After a period of war between humans and vampires, it ravaged the planet leaving it desolate and almost inhabitable. Whats left between that war are a few vampires which were contained in hives or reservations meanwhile humans led by The Church erected huge wall to protect itself.
Priests are warriors recruited and trained by the Clergy to fight the vampires and after winning the war, they were made ordinary citizens. Famous among the Priests is Priest (played by Paul Bettany) whose brother and his wife was attacked by vampires and left mortally wounded early in the film. They took Lucy Pace (played by Lily Collins) Priest's niece, and this was relayed to him by Sheriff of Augustine, Hicks (played by Cam Gigandnet). Priest then asked Church leader Monsignor Orelas (played by Christopher Plumber) to have him reinstated so he can rescue Lucy. The Monsignor denied his request as he believes that there are no more vampires who prey on humans and that the war is already over.
Despite being denied, Priest went on to try to rescue Lucy for which Monsignor Orelas sent 3 priests and 1 priestess after him.
During this time Priest and Hicks teamed up to go after Lucy and reached their first vampire reservation to investigate. They survived the vampire attack here and they learned that Lucy was taken west to Sola Mira, another vampire hive or reservation. In the hive he meets with Priestess (played by Maggie Q) and they found out that the vampires were no longer in the hive. The trio finds a tunnel that leads out of the mountain. The vampires have escaped and is headed to the nearest town of Jericho which had no chance in defending itself against a horde.
The trio finds the town of Jericho deserted and saw that the other 3 priests sent after him also died by the hands of Black Hat (played by
The vampires could not travel during day time so it was Black Hat (played by Karl Urban, a former priest turned vampire slave) that transports his vampire army via enclosed armored trains. He was turned by the vampire queen and now he is doing the Queen's bidding. He used Lucy as bait to lure out Priest and come after him.
Priest meanwhile assumes that Black Hat is steering his train towards the cities for an attack. The trio of Priest, Priestess and Hicks then follows the train in hoping to stop it. In the end, train was stopped and Priest hurries back to Monsignor Orelas to inform him that the vampires are again on the rise against the humans.
Priest then leaves the city in search of the Queen and meets with Priestess who informs him that the other priests were already notified and were waiting for him. The end, or is it?
The movie was touted to be a horror film but somehow it was devoid of surprises thus we can just say its a monster film. The vampires doesn't have eyes here and they simply crawl like aliens and run like dogs. I like my vampires suave and look like humans except for the fangs and weird eyes. It was only Black Hat who looked like that and he is commanding an army of vampires or vampire dogs. How he communicates with them is a wonder to me and being CGI dogs, they move beyond the laws of physics.
Paul Bettany had it easy with this film, he was just lethargic with his performance here and it was just his action scenes that we felt like watching. He is like a human Terminator here devoid of emotion (almost) and is just trained to kill. He is so menacing and convincing here as a warrior that we didn't think of his being defeated. Even if he was being manhandled by Black Hat, we still know he would win. Although he didn't get the upper hand against Black Hat, the latter died in a ball of train explosion. What? That's it? Why did we have to watch him fight with Priest for a long period of time?
Maggie Q was hot in this film, even with a faulty story line, poor script, we love her period.
Hicks or Cam Gigandnet, has the same face and performance like in Burlesque. Except for the smiles and raunchiness in Burlesque, his drama face is the same here. I can't truly blame him to be non existent in the movie, its the plot and script's inadequacies. He has no special powers, he has no extra ordinary skill, he is just a western cowboy with a gun. He can't even shoot straight with the gun against the vampires so we know he will be killed by one. Surprisingly he survived. He shines for a while on screen then vanishes and pops up again and we say, oh yeah he is part of the movie. I can't remember how many times we forget about his character only to be reminded he is the sidekick who does nothing.
Bringing in Christopher Plumber was a total waste. His scenes consists of a few moments that we know can be filled in by a non famous actor. Plumber's greatest moment here was the confrontation in the end where he shines his usual drama performance. Too late a hero and he can't save the film anymore.
We just wish the plot and script was a little better maybe just maybe we can have a better movie. We had great actors here and we felt they could have given more to make this film entertaining. If you have time and want to watch a boring uneventful story, then Priest is for you. Then you watch an avengers movie with Paul Bettany in it as the Vision.
Currently showing on Netflix, so see vampires with no eyes die here.
