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Unwatchable #77: “BloodRayne 2: Deliverance”

Posted by Scott Von Doviak

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Here’s a nice change of pace. In our last installment, we looked at the zombie western The Quick and the Undead. This time it’s the vampire western BloodRayne 2: Deliverance. If there are any mummy westerns awaiting further up the list, well, I’d just as soon be surprised.

BloodRayne 2 is the first Uwe Boll movie we’ve encountered on our journey up the Bottom 100 chart, but I’m confident it won’t be the last. Boll is, of course, the renowned videogame-to-movie schlockmeister and favored punching bag of internet movie geeks. And true to form, BloodRayne 2 is a videogame adaptation, although I must confess to being familiar neither with the game nor the first BloodRayne movie. Because I care, I did a little research before settling down to enjoy the film. Here are my findings: Rayne is a half-human, half-vampire hybrid known as a dhampir. Her father was the king of the vampires and was played by Ben Kingsley, and this sort of makes me wish I was watching the original rather than the sequel. Alas, there is no Kingsley (nor any other known actors) in BloodRayne 2, which was released directly to video.

I also gather that the first BloodRayne was set in 18th century Romania, whereas BloodRayne 2 is set in the Old West town of Deliverance. (Confusingly enough, the BloodRayne videogame was set during World War II, but we’ve got enough to worry about without getting into that.) Deliverance is a quiet little place that’s just now getting the railroad, and reporter Newton Pyles (Chris Coppola), who has been dispatched from the east coast to collect true tales of the wild, wild west, is having trouble finding anything wild to write about. That is, until a pack of vampires descends on the town to feed on the children of Deliverance. Their leader: Billy the Kid! Billy the Kid with a Romanian accent! Just like in all the stories.

Who can stop these fiends? Only the dhampir Rayne (Natassia Malthe, #53 on Maxim’s 100 Sexiest Women list). Sure, in her leather cowgirl outfit she looks like she should be pouring Jager shots and dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly, but she’s handy with swords and guns that fire silver bullets rubbed in garlic and blessed with holy water. Her showdown with Billy the Kid is one for the ages, assuming the ages were between 9 and 9:30 last night.

I have to assume this is not close to Uwe Boll’s worst work, because it’s pretty much indistinguishable from any other straight-to-video genre junk. Boll rips off musical cues from Once Upon a Time in the West and Deadwood, so at least he steals from the good stuff. There is one scene that, while not particularly well executed, at least caught my attention. It involves a trap Billy the Kid sets, with the town’s children rigged up with nooses around their necks and Rayne struggling to balance a weight that will keep them from being hanged. But now that I think of it, Boll probably ripped that off from a better movie, too.



Previously on Unwatchable:
78. The Quick and the Undead
79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie
82. American Soldiers


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Comments

Steve C. said:

DELIVERANCE isn't nearly the best representation of Boll's warped anti-talent. It's pretty bloody boring (which isn't something you can say about ALONE IN THE DARK no matter how horrid you find it) and Boll directs like a sleepy hack-for-hire (which he assuredly isn't).

July 16, 2008 1:45 PM