The Reverend

First of all, the plot summary here is completely WRONG, so feel free to ignore it. It's that age old tale of a young member of the clergy who's bitten by a female vampire, and decides to use his powers for good by decimating the local chav population, and giving a home to an abused prostitute. Well, he's got my vote! Oddly enough, he can wonder around in daylight and doesn't seem perturbed by crosses, so he must be a new SPECIAL brand of bloodsucker. Hmm... Anyway, the appealing lead is about the only noteworthy aspect of this Poundland production, which is chock full of substandard special effects, portentous dialogue and worst of all, Shane Richie embarrassing himself in a cameo appearance. Someone superglue him to the Albert Square bench already.

I thought this was reasonably well done For a B film. Acting was passable on the whole, with some exceptions. Production value was not terrible but could have been better.

Stuart Brennan stars as The Reverend, a young man of the cloth, fresh from seminary school, he is assigned to his first parish in a small village in the country. On the surface the village seems peaceful, but there's a dark criminal underbelly, all ran by Harold Hicks (Hassan). One night, The Reverend is bitten by a vampire and he is turned into a bloodthirsty fiend himself. However, instead of using his powers for evil, he uses them to do God's work and clean up the village... by preaching to the churchgoers or by feasting on the criminal muck.

The Reverend is based on a graphic novel of the same name and is unlike other vampire movies. Here, The Reverend vampire is a good guy and it's the humans that are the evil. In a way, The Reverend is like a superhero. Furthermore, there's no vampire clichés like crosses and garlic, as The Reverend uses the cross as his ally. The Reverend is also indebted to the Western. It might be set in rural Britain, but it wears its spaghetti influence on its sleeve; The Reverend is the hero who enters the corrupt town and clears out the scum while a blues guitar soundtracks his mission. Stuart Brennan is great as our unlikely action hero and steals the show. Tamer Hassan is Tamer Hassan like we've seen him before, albeit with a quaint country dress code. When you need an intimidating villain in a low budget British film though... Tamer is your man. I'd love to see him get a chance on a bigger movie. Emily Booth is both a pleasure and a disappointment; she's as beautiful as ever and her performance shows that she can act outside of splat-stick, sleaze ball trash. It's a different role for her and it's nice to see her try something new and do a good job, but she plays a prostitute and doesn't show her marvellous assets. Some boobs would have been awesome. Rutger Hauer and Doug Bradley on the other hand are nice to see, but they're only small cameos. Rutger is the main name being used to market this, so if you buy it for him then you might be let down as he's only in the prologue.

There is some gore here to satisfy your thirst for the red stuff, and there's some pretty cool fight scenes. It does focus more on story over action though. Many reviews are criticising this already. To many this will be a turkey but it's not bad at all. By no means is it great, but it's an enjoyable way to pass 2 hours. The ambition perhaps outstretched the budget, but it's pretty decent considering it was shoestring.

Overall, it's not perfect but it's worth checking out.

3 on a scale of 1 to ten is low right? I won't grade it a 2 but surely nothing more than 3 and I'll give you all the info you need: the camera work is amateur and cheap; the acting is seriously bad from half the characters at least, especially that Steven Seagal lookalike; the effects are somewhat acceptable, few, nothing pretentious, nothing spectacular; the plot itself, bad; even Rutger Hauer's appearance was nothing more than a Shakespearian rap battle.

I'm telling you, don't get impressed by other positive reviews, as they are either fake or coming from people who seriously have little contact with horror. It is a very weak movie that will annoy, disappoint and let down everyone standing in front of it for a view. Pass it, if you that much into modern religious horror movies try either "Heretic" tho it is also quite bad but not as this one or "The borderlands", the last one being the found footage type and much better in my opinion. Then again, keep in mind, much better than a 3, is not much either.

I'm gonna leave you with a warning, careful with this one, the chances that you might actually enjoy it or consider it a good time waster are very close to an "impossible!".

Cheers!

For a vampire movie then "The Reverend" is different from many other vampire movies. And as such, that is an interesting take on the vampire mythology. However, as far as enjoyment goes, then "The Reverend" was a drag and really uneventful.

The story is about a young reverend (played by Stuart Brennan) who just started his work in a new town. He is savagely attacked by a seductive woman vampire and ends up becoming a vampire himself. Armed with his faith in God and his newfound thirst for blood, the reverend sets out to clean out all the bad seeds in the town.

Storywise, then "The Reverend" was really, really boring. Sure, this was an alternate take on an otherwise stereotypical vampire genre. And it was a bold approach and take on the genre, I will say that much. But ultimately it was a take that didn't fully manifested itself in any possible enjoyable way, and the story seemed rather irrelevant and pointless.

Initially, I picked this up because of Rutger Hauer and Doug Bradley - which was a bad mistake on my behalf, because they were only in the movie very briefly, and wouldn't even qualify as having supporting roles. They were cameo appearances. But I guess their names are used to lure in viewers - and I supposed it works; at least I got suckered in.

I will say that the acting in the movie was good, especially given that this movie is driven by the story and the dialogue and not by the action. However, it focused too much on the story and dialogue, and that somehow turned the movie into a drag - because it trotted on at a dull, mind-numbingly slow pace, which drains the will to watch the movie slowly away.

If you enjoy vampire movies and want to see something new to the genre, then give "The Reverend" a go. Who knows, it might just be what you have been looking for. Personally, I was bored out of my mind with this movie and found it a really difficult struggle just to sit through the movie to the end of it.