Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Director: Sebastian Gutierrez
Starring: Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino

Synopsis:
A journalist attacked by vampires and left for dead turns into one herself and then seeks revenge on those responsible.

Impressions:
Although I only saw part of Innocent Blood years ago, this movie reminds me of it. I'm sure a lot of people are suffering from vampire fatigue and given the saturation of the market, you really have to do something special to stand out. Does this movie do that? No, not really. It's a newly turned vampire's revenge story with a parallel plot of a human cop investigating the string of deaths. There's potential here, I'll admit, but it feels underdeveloped. I'd almost argue that the enemy vampires needed to be cartoon characters so they'd at least be memorable since there isn't the time to flesh out a subtler characterization. I've always found Lucy Liu fairly bland, which makes it a shame that she's effectively the only Chinese-American woman in Hollywood. This means we don't have a terribly compelling main character. Michael Chiklis is okay as the bereaved detective on the trail of his daughter's murderer, but he seems rather peripheral until the third act. James D'Arcy isn't bad as the main baddie Bishop and he's the only one of the four villainous vampires that gets anything close to sufficient screentime. If the story and characters manage to draw you in, you're likely to feel unsatisfied. It's far from the worst vampire story I've seen, but it's only so-so in the final tally. I guess if you're a Lucy Liu fan, you might have extra reason to see this, so there's that.

Rating:
50/50