BloodRayne (2006) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Uwe Boll, you magnificent bastard!

It has become customary for movie reviewers to refer to director Uwe Boll as the new Ed Wood. In at least one sense, the appellation is appropriate. Both men built reputations as the worst directors of their respective generations. Uwe's work is held in such complete contempt that each of his last three films is among the worst 35 of all time at IMDb, and he has made two others just as bad or worse!

1. (2.31) - BloodRayne (2005)  (34th worst of all time.)
2. (2.20) - Alone in the Dark (2005)  (27th worst of all time.)
3. (2.05) - Barschel - Mord in Genf? (1993)
4. (2.01) - House of the Dead (2003)  (17th worst of all time.)
5. (1.98) - German Fried Movie (1991)

Based on the interviews I have seen and read, Uwe is like Ed Wood in one other way. He is in complete denial about the inept nature of his creations. He told one interviewer:

"I think I made a perfect House of the Dead movie, because it really shows how the game is. It's a lot of fun, it's over-the-top action - it's not 28 Days Later, because the reality is that House of the Dead is about how it's a lot of fun to shoot zombies... It's cheesy entertainment with a lot of gore and a lot of violence, and it's super-fast."

He seems to think that he has been singled out for completely undeserved brickbats which have been hurled at his magnificent works by petty critics jealous of his financial success. He may have a point. Nobody in the world can quite figure out how Uwe manages to raise so much money and to get his films distributed theatrically when they are obviously straight-to-vid material, but the fact remains that he has managed to pull it off.

"And all my movies, no matter what reviewers are saying, are getting sold. I am number one in the market as far as paying investors back goes, and that's not because I make the best movies on earth, but I make movies for a minimal amount of budget compared to what major companies are spending, and the movies look good, and they go out theatrically, and they make a lot of money on DVD or Pay TV. (More than 1.4 million copies of the House of the Dead DVD have been sold in North America.) This is the main point - if the movie is really, really bad, why are a hundred territories buying it? It's tough to get my movies on screens in the UK and France, to give a couple of examples, but they do very well in cinemas in Spain, Italy, Russia, Thailand and the Middle East, generally spending a few weeks in the top ten of the box office charts. I can live with that situation. The average Hollywood movie last year had $65 million production costs, and $40 million promotions and advertising costs. My movies have $15 million to $20 million production costs, and $10 million P&A."

In the past, Uwe managed to raise a great deal of cash from German investors on the basis of certain loopholes in the German tax code. Investing in a film could justify a 1-to-1 write-down of the income subject to tax liability. Since the effective tax rate of a typical investor is about 50%, that meant that the German government would essentially match any film investment! Best of all, the tax breaks were permanent, even if the film subsequently made a vast amount of money, because the credit applied to investments, as opposed to losses. Boll pointed out in the commentary for Alone in the Dark:

"Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the Government."

The result of the tax break was that a German investor could put a million dollars into a film by only spending half that sum, but would still receive the benefit of the full investment if the film made money. The program was designed to spur investment in the underdeveloped German film industry, but was also used by Hollywood to finance films through German "production companies" which had miniscule involvement in film profuction. The loophole has now been closed. Details here.

It isn't just Boll's uncanny ability to finance films which has baffled people. He also had some mystifying success in obtaining wide theatrical distribution for House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark in North America. The house of cards finally collapsed on BloodRayne. Boll tried to distribute outside of the traditional studio system, and the experiment failed. The independent distributor announced that 2000 screens would be locked up for two weeks, and sent out the appropriate number of prints, but only 985 of the theaters showed the film at all, and only 340 of those held it over for a second week after the film opened in 19th place nationwide. By the third week the theater count had tumbled to 56, and there was no fourth week.

So is BloodRayne any good? Well, I will say this: it is self reviewing. Here is the plot description: "In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a sexy dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood rage but saddled with a compunction for humans, strives to avenge her mother's rape by her father, Kagan, King of Vampires (Sir Ben Kingsley). Two vampire hunters, Sebastian and Vladimir from the Brimstone Society, persuade her to join their battle against the vampire army. Featuring Meat Loaf, Michael Paré, and Udo Kier."

Is a review really necessary? How good could a film be, given that description?

To tell the truth, it's not as bad as the critics contended. In fact, I think the film looks kind of cool. It is not a good movie, but it is nowhere near bad enough to be 34th worst of all time. It's just not the kind of movie which would normally receive theatrical distribution in the USA, and the fact that it did get on 1000 screens, following fairly wide distribution for other Uwe Boll films, probably contributed to the particularly nasty reviews. Theatrical critics don't usually get to see this kind of film. If it had gone straight to video or cable, it would have flown in under the critical radar, and would never have landed on the IMDb Bottom 100. In terms of BloodRayne's visual appeal, it is not fair to compare Uwe to Ed Wood. Wood's films are all jerry-built and cobbled together from whatever he could use for free. BloodRayne has some nice sets, some impressive exterior shots actually filmed on location in the Romanian countryside, and some crisp and clear photography. On the other hand, the critics do have some points when it comes to the silly premise, the bad acting, and the ludicrous dialogue. The script is so sloppy that one of the important characters (played by Billy Zane) just disappears without explanation, and his sub-plot disappears with him. For the record, I'd say BloodRayne is roughly comparable to the later entries in the Deathstalker series in terms of its script, but it is much "bigger" and slicker. If you liked those, unlikely though that may be, you will certainly enjoy this as well.