Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

A reporter wakes up in a morgue and finds herself a member of the undead, before vowing revenge against the sect which put her there.

Director:

Sebastian Gutierrez

Writer:

Sebastian Gutierrez

Stars:

Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Forster	...	Lloyd
Cameron Richardson	...	Collette / Frannie
Lucy Liu	...	Sadie Blake
Allan Rich	...	Harrison
Samantha Shelton	...	LA Weekly Editor
Kevin Wheatley	...	Ethan Mills
Margo Harshman	...	Tricia Rawlins
Cameron Goodman	...	Kaitlin
Holt McCallany	...	Rourke
James D'Arcy	...	Bishop
Carla Gugino	...	Eve
Michael Chiklis	...	Clyde Rawlins
Paul Cassell	...	Detective Easton
Mako	...	Poe
Sam Cooper	...	Coroner's Assistant

Storyline

The snoopy reporter Sadie Blake is called by her nerd colleague Ethan Mills that has deciphered a code and found an address in Koreatown from information of the Goth Tricia Rawlins about a bloody cult. Sadie does not give attention to Ethan, but when she sees on the front page of the news that Tricia has been found dead in a dumpster in Koreatown, she decides to visit the address. She finds an abandoned house with a gruesome basement full of blood and she immediately drives to Ethan's apartment. She finds the place in a complete mess and is abducted by a stranger and taken to Bishop, who wants to know what Tricia has told her. Then, Bishop and his mate Eve kill Sadie and they have a necrophilic threesome with her body. Later, Sadie awakes in the freezer of the morgue and sooner she realizes that she is a vampire and promises revenge to her sire.

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Plot Keywords:

reporter | morgue | revenge | blood | vampire | 

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Taglines:

They didn't leave her alive. They left her UNDEAD.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong horror violence and gore, sexuality, nudity, language, and brief drug use

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the second horror film directed by Sebastian Gutierrez and his fourth as a writer. He also directed the 2001 movie The Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature. As a writer, he has also worked on the 2003 supernatural thriller Gothika starring Halle Berry. In 2006, he was co-writer on the movie Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson. Sebastian also wrote the screenplay for the remake of the Japanese movie The Eye.

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Goofs

When Sadie stops to pick up the hitchhiker her vehicle's left tail light is burned out, yet minutes later when she turns off the main road it is working.

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Quotes

Bishop: I choose to experience everything the world has to offer, in exchange for a few meaningless lives.

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Crazy Credits

The persons portrayed in this motion picture are not intended to portray or represent any particular individual at LA Weekly.

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Alternate Versions

The film was released in two versions: an R-rated version running 98 minutes and an unrated (completely reedited) version running 122 minutes.

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Connections

References Nosferatu (1922)

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Soundtracks

Dead Man
Performed by 12 Rounds
Written by Atticus Ross and Claudia Sarne (as Claude Sarne)

User Reviews

Well-balanced meal

Despite its unwieldy, off-putting title, Rise: Blood Hunter (aka simply Rise) isn't as terribly cheesy and disgusting as I imagined it would be. A reporter (Lucy Liu) wakes up in a morgue's body drawer and discovers she's been changed into a blood-seeking, human-chomping immortal, or something, and rather than gleefully embrace her new self she decides to track down the evil bastards who put her in that condition, making her a sort of avenging angel for all those who have been similarly wronged.

Sadie Blake (Liu) is a sexy, classy young lady who's just written a front-page story about teen goth clubs. One of her coworkers, the nerdy computer stereotype, tracks down a phone number that one of the teens handed to Sadie - turns out it's not a phone number but the first in a series of clues that leads to a website devoted to some weird bloodsucking cult. Sadie, of course, thinks the story's over and goes on a quickie vacation to Mexico with her sister, but when she returns, you guessed it, her coworker's dead. Sadie follows clues like a good little Nancy Drew and winds up getting kidnapped (several times) and killed (several times), all to figure out who or what's behind everything.

The story jumps around a lot, flouting the conventions of time as we know them; things simply don't happen in the exact order we'd expect them to, which clouds Sadie's motives and intentions quite a bit. Is she good? Is she even human? After all, once she's been attacked by the vampire people, she's not exactly the picture of health, and she's gotta eat to survive. Is her ultimate goal of revenge enough to offset the unpleasant facts? It helps that there's a typically hissable bad guy, Bishop (James D'Arcy). He's eternal, of course, and he kills and mutilates and rapes for the sheer joy of it. There are no moral or ethical quandaries with this guy. Plus he has an effete, brandy-swilling British accent, making all the more unctuous and slimy. (Well, he's slimy also because he's often covered in someone's blood.) Now, granted, this isn't a pleasant, sedate movie to watch. It's full of gore and guts, although not so much as, say, a movie like Saw or Hostel. It's still not for the weak of stomach. You might remember how, in Kill Bill, The Bride traveled all over to wipe out those who'd wronged her - but the film didn't show us this in the order in which each avenging occurred, did it? So you'd see Uma Thurman wander over to Viveca Fox's house not knowing if she'd already visited Lucy Liu. Well, you would know, of course, if you picked up on the subtle hints, and that's exactly how it is here. At one point, Sadie runs into alcoholic, world-weary cop-with-a-conscience-and-a-cause Clyde Rawlins (a fantastic Michael Chiklis) and mutters something about having seen him before. And if you watch the movie closely, you see exactly where. It's as if there are no coincidences in the movie, and I think that works in its favor.

Still, it IS just a revenge flick, albeit one with vampires and a kick-ass crossbow. Liu is very, very good - she's not the screaming, hands-in-the-air type of heroine, but she's also not the balls-out gut-stomping Lara Croft type, either. Remember, Lucy Liu is petite; she doesn't automatically have this intimidating screen presence, so she uses what she has and makes the most of it. In her case, I'd have to say it's her eyes, flashing terror or courage in.... well, in the blink of an eye.

So despite some predictability, the movie does work, thanks to Liu and the novelty of the disjointed sequencing. There are quite a few chills, and the plot doesn't stray too far from its main revenge thread, thus simplifying matters.

Details

Official Sites:

Paramount Pictures [France] Sony Pictures [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 July 2007 (Turkey)

Also Known As:

Rise

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$59,371, 3 June 2007

Gross USA:

$114,306

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,850,927

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mandate Pictures, Kingsgate Films, Destination Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min 122 min (unrated DVD)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1