Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

So what happens when ‘Blade’ discovers that he is ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’? We will find out soon enough as we tag along with Shawn Black (Michael Matthias) who is desperate to avenge the death of his parents in this little vampire action flick that calls itself ‘The Bleeding’. Offhand I’m thinking that ‘Blade’ and ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ isn’t exactly peanut butter and chocolate.

Our man Shawn, a semi-retired super badass super soldier fresh from Afghanistan, awakens in a hospital. He is at the hospital all f’d up after trying to protect his parents from evil vampires. Eventually we will discover that Shawn is the ‘Deliverer’ or the ‘Expediter’ or the something that equates to Master Vampire Slayer and the vampires need him dead. One could ask why didn’t these vampires kill him when they had the chance considering he was all unconscious and stuff, laid up in hospital, but we won’t ask that.

Right now Shawn doesn’t know he’s a master vampire slayer, he just knows that he’s pissed off and needs to kill somebody. Shawn jumps into one his many dope rides, you see he and his dad used to love restoring classic shiny cars with big V8 engines in them, and drives real fast to nowhere in particular.

Before Shawn gets started on his journey to destruction he must first encounter a virtual who’s who of B-movie star goodness. First there’s a dirty cop played by Armand Assante in a scene that as far as I could tell will have absolutely no impact on this movie, but if you can put Armand Assante in your movie, then you put Armand Assante in your movie. Next Shawn drives real fast again in his Shelby Mustang to see Tagg the Tattoo Artist played by DMX. This scene at least does possess some relevance since Tagg informs Shawn that vampires are real, that both men are vampire slayers and then gives him some critical information on where to get more critical vampire slaying information.

Somewhere between leaving Tagg’s joint and heading to his next destination Shawn decided to take off his snug shirt and snug pair of pants to put on an even tighter shirt and tighter pair of pants. Again, we are not asking why. Also on his way to his next destination Shawn runs into a pair of well formed hotties in Jenny (Madison Weidberg) and Lena (Rachelle Leah) looking for a party. One not’s going to make it, the other will be along for the ride. They drive a Dodge Challenger. 2 Fast!

Eventually Shawn meets this realities version of Whistler in the hard drinking priest Father Roy, as played by Michael Madsen and we will have you know that Mr. Madsen seemed actually engaged this time around. I don’t know what director Charlie Picerni did to make this happen but since Michael Madsen will probably be showing up in thirty or so movies in the next six months, those film directors might want to text Mr. Picerni to find out his secret to getting Mr. Madsen actually interested in being in your movie. Anyway now Shawn knows his destiny, he knows the real identity of Cain (Vinne Jones) the evil king vampire that killed his parents and he knows what must be done. At first Shawn is really upset about this and runs through the woods yelling like a big muscle bound sissy, but eventually he comes around. A spectacular race down a highway will be way 2 fast and way 2 furious with it all culminating in a battle between a big dude in a tight shirt vs. a miscast dude in a black hat with both dudes wielding …. Wait for it… blades baby. Blades.

I’m watching this movie ‘The Bleeding’ and it’s not looking very good, despite the cool smoky cinematography and the fast cars and whatnot, but it’s lacking a pulse, it’s moving way too slow, the dialog is an incomprehensible mish mash of pulp fiction novels mixed with gothic nonsense and I’m thinking that the corner of our website dedicated to movies of almost negative value may have a new entry. I don’t like to put movies in the Garbage Corner, but sometimes that’s where they belong. Then something happened that pretty much insured that this movie would be Garbage Corner free and that would’ve been when a mime pulled a knife on our hero and the hero kicked this mimes ass. That was outstanding. A knife wielding mime. From that moment on this particular movie picked up steam. It never became a good movie, the dialog did not improve and Vinnie Jones being cast as the king of the vampires didn’t get any more palatable, much less the fact that DMX seemed closer genetically to Michael Matthias than Vinnie Jones did since Jones was supposed to be my man’s brother… but the movie did become bearable.

Part of this was Michael Madsen who looked liked he actually enjoyed the art of acting, at least for a couple days. Part of it was less narration by Michael Matthias and more ass kicking but the best part was the final 2 fast 2 furious semi-truck / race car / motorcycle sequence that had to have completely blown the budget in this movie, but it was worth it and it was pretty damn spectacular. The final fight scene between our hero and our villain was fairly anti-climactic considering it came on the heels of the movies best sequence and if you are going to use a swimsuit / playboy model as your female lead, which is how Rachelle Leah made her money before she came to us in this movie, then by golly this woman should probably spend more time in swimsuits and be naked. Make use or your resources is what my grandfather used to tell me.

As we mentioned earlier ‘The Bleeding’ never rises above the Mendoza Line to the category of a good movie but it did improve upon itself as it wore on. If the adventures of Shawn Black Vampire Slayer continue, it has at least garnered enough good will to get me to watch the next one.