Rise: The Blood Hunter (DVD, 2007, Unrated)

Good vampire thriller that sees reporter Sadie Blake played by
Lucy Liu (Kill Bill - Vol. 1) awaken to find herself in a morgue,
transformed into a member of the undead by a vampire cult. With
help from a cop (Michael Chiklis) who lost his daughter to the
same cult, Sadie plots her revenge and embarks on a mission
against those who took her life. Carla Gugino and James D'arcy
co-star in this very good vampire flix. Rocker Marilyn Manson
also does some acting here in the part of a bartender to add to
the movie. Director Sebastian Gutierrez has tried a couple of
horror movies (She Creature & Elektra Lux) but this is his best
so far-while not a great movie--it is a nice improvement from his
first two trys. This is a movie that horror movie and vampire movie
devotees will certainly enjoy and it will give them a good nights
entertainment.

While Rise: Blood Hunter isn't a terrible film, it's a predictable one. This is meant to be a revisionist vampire film (no one actually uses the word vampire in the movie) but these are the same trendy vampires that have haunted the screen since Blade. Is it too much to ask someone to try and shake up the vampire film the way Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red did with Near Dark? Or Larraz did with Vampyres (over 30 years ago)? Can't we just get a little Nosferatu around here? Instead what we have here is a journalist by the name of "Sadie" (Lucy Lui) who discovers that a young goth girl she briefly covered in a recent article has been found dead and a hidden message she left behind may lead to her killer's whereabouts. What she discovers is a secret underground group of vampires, who feed on unsuspecting women. Sadie becomes their latest victim, but instead of being left for dead, is turned into one of them. After she awakens in the morgue, she must come to terms with her new self and is enlisted by a mysterious Spanish man, who gives her the means and know-how on how to find and destroy the vampires that turned her.

This movie proved to be another interesting take on the vampire mythos. The vamps in this flick are fangless and really show no signs of being Nosferatu, with the exception of their strength, lack of a reflection, and thirst for blood. They're not afraid of crosses, and we're not shown whether the old garlic theory works on them. Sadie doesn't even use wooden stakes to kill them; instead she seems to use metal bolts shot from her small crossbow. Although the flick is very slow-paced and doesn't offer a whole lot of the typical vampire action we're accustomed too, it does show a different side to the legend, by following Sadie from the moment she awakens in the morgue, to how she gradually copes with her thirst, and eventually finding strength in herself to confront those that harmed her.

The whole sequence where she awakens in the morgue, to her trip to a homeless shelter, where she feeds on her first victim, was somehow mesmerizing to me. I also liked a scene where she finally accepts the fact that she needs to feed and picks up a hitchhiker in a secluded road. From the homeless shelter to her reactions and awkward dialogue with the hitchhiker, the film seemed to portray a kind of realism behind vampirism and the need to feed. That, and my general interest with revenge-type flicks, led me to enjoy the movie mildly. Since this isn't your typical vampire film, there's no flying, clawing, or neck biting, so the gore is kept at a minimum. There is, however, a lot of blood spurting and bolts to the heart. In the end, what it lacks in gore and action, it makes up for in story.

The whole sequence where she awakens in the morgue, to her trip to a homeless shelter, where she feeds on her first victim, was somehow mesmerizing to me. I also liked a scene where she finally accepts the fact that she needs to feed and picks up a hitchhiker in a secluded road. From the homeless shelter to her reactions and awkward dialogue with the hitchhiker, the film seemed to portray a kind of realism behind vampirism and the need to feed. That, and my general interest with revenge-type flicks, led me to enjoy the movie mildly. Since this isn't your typical vampire film, there's no flying, clawing, or neck biting, so the gore is kept at a minimum. There is, however, a lot of blood spurting and bolts to the heart. In the end, what it lacks in gore and action, it makes up for in story.

Rise is a top movie. The best movie with Lucy Liu. The us-version is longer than german/europian version( ca. 20min longer). The germany-version have more gore scence and is better to understand, too english language. The us-version had a other cut of the movie, (more Lucy). All scence are longer and better to understand. Also buy the german- and the us-DVD .
Thanks marcnoss87

I originally saw this movie on Sci-Fi channel and knew I had to have it. This unrated version is extremely brutal, getting into how immortality can twist one's mind over time. The portrayal of the vampires within this movie are extremely realistic; not all glitter and special effects. This movie takes me back to the vampires in Near Dark, which was another extremely realistic version of vampires. Lucy Lui is priceless, as always, in her portrayal of the revenging victim, and Michael Chiklis is perfect in his role. This film was great, even in the details, such as when Lucy's character arrives at a crime scene and absently licks the blood off her fingertip. Loved it!