On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 65/65 |
Kim Hollis |
Forget what I said about Dr. Boll earlier. You'd think he'd start getting better at this rather than worse. |
| 67/76 |
Dan Krovich |
Really should be a direct to video title. |
| 158/159 |
David Mumpower |
Imagine the worst editing job in the history of cinema. Alternately, just rent the movie and you won't have to imagine it. But no, I am not advising you to rent it. |
The videogame-to-movie genre is fraught with peril. There is the good (Resident Evil), the bad (Super Mario Brothers) and the ugly (House of the Dead). Uwe Boll, the man responsible for the ugly, returns to direct this, his third consecutive videogame adaptation.
Following on the heels of House of the Dead and 2004 release Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne will feature a female protagonist straight out of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer mold. The titular character is a huntress hired by the proverbial shadowy secret government agency to track down the supernatural enemies of state that normal paramilitary types can't handle.
So, how does a slight redhead handle such treacherous villains? Well, it helps that she is a vampire....a half-breed anyway. The product of an unholy union between human and vampire, Bloodrayne is a dextrous badass with gymnastic abilities, super-human strength and a bloodlust that cannot be denied. I guess that she's more accurately described as a Vampire Hunter D than a Buffy clone. Or maybe a half-human Angel with less innate do-gooders tendencies. Truth be told, Bloodrayne is more of an anti-hero than a good guy.
Budgeted at a reported $30 million, BloodRayne looks to capitalize on recent box office trending. Moderately priced videogame adaptions are safe bets. The cost is minimal while the built-in fanbase generally leads to acceptable opening weekend performances and a solid performance on DVD and innumerable airings on cable. The lone exception recently is in fact Boll's House of the Dead, which only cost $12 million to make but brought in even less. It wound up with $10.2 million in domestic box office and was widely reviled as one of the worst offerings of 2003. Here's hoping that somewhere between that release and Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne, he figured out what went wrong. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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