The Bad, The Worse and The Ugly: BloodRayne 2 Review

Dear Island Guests , while reviewing all video game movies I have to deal with this man a lot. Uwe Boll , he is european like me! He seems to like video games like me and he leaves quite a few errors in his content much like me. We both aren’t exactly the best fiction writers out there and I acknowledge writing a good story is hard.. but when you point a camera to that flawed writing.. it will stand out much more! So mister Boll. I shall review the second BloodRayne movie as my suggestions to you!  As one hobby writer to another.. well you might be professional in name….but well like with your video game adaptations.. it is just the name that you have in common with the pro’s.

Please! Give us a plot

Dear mister Boll, I commend you for your bravery for your choice in setting the second BloodRayne movie in the Wild West. For the second time in a row that is a time  setting that has little to nothing to do with the actual games. I am glad you did not forget she could cross water and walk into sunlight now so at least it feels like a sequel but why set both movies  in the wrong time period?Rayne adventures mostly in the early 1900’s, with the majority being set in world war II. I will assume that you could get some Wild West outfits on a budget.. because they sure as heck look like it! You could not even dress up Rayne with cold weather gear in the snow! Instead she wears a crop top in the cold with a duster coat making sure to show some belly button. That is hot!…at least to some I will admit! Yet why make her upset when people address her like a harlot.. you made her look like one!

I commend you for your bravery to only introduce the main character to us after twenty minutes, and even then she is still not involved in the plot still. Now cleverly you basically omit a plot from the movie up until about the midway point. For the opening twenty minutes we see random stuff unfold, like a Vampire grabbing some kids.. and that same vampire taking over a town. Yet we are not told what he does there. Rayne just happens to be friends with the people whose children you took.. out in the middle of nowhere.. but why did you take children out there?! We later find out you wanted the town! So why get those specific kids? There is no connection, it happens just so that Rayne can get involved. Since it is snowing in the area the kids are stolen from and muddy and dirt filled in the town.. I can assume that these areas are a fair bit apart. Given how much snow there is!  It doesn’t seem like very good and rather convenient writing mister Boll. 

Also why does the plan of the evil vampire guy named Billy the Kid have to be so lame?! The bad guy wants to spread vampirism across the land using the railroads, so he can be the boss of them all. You go to lengths to tell us he is a old vampire and in a short time he has made 30 vampires in this town. If he is so old.. why does he not travel around and make vampires all across america. He is immortal.. he can take his time. Sure he can spread it faster.. but he has not been spreading vampirism before? Because he waits for a railway station in a sleepy town to be fixed?  He could just kidnap children and travel across the west creating an army?! I probably lack your insight but to me his goal seems super achievable.. if he actually had his vampires spread around the states. Since he is so old, clearly he came from elsewhere himself. When using a mc-guffin it might not hurt to think on how else a character can achieve their goals.. like taking over a town that actually has a Railroad already?! Or making the children vampires and let people find them.. and spread vampirism to them.. or using your immortality to build that army over the years. I just gave your villain a hand full of backup plans and I wasn’t even really thinking about it either! So I don’t think you really told us a story here! Well you did but it makes no sense other than within the confines of a script! If the villian is this stupid.. he was never a threat anyway.

Please use your setting!

Dear mister Boll, I love a good western..from time to time. I think it is brave to spread Rayne’s journey out across a wider variety of time pieces I really do! You do not have to take textures and game size into account so you can move from an medieval setting to a wild west one to a world word II setting without filling up disk space with 1000’s of different textures and weapons and playstyles. I like that now guns are a thing..but if you tell Rayne’s tale through time.. you gotta use the time as well. It is super clever to make Billy the Kid a vampire! It allows for some interesting ideas.. but Billy the Kid was named the Kid because he was so young! Why did you cast a middle aged man to play him? And why did you make him look like a cartoon character rather than a real person. And what is with that wig the guy wears. The hair looks so gross. I do like the idea of saying that Billy never was killed when he did because he was a vampire…but instead of making him a revolver hero.. you made him bad with guns, which is stated.. way too old and he isn’t a bandit at all he is a megalomaniac mayor like person.This baffles me? If you want him to be Billy the Kid why make him nothing like it?!

Then there is the dialogue. People do not really talk like it is a wild west setting. The first big line Rayne has is telling some stranger who wants to kill Billy the Kid that his fly is open. That does not seem like an insult befitting the time period. Partially because women would not talk like that in those days neither would men nor would they care because they are out in the wilds..secondly the idea of the fly that  can be open was only really popularised in the 1940’s…the period BloodRayne is supposed to be set in! Back then they mostly have flappy things or buttons! This is only but an example of dialogue not being written in the time period. It happens quite a lot. You end your movie with the quote “Life is like a Penis.. if it is hard you get screwed and when it’s soft you can’t beat it’ that is a recent quote that was not around in that time. The way most people talk feels modern, watch any western to notice the difference please.

You might also want to think of how a western setting contributes to vampire hunting. For a bit you do! Vampires can not be killed by anything but silver bullets with garlic oil!  Which is clever…well maybe not clever but after seeing four of your movies I am not expecting much anymore!  However dear mister Boll. If you put silver bullets in a box with some unpeeled fully intact pieces of garlic.. not even cloves but the whole thing. Those bullets are not going to become covered in garlic oil. If suddenly the citizens can pick up their guns and kill the vampires as well. Where did they get silver bullets? These people can’t leave and trade is very low since there is no railroad yet, how did they suddenly get resources. Most of all why.. oh why.. would have the sleepiest and most boring town in the west…as established by yourself.. gatling gun in a random barn?! The vampires could have gotten it somewhere I guess…but if they were in a place where they can steal gatling guns..why not make your army there! Clearly that would have better arms?! If you want to make it a wild west setting with guns.. don’t use such a sleepy town.. if you want the civilians to be meek and compliant don’t give them the most powerful weapons of the time period! These two do not match. You are not creating a believable world here!

Please hire a proper crew!

Dear mister Boll, one of my best friends is a cameraman and once I helped him out a bit so I know how heavy camera’s can be! But when you make the heroes of the movie do a power walk.. the camera man is not supposed to shake the camera so hard that I get nauseous from looking at the scene. Yes this actually happened! The most badass scene is meant to look professional not as if someone is filming it on a seesaw. This is not the only time the camera work sucks. A hand-held camera has a place but when the terrain is rougher and your camera man can not handle it.. perhaps you should not choose to do shots like that. Using a dolly or two fixed cameras instead of course having more equipment means there is less money to embezzle so I understand your choices here I am just telling you it shows. I am not even being nitpicky here! Never EVER have I said something bad about the cameraman other than.. that shot could have been framed better..but your crew is more fundamentally flawed.

This becomes very clear when we look at your editors. Shots linger way to long, fight scenes are cut together way to fast.. and most important scene transitions aren’t scene transitions.  In a good movie we see a shot of a sunrise over a tree, to indicate it became day again then that same tree is used to show a character riding inside the frame.  Or we see blood pour out of a wound that transitions into the villian pouring win into his glass and smiling. There are two transitions in this movie.  Other than that it’s just a fade to black followed by a fade in, it makes this movie feel super cheap mister Boll. It is like I am watching an amateur film and even those use transitions better. The shot in which you introduce Rayne we see her galloping on a horse.. but there is a piece of straw for the camera blocking like half the shot! Who told you that was a good idea?!  That’s not artistic it feels like something got in the way of your shot.. and that is not the only time!  That should have been taken out on the cutting room floor!  And what is up with the obsession the browned out teeth. There are so many mouth shots in this movie. I counted like 25 seperate ones at the very least. Not always fangs either.. sometimes it’s just brown teeth or Rayne playing with a toothpick. This is a vampire action movie yet about 3 minutes of the movie are just close up of mouths! Eeew!

When I saw this movie start I was like , oh no… this looks like a cheap porn movie.  At least as far as I have seen those. It has a slightly better camera than Birdemic Shock and Terror but not by that much! It is somewhere halfway between that and a 90’s action movie. Raynes swords look fake and impractical as heck, revolvers look okay.. I think?! I am not a gun expert but they do look samesie a lot!  I would think there would be more diversity. Still everyone can use the same bullets here regardless if they have a rifle, a revolver or whatever. The gatteling gun is different though. It completely blows up the chest of one guy.. while lightly grazing a guy that stood closer’s shoulder. I will be honest I do not know what happend in that scene. I saw a character die. .and then he was alive again..it might be a different character that wears the same coat and hat with a similar style beard but because you can not tell the difference between vampires and the hunters.. I had no idea what was going on. Sometimes images are slowed down for no reason  sometimes they are sped up and it all looks so weird.

The worst part of the crew however are the actors though. The cast is basically everyone who played in Postal the movie. They constantly phase in and out accents that can range between texan and a louisiana accent and basically any state in america that is ever ridiculed for their hillbilly accent. At one time Rayne has southern pronunciation, shifting back to current day american again while in reality she should have a british accent. The preacher (and yes that is the characters name as he is never named in the movie)  is not understandable at times and then suddenly loses his accent entirely just to replace it with another one by the end of the movie! Billy the Kid is SO overacted I felt like I was watching an  amateur stage play! Mister Boll I know no one wants to return to working with you once they done it.. but just because a single cast was as talentless as you are does not mean you should use them again.  Everyone acts insane.. like they think they are soap opera actors or something.. it doesn’t work! Again normally I still see the character.. and I notice an actor has trouble with a line or two.. but here.. I see an amateur giving a drama club performance.. Honestly some of them are approaching the level of Wiseau. Most of them have acting skills equal to the level of the Mother in law with breast cancer in the Room. Bottom of  the barrel acting.

Please roleplay your characters just a bit

I can go on.. but I am running out of space here! Dear mister Boll for once please try to roleplay some of your characters so you can see how  wrong the situation is and how much it doesn’t work. My biggest example is the gatling gun scene.Our heroes chase some vampires in a barn and 20 of them point their guns at them. Instead of shooting them then and there.. as they clearly plan to kill them they tell them to throw away their weapons. This is stupid idea number 1 mister Boll you already established these vampires will kill those standing in their way so there is no need to  force them to surrender. Then the heroes refuse and a rip of Ennio Morricone’s theme begins playing rather dramatically ..this is the only western flavoured piece of music by the way and it is everywhere.  The heroes are ONE STEP from  stepping underneath the second floor of the barn..but instead light a cigarette, and then fire at random vampires in the attic allowing the gatling gun guy to gun them down.  If they took one step .. NONE of the vampires except for maybe one or two guys with a pistol could hit them.. but they stay out in the open and shoot at everyone.. except for the greatest threat.. the guy with a f’ing gatling gun! No character made a normal decision in that entire scene.

The conclusion is even worse.  Billy the kid has used a millstone  to make a contraption that will hang all the children when Rayne enters his room. Why does he not just shoot. her the moment she walks through a door.. but no .. he tries to convince her to be evil with him.. she enters the door and grabs the rope and saves all but one of the children who gets really visibly hanged. Instead of attacking the defenceless Rayne they start talking even after she refuses to join him he keeps talking to her.. and when all her allies have been killed…she suddenly realises she can launch herself using the stone and cut all the ropes of the kids before they choke. She saves  everyone.. and even then Billy the Kid allows her to get up and fight him.. not threatening the kids. In the first movie mister Boll people gave you critique for the plethora of dialogue in the final encounter so just to spite them you added more?!  At one point Billy manages to pull out his guns on Rayne during the fight but he doesn’t shoot them!

He has to load them still..if he does have to cock the gun why doesn’t Rayne attack him.. if he had them cocked and ready to fire why would he not fire! No one acts like a person in this movie.. they are all forced to do stuff by the plot! Nothing.. and I mean NOTHING makes sense.  The allies they recruit are swindlers and bandits and no one knows of vampires.. but when a weird girl ask them to join her in death to fight vampires they say sure!  It goes against everything established. In the end you make the coward have a change of heart but then when he gets a shot to save the day he chickens out.. and the people make him a sheriff for it?!  Dear god mister Boll .. did you ever stop to think about these things for longer than a single second?!

I think that NEVER have I have seen a movie where characters make this little sense. At least Johnny from the room had a reason to shoot himself. At least in Birdemic the characters fought for survival. Ed Wood movies made more sense than this, he could not afford reshoots so he had to make due with one take.. but even in Plan 9 from Outer Space there was a motivation… here there is nothing. Story happens for no reason, scenes happen for no reason and characters lack any sense of being able to think logically.  Why certain shots are chosen makes no sense.. mister Boll this movie feels like  you just had  three cool shots in your head..failed  to make them come true and settled for a movie student version of it..then strung those three scenes together with the cheapest attempt of plot possible! Where the last movie was kinda fun to watch in it’s badness. this one doesn’t make ENOUGH SENSE for that.. This is “movie” is as much of a movie as a four year old kid’s  robot he made during arts and  crafts is a robot… and that comparison is MUCH closer than anyone might realise.. dear mister Boll.. upon review I have to conclude this is not a movie.. this is …

There is one more BloodRayne movie left! Third Reich! It is the only one that is set in the proper time period of the movie so just by existing it is already more faithful than the other two movies… so I got a good feeling about that one. Well good might be a big word! It has the same main actress after all! If you want to help me get some bravery for what is to come.. or if you like me to make a video game movie of my own please consider supporting my Kofi Page! I can’t do much worse so just a kofi’s should help me make a better thing than this!