Reign in Darkness

What. The. Fuck.

There are two types of movies, both involving ass. There are movies that kick ass, and there are movies that suck ass. This movie doesn’t just suck ass, it thrusts its Gene Simons-like tongue in there and thrashes about.

Oh unholy lord how this sucks. I picked this movie up after catching the cover and reading the back. The box art was a pretty cool depiction of your typical vampire assuming the typical ‘building perch’ with dripping blood. The back dictates how a scientist becomes a freshly turned vampire, to then become a vampire bounty hunter and kick some serious ass.

Here’s what we get:

Firstly, the name of our supposed ‘hero’ in this movie is Michael Dorn. Any Star Trek nutter will inform you that that is the name of the guy who plays the dark skinned bad ass klingon named Worf. Alas, the name here is placed on a pasty skinned skinny nerd scientist who is working on a cure for cancer, or some shit, that actually turns people into vampires. That’s right, vampires.

Secondly, the start of the movie states that this RVK-17 ‘drug’ is rumored to exist…which is utter bullshit. It’s the name of a fictional drug that is used in nerdy wannabe-goth role playing games!

Third off, the bounty hunter stuff? Oh yeah, that doesn’t exist. Our hero is no bounty hunter, he’s the one being hunted! And it gets better, the people chasing him are a burly white guy who is apparently trying to act like a bad ass trashy American (I guess this is how Australian’s depict Americans) and an asian vampire that likes to tool around wearing just his skin tight silver pants.

You know what? I’m still not over that American in this film. They portrayed an American as a testosterone driven hulk that drives a motorcycle and wears stupid punky clothes and ~~talks~~ spits his words in a fury with a Texan accent. Even if stereotypically correct, it’s not what I wanna see! This reminds me of ‘The Ping Pong Club’, which is an anime from some time ago. The American was the only white guy in that cartoon, who coined such great American phrases like, “Hey baby, wanna go somewhere and talk about me?” And wherever he went there were stink lines. Is this how people truly feel about Americans? I’m not a huge fan of my southern counterpart’s hick lifestyles, but I admire their lenient gun laws, and I must say it ruins a movie when a foreigner does a comedic impression of another country with the utmost annoyance and stupidity. I’d have rather seen CGI stink lines drawn around him at all times. Anyways…

Fourthly, we get a wonderful narration the entire movie by Mr. Dorn, whom ranks just above Ben Stein in the monotonous voice department, only because this fool’s voice is laced with a shitty accent.

On the fifth, upon becoming a vampire, our hero does what any self-respecting vampire does when they first turn. He drops his pocket protector and nerd attire, and dawns a trench coat, sunglasses, pistol, and sword… because well, that’s what vampires do, isn’t it?

Sixthly, at the end we get a huge fucking spiel from some master vampire to lay out all the plot (which is damn stupid). He just drones on, and on, and on… Although I had already stopped caring by this point, the droning drove me to the point of annoyance where I never wanted to risk watching another vamp flick again. Not only did he drone for what seemed like forever, the reasoning was so horrible and stupid that if you listened closely, you could here a faint ‘snap’ emanating from my head.

Lastly, the entire movie was filmed in broad daylight, even though this is supposed to be ‘Reign in Darkness’. The only dark scenes are in the ‘council’ (a clever name for, vampires!) chamber, which is just a black room with a spotlight. This is also the greatly atmospheric room where we have to listen to the master vampire’s entire fucking life story. I mean, I thought vampires were suppose to shun daylight? Why is this all in the bloody daylight, they can’t afford night lights?

The only decent scene was a swordfight between our hero and the asian vampire, which although choreographed somewhat poorly, was a saving grace from the rest of the flick… Maybe it's just because I like Highlander, and this fight has it written all over it. (Come on, immortal sword fight, underground parkade, that’s so MacLeod.)

The acting is shit, the story is shit, and I wanted to do nothing more than to go home and drill nails in my dick. No no, fuck that, tent pegs.

(Further note: It seems this is going to become a trilogy. I think it’s time to sit down and talk to Rapid Fire Productions about birth control, because this shit should never reproduce.)