Blood:The Last Vampire Review

Such potential badass....alas

So I really like vampires. You all know this. So when I saw this movie I was really excited and totally into a movie about a Japanese vampire who kills demons. I'd heard that the anime/manga was good, so I naturally assumed that the film would be at least passable.

I didn't like it. Not even a little bit. I got bored. Do you know how hard it is to make vampires boring. They eat people! The film was droll and the plot so slow and uneventful that I was FORCED to pay attention. Like I wanted to get a book out.

The film takes place in 1970s Japan and is about a demon-killing vampire named Saya (who is really the only badass character in the whole movie. Which is saying a lot). who kills demons for a demon-killing agency. Her father and teacher were killed by a big bad demon who Saya is trying to kill back. It gets a little bit more complicated than that, but not by much.

Those are the demons. You could shoot spitwads at them and they'd die.

What really annoys me is that the film had a ton of potential. In theory a demon-slaying vampire lady, while unoriginal, could be potentially badass. And the dialogue is definitely an homage to the anime/manga roots (especially in a scene with demon teenagers getting their heads cut off---strangely satisfying btw). But this potential was squandered with some bad decisions. Everything looked like someone had done it on their Macbook. And what's worse is that whole scenes are dedicated to fighting these CGI-created monsters that look really, really lame. And don't get me started on the horrendous bullet-impacts. Seriously? They don't even really match up when the guy gets hit...like its just bad. I've seen B-movies with more satisfying special effects.

To be honest with you, the acting wasn't all that bad considering the script. I just feel rather jipped about everything else.  I mean there are some really good and fairly famous character actors (you'll recognized Taka from The Last Samurai and the German bad guy from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in there).  But they're only in the film fleetingly. It seems that no character is permanent. Everyone keeps DYING. But not in a sad kind of way like The Pianist or Rent or something but in a....where'd that guy go? What do you mean he died 15 minutes ago? How? Oh. That was him? Oh.

So. Yeah. Anyway. See it if you must. But beware.