PRIEST

Humans and vampires have always fought each other. The vampires were starting to annihilate humans so the church trained an elite group of men and women called Priests (more martial arts warriors than Actual priests). In the end, the Priests destroyed the hives, and locked up the vampires on reservations, while the church built walled cities to enclose humans. The church has become the all-knowing, ruling power of the cities, reminiscent of the church that ruled the middle ages.

Director, Scott Stewart, gives us a beautiful, bloody, animation sequence explaining the back story of Priest by paying homage to the original Korean comic book series. By the way, this is when we see the most red the entire movie. Since these vampires are always in the dark, the background is shades of grey which makes the blood a very dark, thick liquid. Priest has violence to it, but focuses most on its characters and their journey. I have not read the comic, but I hear the movie is nothing like it. This, from what I understand, is a good thing since the comic jumps around in time and would likely confuse an audience.

For the humans, sunlight was their main advantage in fighting the vampires. How ironic, that now, the church’s solution has led to darkness covering the cities. Dark clouds cover the cities, while the sun shines outside the cities’ walls. The movie doesn’t explain this, but I assume it correlates to the large populations sealed in the small cities and the pollution produced.

The vampires lived in hives with their Queen. It appears the Queen breeds, making more vampires. The vampires either kill and drink the blood or infect humans by biting them. A bitten human becomes a ‘familiar.’ Familiars have blue eyes, sharp teeth, and walk in the sun (to protect their masters while they sleep), while still retaining a human like form.

That brings me to the vampires. Throw out everything you think of when picturing vampires and their behavior because it won’t be in Priest. Can they only come out at night? Yes. That’s it for any similarities. They are monsters with pinkish-grey skin, no eyes and four large fangs. They look similar to the creatures from Doom. No sophisticated, handsome dark stranger that hypnotizes humans in this movie, except… I’ll just move on.

A Priest, Paul Bettany, is informed that his niece was abducted by vampires that shouldn’t exist outside the reservation. He defies the councils’ orders and tries to find her. The council sends other Priests and Priestess to hunt Bettany. Bettany soon discovers vampires are no longer contained to the reservations and are led by a powerful and familiar threat. Along with Bettany, Maggie Q (Nikita), Cam Gigandet, and Karl Urban round out the main cast.

Priest is action packed and surprising short, only 89 minutes. The movie touches on the depth of its characters without much dialogue. Not much fluff in this one. The end is like most movies now, setting up for a sequel, one that I will gladly go see.