conscience say this one was as bad as people say. I had a lot of fun, even with its dumb ideas and flaws, it's not a movie I would call terrible or awful because it features a lot of fun scenes and even some laughs. 

Bloodrayne was based on a videogame of the same name, I might get to it eventually for the blog but the movie is so different it doesn't even matter. It was directed by the guy who made lots of bad video game adaptations in the last two decades, Uwe Boll. He gave us some really fun trashy movies with female heroes, such as the Bloodrayne movies and Blubberella, all of them widely hated.

I will begin this cycle of Boll heroines with the first film in the Bloodrayne trilogy. It's about a female vampire named Rayne, played by Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3, Mercenaries, Dark Power, Bounty Killer), whose mother was abused and murdered by Kagan, the vampire king. Being in the 18th century, she's held captive in a freakshow, but she escapes and meets with a group of vampire slayers, joining them in their quest of destroying the vampire King.

Rayne is a stoic and mostly emotionless vampire/vampire slayer but she means good and doesn't attack innocent people, in fact, she often saves humans from vicious bloodsuckers. She gets her signature blades because they were part of the act of a girl she was friends with at the carnival, the girl got bitten by Rayne before escaping (and was eventually killed by her nemesis) but the main character grew attached to her weapon in order to remember her only friend during those dark times.

The vampire hunters are searching for Rayne because they are aware of her being a relative of the vampire king but she eventually wins their trust and they team up. The best scenes are the fight scenes, predictably, even if they are too clunky and edited way too fast to be properly followed. I loved the sequence of Rayne entering the monastery in order to find a talisman and encountering several badly rendered spinning blades and a ghastly-looking deformed monster with a huge hammer. 

The protagonist is serviceable and fun to watch but her relationship with the main male hero is very rushed and unconvincing, they even have sex before the last act, which is a very forced and exploitative scene that makes zero sense.

Michelle Rodriguez is there too, she plays Katarin, another member of the vampire killers. She initially seems like the typical badass girl of the group, known territory for Rodriguez but the plot has her being jealous and wary of Rayne, only to have her betray the vampire slayers and our heroine. Rayne and Katarin have a good training session with a rivalry subtext that makes it fun and their underwater battle it's another highlight. 

There are also some generic henchwomen and warrior ladies among the good guys and the vampires. Nothing too noticeable but for an action/fantasy movie of the time this features some neat female presence in its cast. So it's not without its merits.