Archive for the ‘Vampire 2000's’ Category

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is a 2002 horror film directed by Guy Maddin. It is a silent interpretation of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s take of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was originally filmed as a telefilm for CBC Television in Canada, but critical and popular acclaim brought it to a United States theatrical release.

In 1897, a visitor from the East, Dracula, arrives in London and is inadvertently invited into the home of Lucy. She is bitten by Dracula, and taken by his vampiric curse. Lucy’s behavior becomes progressively more erratic which becomes apparent to her three suitors and her house maids when she bites her fiancée. Lucy is immediately put under the care of Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing does blood tests on Lucy and eventually declares “Vampyre!” as the source of the problem, and puts Lucy to bed adorned with garlic.

That very night, Renfield, a mental patient who lives in the asylum next to Lucy’s home, escapes from confinement. This leads to Lucy’s house being broken into by demons in the night. Woken the commotion, Lucy’s mother rises from her bed to stop them. Panicked by the demons, she opens the door and inadvertently re-invites Dracula into the house. Both Lucy and her mother are killed in this incident and a funeral procession takes place. The next day, Renfield is recaptured and placed back into the mental hospital. Bizarre incidents begin to occur around the city and are reported in newspapers. Headlines speak of a supposed “Bloofer Lady” who has been murdering infants. Renfield is interrogated and confesses that Dracula has brought Lucy back from the dead. It is she committing these deeds and the solution to the problem lies in the graveyard. Van Helsing and Lucy’s suitors go there on foot and spy Dracula and the undead Lucy in a full romantic embrace. Dracula eventually settles Lucy back into her coffin and vanishes. Van Helsing declares “We must destroy the false Lucy so the real one may live forever”; however, when Van Helsing opens the coffin Lucy rises out of and attacks the men. Lucy is eventually subdued by a piercing stab from Jonathan via long wooden stakes the man are carrying. This forces Lucy back into her coffin where she is decapitated with a shovel by Van Helsing. Van Helsing declares they must find and defeat the Vampyre.

Van Helsing and his men go to Renfield and torture out of him Dracula’s next plan, which is to attack Lucy’s best friend Mina. Mina has gone to a convent to help her injured fiancée Harker. Renfield reveals Harker’s diary entry to Van Helsing. The diary details Harker’s journey to Castle Dracula to finalize a land sale. However, upon arriving Harker is ravaged by three Brides of Dracula who overpower him. Harker eventually finalizes the land deal for Dracula but is then kept captive in a room with the voracious “Vampyr Harem”. He eventually escapes Castle Dracula and finds himself under the care of the convent’s inhabitants. Renfield then explains that Van Helsing should seek past the Convent and towards Castle Dracula. With a final breath, Renfield passes away and Van Helsing and his men proceed on to Castle Dracula.

In the convent, Mina arrives to greet Harker. Mina grabs his jacket and pulls out the diary which is immediately retrieved by Harker. Harker’s conscience troubles him and he allows Mina to read his diary to let his guilty pleasures with the Brides of Dracula be known to her. Mina forgives Harker and they embrace but it becomes progressively more intimate as Mina tries to be more sexually aggressive, Harker becomes nervous and flees with the diary. Mina attempts to follow Harker but comes face to face with Dracula, who kidnaps her and takes her to Castle Dracula.

Mina finds herself trapped in Castle Dracula. Dracula woos Mina, tempting her with offers of riches and eventually biting her on the neck, solidifying the curse on her. At this moment, Harker, Van Helsing, and his men break into Dracula’s castle dispatch the attacking Brides of Dracula with long wooden stakes. The men eventually stumble upon Mina and find the mark of Dracula’s bite upon her, even though the curse isn’t in full effect yet. In an attempt to root out Dracula, the men smash coffins and place Christian crosses in them. Van Helsing discovers one full of money and declares “Money stolen from England!”. Eventually, Dracula attacks the men. After a long battle, Dracula and Mina are the only two left conscious. Dracula begins to embrace Mina, making a cut on his chest for Mina to take blood from as a romantic gesture. Mina scurries to the floor, picks up a cross, and pulls a window open which stuns Dracula. At this point the men regain consciousness, surround Dracula, and stab him with their stakes. The castle is demolished by Van Helsing’s men and everyone departs. Dracula is left hanging motionless, impaled on a giant stake.

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Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a 2000 Japanese anime film, written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, with characters designed by Yutaka Minowa. It is the sequel to 1985’s Vampire Hunter D, and is based on the third of Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D novels, Demon Deathchase.

Charlotte, a young human girl, is abducted by Count Meier Link, a vampire nobleman who is known not to harm humans needlessly. Charlotte’s father hires D to find her and kill her humanely if she turns into a vampire. At the same time, her older brother also hires the notorious Marcus brothers for backup.

The two parties (D and the Marcus brothers) race inexorably after Meier Link. However, Meier Link hires the Mutant Barbarois; a group of lethal mercenary body guards. They consist of Caroline, a shape shifter; Benge, a shadow manipulator; and Mashira, a werewolf. As the story progresses, Meier Link’s abduction turns out to be an escape by him and Charlotte, as they are lovers. Through the journey, D talks to Leila and tells her that she can have a life that someone like him could never have, the life of a normal human. They make a pact, if either one of them survives, the survivor can bring flowers to the other’s grave. Near the end of the movie, Meier Link goes with Charlotte to the Castle of Chaythe, where Countess Carmilla, Meier Link’s patron, waits for them. Carmilla, a ghost of a vampire who died long ago, reigned supreme within the Castle of Chaythe when vampires were all-powerful and unchallenged. However, her bloodlust was so strong that Count Dracula, D’s father, killed her in disgust. It turns out that D’s reasons weren’t monetary and that his main reason for preventing their marriage is to stop them from bringing another dhampir into the world. After going to the Castle of Chaythe, D fights Carmilla, who plotted to kill Charlotte and return to life. D, along with Leila, let Meier Link leave for the City of the Night with Charlotte’s body.

In the final scene of the movie, D arrives at Leila’s funeral, watching from a distance. Leila’s granddaughter greets him and invites him to stay with them for a while. D declines, saying that he simply came to “repay a favor to an old friend, who feared no one would mourn her death.” The girl thanks him, and D replies by smiling gently at her, and leaves.

“There, you’re not so bad,” the parasite in D’s hand comments. “You just dress bad.”

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Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Shadow of the Vampire is a movie that opened in the United States on December 29, 2000. It was directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven A. Katz, and it stars John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe and Udo Kier. The film is a fictionalized account of the making of the classic vampire film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, in which the film crew begin to suspect that their lead actor is not all that he seems.

The film is set in 1922. German director F. W. Murnau takes his Berlin-based cast and crew on-location in Czechoslovakia and Poland in order to shoot Nosferatu, an unauthorized version of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. He informs them that the person playing the part of the vampire Count Orlok, an obscure German theater performer called Max Schreck, is a highly professional method actor, but in order to involve himself fully in his character, he will only appear among the cast and crew in full make-up and character.

The main setting is an old castle in Czechoslovakia. Schreck is there waiting for the filming team, and his appearance and behavior are truly disquieting. The cameraman soon starts feeling terrorized and sick, and has to be taken away and replaced. The other main actor is frightened of Schreck, but then convinces himself that he is simply a very good actor.

On one occasion, two members of the crew are sharing a drink under the stars, and Schreck approaches. They invite him to join them, and Schreck drinks with them. Jokingly they ask about his vampirism and Schreck reveals he is a real vampire, centuries old. When questioned, he tells the crew that he is so old, he cannot remember how he became a vampire, and cannot create more of his own kind. A bat flies by and Schreck catches it with a quick hand and bites it, ecstatically sucking blood from its body. The others are left impressed by what they still assume is talented acting.

As it turns out, Murnau has made a deal with a true vampire, in order to make his film absolutely realistic. Schreck has been promised the main actress Greta Schroeder as prize, provided he fulfills his role until the end of the filming. But the vampire is frequently uncooperative until eventually the entire production, stranded on an island in the North Sea, is at his mercy.

In the end, Schreck kills Greta Schroeder and the crew before being exposed to sunlight and dying, while Murnau, who has now lost his mind, finishes the film.

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Blade II (2002)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Blade II is a 2002 vampire action film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Wesley Snipes. Based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Blade, it is the second film in the Blade series.

Two years after the end of the previous film, Blade cuts a swath through the vampire population of Prague to find his old mentor Abraham Whistler being kept in suspended animation. He rescues Whistler, who has been turned into a vampire, and administers an accelerated version of the cure that was developed in the first film. Whistler revives and learns that Blade has procured a new weaponsmith in his absence, Scud.

As Whistler and Scud begin to argue, a pair of vampires invade Blade’s base and deliver a truce offering. Blade accepts and visits the fortress of the ancient vampire Eli Damaskinos. There he learns that a disease spread by Jared Nomak has created a new strain of infected vampires called Reapers that threaten to wipe out all human life on the planet. The vampires offer to ally with Blade in order to combat this mutual threat. Blade agrees and teams with the Bloodpack, an elite vampire squad that was created to battle Blade himself.

Blade and the Bloodpack stake out a vampire nightclub, and their uneasy alliance quickly wears thin. When the Reapers attack, Blade pursues Nomak, and learns that he too bears a personal grudge against vampires. After the battle, the group deduces that the Reapers’ only weakness is ultraviolet light. They concoct a plan to lure the Reapers into the sewers and ambush them with UV grenades. Though Blade develops an unusual connection with Nyssa, the daughter of Damaskinos, he is ultimately betrayed by the Bloodpack during the ambush.

Blade, Whistler, and Scud are taken back to Damaskinos’s fortress as prisoners, where Damaskinos reveals that he created Nomak in a botched effort to breed a superior race of vampires. Scud also reveals himself as a traitor, but Blade kills him with his own bomb. As Nomak assaults the fortress, Whistler and Blade break free. Damaskinos prepares to flee, but he is betrayed by Nyssa. Nomak kills Damaskinos and infects Nyssa before Blade catches up to him. Blade and Nomak engage in an epic battle before Blade stabs Nomak in the heart. On the brink of death, Nomak feels relieved of his pain and completes the fatal blow.

As the sun dawns, Blade stoically grants Nyssa her final wish to see the sun, to die as a vampire before the Reaper virus takes hold of her. In an epilogue, Blade goes to London in order to settle an old score with a vampire flunky.

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Night Watch (2004)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Night Watch is a 2004 Russian fantasy action thriller film by the Kazakhstan-born film director Timur Bekmambetov. It is loosely based on the novel The Night Watch, and is the first part of a trilogy, followed by Day Watch and ending with the 2009 release of Twilight Watch.

In the prologue, which is set in medieval times, humans with extra powers are called Others. The Others are proponents of either light or dark and confront each other to do battle. Geser, lord of light, realizes that the two forces are evenly matched and both will be destroyed. In parley with Zavulon, general of dark, the two agree to a truce in which the light will form a Night Watch and the dark a Day Watch to maintain the balance before the coming of the Great One who will choose either Light or Dark and thereby bring one to prominence.

In modern Russia, when his wife leaves him for another man, Anton goes to see an old woman who he believes will be able to bring her back. This woman tells him that his wife is pregnant by the other man and the fetus must be aborted or she will return to the other man. Anton accepts responsibility for this. The old woman prepares a drink involving Anton’s blood which he drinks. The shot cuts to his wife telling the other man they have to split up. The old woman starts to cite an incantation to abort the fetus, and Anton’s wife on a distant boat collapses and clutches at her womb but just as the incantation is about to be complete, two figures become visible in the room, and a third appears at the door, who shapeshifts into a tiger, and restrains the old woman. They express surprise when Anton sees them and note that he must be an “other”.

Twelve years later, Anton has become a member of the nightwatch along with the three figures. At Anton’s request, Kostya, his neighbor, takes him to his father, a butcher, to procure blood for Anton to drink. The father does so reluctantly and notes after Anton leaves that the Night Watch only drink blood when they are hunting a vampire.

A twelve-year-old boy, Yegor, is hearing a psychic call by a vampire who intends to feed. Anton tracks Yegor, being able to hear the call as he nears Yegor. On the way he sees a blond woman with her hair flying about even though she is inside a subway train with no airflow.

Two vampires are about to feed on Yegor when Anton arrives, and he is attacked by the male vampire, whom Anton can see only in a mirror. Anton wounds the female vampire, who hides. The other members of the Night Watch arrive and turn on special lights on their truck. Anton then picks up a mirror shard and directs the light from the truck towards the male vampire’s chest, destroying him. A member of the Day Watch arrives and reveals that the daywatch are aware of the “murder” of one of their dark ones.

Anton is healed by Geser who notes that he could have solved things more easily by entering into a shadow world called the Gloom. He reveals a legend about a virgin who was cursed and people and animals around her died or sickened, she was accompanied by a vortex of damnation. Either this virgin who has been reborn must die or they must find who cursed her. Geser gives Anton an assistant called Olga in the shape of a stuffed owl. Anton refuses and laughs until he sees Geser throw it out the window, whereupon it turns into a living owl that flies away.

At Anton’s apartment, the owl arrives and shapeshifts into a woman. Kostya arrives and says he knows that Anton killed the vampire Dark Other. Anton and Olga track Yegor to his home where they must enter the Gloom as Yegor is there hiding from the female vampire. The Gloom almost takes Yegor, but a blood sacrifice from Anton distracts it enough for them to escape. Emerging from the Gloom, Anton sees a photo of Yegor and his mother, Anton’s wife of twelve years ago. Night Watch members Tiger and Bear arrive to protect Yegor but they start kissing and the boy follows the call of the female vampire.

Anton and Olga go to a command and control centre set up near the apartment of the woman, Svetlana, from the subway train. A vortex is over her apartment and bad things have been happening to those near her. There is a flashback to twelve years prior where Anton recalls hearing the nightwatch that rescued him from Daria, that she had lied to him and the boy was his son. Anton enters Svetlana’s apartment and talks with her, whereby it is revealed that she cursed herself, meaning she is an Other. This revealed, the curse ends and the vortex disappears.

Yegor escapes the grips of the female vampire after Zavulon enters the roof and tries to save Anton’s life. Here Anton tries to kill Yegor, Zavulon’s assistant reads Anton’s personal file aloud and hearing that Anton tried to kill him as a fetus, Yegor willingly turns to the Dark, much to the dismay of Anton.

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Vampire Effect (2003)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

The Twins Effect, also known as The Vampire Effect in the United States, is a 2003 Hong Kong film directed by Dante Lam. The movie was derived from the famous Cantopop duo, Twins, starring both Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi, and co-starring actors Edison Chen and Ekin Cheng, with a special guest appearance by Jackie Chan.

Following its release on June 23, 2003, The Twins Effect was a box-office success in Hong Kong. The film gained huge popularity, mainly from fans of the musical group, Twins. The film was later released on DVD in the United States, where it was renamed The Vampire Effect.

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Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Blood: The Last Vampire is an anime film produced by Production I.G and Aniplex and directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo. The film premiered in theaters in Japan on November 18, 2000.

A single-volume manga sequel, Blood: The Last Vampire 2000 written by Benkyo Tamaoki, was published in Japan in 2001 by Kadokawa Shoten, and in English by Viz Media in November 2002 with the title slightly modified to Blood: The Last Vampire 2002. Three Japanese light novel adaptations have also been released for the series, along with a video game. It also spawned a fifty-episode anime series, Blood+, which is an alternate universe story.

The story is set in the American Yokota Air Base located in post-WWII Japan, a few months before the beginning of the Vietnam War. Its main protagonist is a girl named Saya, who hunts hematophagous bat-like creatures called chiropterans for a secret organization known as the Red Shield.

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Underworld (2003)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Underworld is a 2003 action-horror film about the secret history of Vampires and a type of werewolf known as Lycans (an abbreviated form of lycanthrope). It is the first film in the Underworld series. The main plot revolves around Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a vampire who is a “Death Dealer“, or Lycan hunter, due to her hatred for the whole species. She finds herself attracted to a human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) who is being targeted by the Lycans. After Michael is bitten by a Lycan, Selene must decide whether to do her “duty” and kill him or go against her clan and save him.

While reviewers generally gave the film a negative reception, criticizing the lack of character development and overacting, a smaller number of reviewers praised elements such as the film’s stylish Gothic visuals, the “icy English composure” in Kate Beckinsale’s performance, and the extensively worked-out vampire-werewolf mythology that serves as the film’s backstory.

Perched on the ledge of a building in a rainy night, two black-garbed vampires known as “Death Dealers” track a pair of werewolves who are walking on the street below in their human form. The vampires, Selene and Rigel, specialize in assassinating an ancient species of werewolves known as Lycans. Selene’s motivation goes beyond duty; she also wants revenge, for she believes that Lycans slaughtered her family when she was a child. The vampires believe that they defeated the werewolves many centuries ago and killed their leader, Lucian, and that they must now kill off the survivors. As the vampires follow the Lycans into a subway station, the werewolves open fire with submachine guns. In the chaotic shootout, Selene realizes that the Lycans may have been following a human, Michael Corvin, which would be very unusual. After the Lycans retreat from Selene’s barrage of machine pistol fire, she tracks them to their lair, where she hears loud howling and finds out that the Lycans have developed a new high-tech bullet to kill the vampires.

When Selene arrives at the vampire coven’s ornate, gated mansion, she recounts the evening’s events, and urges an attack on the Lycans, but the vampire regent Kraven tells her to drop the matter. Selene secretly continues her investigation, to find out why the Lycans were chasing a human. Meanwhile, in an underground Lycan lair, a scientist named Singe is testing blood from kidnapped descendants of the Corvinus family, to try to find a pure source of the ancient and powerful Corvinus blood type. Soon after Selene finds Michael, the pair are attacked by werewolves, including Lucian, the original Lycan leader, who still lives. After Lucian bites Michael on the shoulder, Selene helps Michael to escape, and the two become romantically attracted to each other.

Meanwhile, Selene finds out that when Lucian was killed, Kraven was the only witness. Fearful that Kraven and Lucian are in a conspiracy, she wakes a powerful elder vampire Viktor, who has been in hibernation. Selene tells Michael about the feud and her past. After Lycans attack Selene captures Singe, the scientist; unbeknownst to her, Michael is captured by Lycans. Selene brings back the wounded Singe, who admits to Viktor that the Lycans have been trying combine the bloodlines of the two species with the Corvinus Strain to create a powerful Vampire-Lycan hybrid. After Kraven flees the mansion (because Singe reveals that Kraven and Lucian are working together), news arrives that the female elder coming to wake Marcus has been killed by Lycans. Viktor kills Singe and instructs Selene to kill Michael.

Meanwhile, in the Lycan lair where Michael is being held captive, he learns that long ago, Lucian took Viktor’s daughter as his bride. When Viktor learned of her pregnancy, he killed her to prevent any crossing of the two species, which led to the war. After Viktor admits to slaughtering Selene’s family, and battles with Michael, who has transformed to a Lycan-Vampire hybrid Selene slices Viktor’s head in two. Selene and Michael flee the Lycan lair, now an enemy from both Lycan and Vampire covens. Back at the mansion, Singe’s blood seeps through the trapdoor of the sarcophagus of the remaining elder, Marcus, a carrier of the original Corvinus Strain…

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Underworld: Evolution (2006)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

The movie opens in the year 1202 AD in which an army led by three vampire elders (Markus, Viktor, and Amelia) arrives at a ravaged village. The vampire army is attacked by Lycans, and a battle erupts. Viktor and Amelia capture Markus’s brother William Corvinus, the first and most powerful werewolf. Viktor orders that William be imprisoned in a secret location forever.

The story then continues the present-day timeline, starting immediately after the events of the first film. Selene takes Michael to a vampire safe house so that she can return to the mansion to confront Kraven, the traitor from the first movie. However, Singe’s blood has already awakened Markus, who wipes out the entire remnant of Kraven and his men and the mansion as retribution for Viktor’s treachery. He learns Selene and Michael’s location from camera surveillance of various safe houses and leaves to track them down. When confronted by Markus, Selene defends her actions, and Markus agrees that Viktor got what he deserved. However, he believes Selene is hiding something and attacks her; Michael intervenes and protects her. Markus tries and fails to get hold of the pendant that the two have in their possession, which they were given by Lucian. They escape and seek refuge in an abandoned warehouse. During that time, they make love to one another.

Meanwhile, Lorenz Macaro, an elderly and imposing man, sends in a team of “Cleaners” to investigate the aftermath from the final battle in the first movie. When Macaro examines Viktor’s body he finds a metal disk attached to his ribcage similar to Sonja’s pendant, which Selene and Michael possessed. Now knowing that the pendant is of some importance to Markus, Michael and Selene set out to solve its mystery. Selene recalls that she’d seen it as a child, but doesn’t know its significance. To find answers, they travel to the hideout of Andreas Tanis, who is an exiled vampire historian and old enemy of Selene, as she was the one who exiled him. After dispatching the various Lycans and Vampires guarding Tanis, they confront him and discover that Tanis had been secretly trading vampire-killing weapons with Lycans and forces him to tell them as much as he can.

Tanis reveals that Markus, not Viktor, was the first vampire. One of the two sons of Alexander Corvinus, he was bitten by a bat and became a vampire; his twin brother, William Corvinus, was bitten by a wolf and became a Lycan. Unlike later Lycans, William and the Lycans created by him are entirely animal and unable to take human form again. Due to William’s wanton destructiveness, Markus approached Viktor, a warlord dying of old age, and offered to turn him and his army into immortal vampires in exchange for tracking down and stopping William. As seen in the film’s opening flashback, Markus intended to capture his brother and tame him, but Viktor betrays Markus and orders William locked away forever. Viktor is ultimately falsely regarded as the first vampire and is happy to assume this role as both William and Markus are in hibernation. He does not kill the brothers because he believes doing so would result in the immediate extinction of all other vampires and Lycans. Killing William would mean Viktor would lose his slaves and killing Markus would kill Viktor himself. Tanis also reveals that Selene’s father was the architect who built William’s prison and that the pendant is a key. Viktor thought that her family knew too much about its location, so he killed and fed on them and then turned Selene into a vampire. Tanis then refers Selene and Michael to Lorenz Macaro, stating he can help stop Markus. Shortly after they leave, Markus arrives and questions Tanis. He then kills Tanis to absorb his memories.

Selene and Michael go to see Lorenz Macaro, whom Selene realizes is actually Alexander Corvinus, Markus and William’s father and the oldest of the immortals. He reveals he has devoted his life to containing the vampire-lycan war away from the mortal world. However, Alexander refuses to help kill Markus as he is his son. Their debate is stopped when Markus attacks the boat. He learns the location of William’s hidden prison by drinking Selene’s blood and proceeds to kill Michael and mortally wound Alexander to obtain the other half of the pendant. Markus reveals that he wishes to become a god and rule a race of Hybrids. Once Markus has left, Selene talks with the dying Alexander and he has her drink his blood, stating that by doing so she will become ‘the future’.

Selene leads the cleaners to the prison to confront and destroy Markus, but Markus has already freed William. A battle ensues in which Selene and the Cleaners seem to be losing. William bites the Cleaners and begins turning them into Lycans. Michael, presumed to be dead inside his bodybag, suddenly regenerates and joins the fight in his Hybrid form. Michael ultimately kills William, while Selene then kills Markus. Michael and Selene, the only survivors, stand in the morning sun. Selene reveals that she is no longer harmed by ultraviolet light. As the film ends, Selene narrates that she fears the days ahead, but is nevertheless hopeful.

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Blade: Trinity (2004)

Friday, November 28th, 2008

The vampires succeed in framing Blade for the killing of a human (a familiar being used as bait when posing as a vampire). Blade, now in the public’s eye and wanted by the FBI, is forced into hiding with his mentor, Abraham Whistler. A few days later, the FBI attack the hideout. During the siege, Whistler destroys the hideout after being mortally wounded, killing him in the ensuing explosion. The loss of his mentor allows Blade to be captured easily.

As the police prepare to hand Blade over to a group of vampires, Blade is rescued by Hannibal King and Abigail, Whistler’s daughter. The two head a group of vampire hunters called the Nightstalkers, formed by Blade’s mentor to assist him. Blade reluctantly joins the group after learning King was once a vampire. King and Abigail reveal that Danica Talos (Parker Posey), who was the vampire who bit King, has located and resurrected the ancient first vampire, Dracula (Dominic Purcell) (who is referred to as Drake throughout the film). Talos hopes that by resurrecting Dracula, he (Drake) will help save the vampire race and eliminate Blade. In his first confrontation with Blade, Drake shows a sort of affinity for the “Daywalker”, as they are both “honorable warriors” (somewhat ironically, while Drake is delivering his speech about honor, he is hiding behind a newborn baby he has taken hostage). During the beginning of the chaos, King is incapacitated by Drake.

Blade eventually learns of a bioweapon the Nightstalkers had created called Daystar. The weapon is capable of killing any and all vampires in a nearby area. However, there are two catches: The first is that Drake’s blood must be infused with the virus. As he is the first vampire, his DNA is still pure, which, infused with Daystar, will make it work to its maximum capacity. The second: the virus has a possibility of killing Blade, as he is a half-vampire.

Blade and Abigail learn of the vampire “final solution”, which involves several hundred human beings being kept alive in a comatose-like state in body bags. This keeps in line with vampires needing live food sources if the entire vampire race were to take over the world. Blade coldly has all of them killed, destroying their “final solution.”

The two return to find the Nightstalkers have been all but wiped out. The only exception is King, who has been kidnapped by Drake (disguised as Blade’s mentor, Whistler), who had also killed the rest of the Stalkers; and kidnaps a young girl named Zoe, the daughter of one of the Nightstalkers. Blade and Abigail have no choice but to rescue King from the Talos building where he had been chained and tortured for information, and where Drake also is hiding.

Meanwhile, King is tortured for information about Daystar. When this fails to get any information from him, Talos instead tells King that she will bite him again and leave him to feed on Zoe. Blade and Abigail eventually enter the building and the fighting begins. Abigail kills Danica Talos’ brother, Asher (Callum Keith Rennie) and King kills Jarko Grimwood (Triple H) while Blade engages Drake in a sword battle. In the end, Blade impales Drake with the Daystar arrow, which draws his blood and releases it into the air, killing all the nearby vampires, including Danica Talos. Drake dies after promising Blade a “parting gift.” The disease subsequently appears to kill Blade as well. The FBI later discover Blade’s body and call off their search. However, the corpse turns back into Drake’s at the morgue. The film ends with Blade driving off into the sunset to continue his war against vampires.

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