Rise: Blood Hunter is a 2007 horror/neo-noir film directed by Sebastian Gutierrez. It is a Samuel Goldwyn Films release starring Lucy Liu and Michael Chiklis. Rise is a supernatural thriller in which reporter Sadie Blake (Liu) wakes up in a morgue to discover she is now a vampire. She vows revenge against the vampire cult responsible for her situation and hunts them down one by one. Chiklis plays Clyde Rawlins, a haunted police detective whose daughter is victimized by the same group and seeks answers for her gruesome death.
Tropes:
- Auto Erotica: Sadie offers a hitchhiker sex in her car, but it's only a ruse for her to feed on him.
- Back from the Dead: Sadie is revived in the morgue after she's been murdered and made into a vampire. After she gets killed (at her request) again Sadie once more wakes up there.
- Black Bra and Panties: When Sadie is luring a hitchhiker to his doom with the promise of sex, it's shown she wears a black bra underneath her shirt as she's undressing.
- Disappeared Dad: Sadie's mother and sister are shown, though her father is not (he isn't mentioned either).
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Killing and raping people is fine by Eve, but there's a limit - no children, no babies.
- Sadie has this in a way; she does question the hitchhiker beforehand - no wife, no kids, no people depending on you? Alrighty good to eat... or being eaten anyway.
- Face–Heel Turn: After becoming a vampire, Tricia becomes evil. It's left unclear exactly why, but a combination of the transformation affecting her, mental trauma due to what she undergoes or having a sense of belonging with the head vampire Bishop all seem possible.
- Fan Disservice: Sadie is wholly or partly nude more than once. A lot of it is less than sexy though, given the specific circumstances (for instance being hung upside down to bleed out).
- Healing Factor: Vampires have one, and can survive a lot as a result, including multiple bullet wounds from close range or jumping twenty feet from an overpass. Rawlins comments in astonishment at how fast Sadie's body is regenerating after he shot her.
- Hunter of His Own Kind: On being transformed into a vampire once she's been fed on, raped and left for dead by other vampires, Sadie starts killing them all.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Sadie decides to kill herself after having been turned into a vampire, and jumps from an overpass. It doesn't work though-she survives with only cuts and bruises, as vampires regenerate from a lot of damage. She seeks vengeance against them instead after this and convinces Rawlins to kill her so she doesn't become a monster like the other vampires.
- Lesbian Vampire: Eve seems very into Sadie. In the opening, Sadie picks up a female sex worker and acts like she's going to have sex with her. It's just a ploy to get close with an older vampire though, who Sadie delivers for him as bait and then kills.
- Missing Reflection: The main character starts to realize that she has become a vampire when she wakes up in the morgue and goes to inspect herself in a mirror, which doesn't show her reflection.
- Ms. Fanservice: Sadie is shown nude (from the back and side) or in her underwear multiple times, along with being topless once.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. Midway through the movie Sadie uses the bathroom while handcuffed, and has Rawlins put them in front as otherwise it would be impossible. However, she's still unable to pull her pants up afterward (he does it for her). She's never actually heard doing anything nor flushing however.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The word "vampire" is never uttered in the film to describe the cult of undead blood drinkers. That's why most people who saw the trailer thought it was about some sort of Pushing Daisies-esque zombie or something.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are almost indistinguishable from humans physically—they don't even have fangs, which makes feeding very messy. (They tend to slash throats with a blade if possible, but at one point Sadie [Liu's character] has to chew through a victim's skin.) Their biological functions are less than clear—one minion of a vampire tries to suffocate Sadie with a plastic bag, and seems to be succeeding. (Also you'd think he'd know better if it didn't work.) However, getting shot has little effect except pain, and Sadie survives a fall from a bridge into traffic, though she's beaten up very badly. Vampires have a powerful sense of smell, and seem to be a little stronger and faster than humans, but not very much so; they can't break handcuffs, and it takes several blows to break a locked door. They die from crossbow bolts (presumably wooden) to the heart except Sadie, who survives one.
- Rape and Revenge: Along with being fed on and left for dead, Sadie says the vampires raped her (though it occurred off screen). She mentions this more than the others as a motive for taking revenge, probably due to rape being held as especially heinous.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The plot of the movie involves Sadie hunting down and killing the vampire cult responsible for turning her.
- Shout-Out: The vampires' lack of fangs and, instead, their use of small ornate blades worn as pendants is most likely one to the 1983 vampire film The Hunger.
- Vampire Bites Suck: The movie features vampires who don't have fangs, so instead they cut huge gushing holes in the necks of their victims with their pendant blades.
- Vampire Refugee: Though Sadie is very determined to get revenge for her unwilling (and unplanned) vampirisation on the bloodsuckers of L.A., she slips when it comes to feeding on a poor schlub offering her a lift.
- Waking Up at the Morgue: Sadie Blake, after being attacked and left for dead by a vampire, wakes up in a cold box and has to kick it open to get out. After hunting down and killing her attacker, she ends up dead again and the last shot is of her body being shelved into a cold box in the morgue. The very last shot is of her kicking open the box.
