6WH: October 29th

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) directed by Chris Nahon
A damned pretty movie to look at. There are nighttime fights in neon-bathed city streets. There's a forest fight with rustling leaves disguising ninjas. The final battle takes place in a pastel dreamworld mimicking the past. A lot of the film looks like an anime or manga come to life, which I suspect was one of the goals of the filmmakers. Sadly, a lot of this beauty was, for me, marred by some absolutely wretched, horrible, worst-I've-ever-seen CGI blood effects. I'm almost tempted to think this was some kind of bizarre stylistic choice on a part of the filmmakers. When the blood comes out of someone's wound, it looks like they have a bubble machine in them. The blood shoots out in little round globules, just dainty bubbles floating in the air. Remember how the klingon blood looks in Star Trek VI when it was floating around in microgravity? That's exactly what the CGI blood looks like it this film.

Outside of the look, the story is pretty bog-standard for this sort of thing. Demons are invading the earth and only the vampire Saya, working with the CIA, can stop them. It a complete shock, it turns out she's related to the lead demon. Though Saya's battles with the demons are very entertaining to watch -- they're up their with The Matrix movies -- that's ultimately all the film has to offer. (6/10)