SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

trashgang Just a mediocre vampire flick although the word vampire is never spoken throughout this flick. The story is very simple. Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu)is a journalist researching a bloody cult but is going too far with her research by visiting a house. Once in the basement she discovers blood and death and is captured to be transformed into a vampire. From there on she's out for revenge to kill those who turned her.Of course this flick is full of silly lines but do offer a few bloody and even messy shots and here and there we do have some nudity even from Lucia herself. You can guess it all what is happening and it doesn't offer anything new to the genre. Funny to see is the cameo of Marilyn Manson as a bartender but you have to watch closely because he doesn't have any lenses on. Ideal for a Saturday night enjoyment. Gore 1/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Vomitron_G Decent enough vampire movie which turned out less slick-looking than I thought it would be. "Rise: Blood Hunter" is stylishly put together, gently embracing the film noir genre even. With Lucy Liu in the main lead, showing a lot of skin on more than one occasion, as a reporter-turned-vampire hunting down a sect of the undead. There are some fun cameos by Marilyn Manson and Robert Forster to enjoy. The film did somewhat lack a decent climax at the end, though. Classic vampire lovers might perhaps be disappointed trying this one out, as it's got a more contemporary feel to it instead of the Gothic type of vibe I was expecting.

Cedric_Catsuits I was very pleasantly surprised, having found this DVD in the bargain basement section. I thought the combination of Lucy Liu and vampires couldn't be all bad, and it certainly isn't.At times this borders on soft porn, and there is an awful lot of blood on show. However if you're a fan of vamp movies and bored with the explosion of generic 'let's all jump on the bandwagon' drivel that followed the success of Buffy TVS (the best moving picture show ever made, bar none, by the way) then this might be the movie for you.This movie starts with Harper's Island starlet Cameron Richardson getting most of her kit off and never lets up with the nudity and violence. There is no hint of cynicism however, and I found this to be a worthy and artistic film - just not for the uptight or squeamish.If you are a vamp lover and like your shocks to be artistic and intelligent, you will enjoy this movie.

owen_twistfield (In this comment I try to focus on the movie as a work. When you judge my comments please sent me a message to tell me what and why as I can then work to improve the comments)Rise is not an ordinary vampire movie. I expected it to be one as the text on the DVD hinted at this. But the word vampire is never used and the persons afflicted by the condition never show fangs or fall to pieces in the sunlight. Yet on the other hand some vampire signs are on evidence: the dependency on blood, the fact that they don't cast a reflection in the mirror and that the afflicted are uncommon strong and resilient. What is different is that the movie spends time on how Liu feels when she finds out that she has become a thing of the night, forever barred from normal live. At heart rise is a revenge movie. Lucy Liu is a reporter who is killed when her investigation set her on the trail of a weird sect. These people turn out to be a sort of vampires and Liu becomes one of their victims. Liu however rises from the dead(hence the title)as one of the creatures and hunts them down one by one.Woven into the revenge story is the story of Chiklis who plays a police cop whose daughter got the same treatment as Liu. He is hot on the trail of both Liu and the top bad guy, either in the hope to find his daughter or find out what happened to her.At the end both stories interconnect as Chiklis catches up with Liu and face each other and finally the top bad guy.The choice of having both stories into the movie makes the revenge story more intricate as Chiklis as 'normal' human can as well help Liu as sabotage her desires. In this way also him being a cop is at odds with him being a concerned father. The story itself plays at night, in dark and usually uncomfortable places(I use this word as this is what all these places are meant to be). This is also interesting as it illustrates how Liu's world has suddenly become estranged. The story is mostly made up out of one-on-one confrontations that exist mostly out of conversations. The camera is close to the person and shots are medium and close up mostly. The fight scenes are short and unspectacular: most are more like executions.The story itself is easy to follow, yet at some turns one wonders about the choices made. Liu comes in contact with someone called the alchemist who has been usurped by the leader of the weird vampiric sect. He gives her a small crossbow with which she kills all the others, yet seen doesn't turn on him. Also the choice of the crossbow feels odd as it's such an unhandy weapon to use in a fight. The killings of their victims by the vampiric sect are strangely bloody, with bodies and surrounding furniture covered by blood and blood splashing and spraying everywhere. It somehow doesn't fit in with the mood of the movie, certainly as compared to the subdued fighting scenes. It seems as if at regular intervals the movie needed to interrupted by a horror scene.It is a common thing that 'vampire' movies are associated with seduction. In Rise this is downplayed. Liu herself seduces one(well she actually more or less jumps her victim). In all the other cases seduction seems more or less a side story then a pivotal event.Acting is reasonable but it loses at the point where the script seems to bare the actors from playing out their role. Liu seems to be shocked at first time and there are some tears when she realizes what she has become. But you would expect someone to show more emotions after she has been brutally murdered and risen from the grave: just some sign of mental stress beyond the anger Liu displays. Also Liu is somewhat too certain she needs to kill herself. Liu lacks things like doubt, uncertainty and fear. She show mostly anger. Chiklis also does not a really great job when he moment of truth comes as he is confronted by his daughter turned-vampire. She pulls a gun out and shouts abuses at him and he is quite emotionless. Nor is he in doubt once Liu has shown him that she can't be seen in the mirror. This latter seems actually a plot device that is needed to convince Chiklis of Liu's condition. I found it so unfitting as everything else vampiric is merely hinted at and then suddenly this inescapable proof is offered.Rise makes me think of The Brave One. Both involve women who undergo a traumatic experience that changes their world forever and exact revenge on perpetrators that are the cause of the change. But where Jodie Foster convinces in the role of a woman that suffers a lot and who's action are in tune with her person and experiences, Liu fails to convince as she mostly displays anger. Her change from an reporter into a determined one-woman-murder-squad leaves enough to desire. The movie seems neither fish nor foul: for those people who expect another underworld there is not enough fighting, beauty and sensuality. For those who like movies like the brave one, there is just not enough reality in the movie. The gory bloody scenes are in either case misplaced.Rise is a reasonable movie that I think could have been better if the creators had decided either to infuse more of the fantastic or if they had introduce more of the realistic. They could probably have played out the break between her normal life and her undead life better. Nevertheless a interesting vampire movie.