Waking up in the morgue and discovering you are now part of the un-dead would likely be an unsettling experience, to say the least! This is exactly what happens to investigative reporter Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu) in Rise: Blood Hunter. Armed with a very nasty looking miniature crossbow and presumably silver bolts, Sadie sets out to hunt down and destroy the cult that has destroyed her life. In particular, she wants their suave and lethal leader, Bishop (James D’Arcy).

Meanwhile the rugged seen-it-all cop Rawlins (Michael Chiklis) is also after the cult who are leaving a trail of mutilated bodies behind them. Rawlins has a personal interest in this cult, his daughter was one of their victims. No funky teeth for this bunch of blood suckers, they look just like you or me. But don’t be fooled, drink blood they do, and the feeding frenzy scenes are pretty brutal, and there is plenty of gore in this movie for even the most strong-stomached horror fan.

Rise may not be Oscar winning material, but if you are looking for 85 minutes of darkly themed movie, with an equally dark soundtrack (Nathan Barr) this may be just the thing. Rise opens in theatres everywhere on June 1.

My favourite quote has to be from Sadie “Death is different now”, and on getting shot in the back by a .45: “Damn that hurt”. According to a speech given by director Sebastian Gutierrez at the Tribecca film festival, Rise was shot in 30 days and on a shoestring budget. Taking that into account I think Rise deserves high marks.

Jan (my wife) was my co-reviewer on this one and I give this one a two fangs up.