Priest 2011 Scott Stewart

Let me ask you something.  Do you like westerns?  What about The Searchers?  I know that when I sit around thinking about The Searchers, my thoughts definitely turn to things like "What would make that movie better?"  Invariably, I come to the conclusion that vampires would definitely make it better.  Everybody's used to Scar and the Indians by now.  Vampires, that's where it's at.  But not soulful, snappy dresser vampires.  I'm thinking more along the lines of eyeless, Descent style monsters that scrabble around and rip your throat out.

And cowboys as heroes?  Tired.  How about it all takes place in a 1984 style future where the Church runs everything, including training people to be Church Warrior Priests to hunt down the Indians...I mean vampires.  But it's only 1984 in the city.  Once you get outside into the Forbidden Zone, it becomes the Old West.  With vampires.  And kung fu Warrior Priests.

Like The Searchers, the vampires attack a homestead, kill the people, steal the niece of the badass priest, and he vows revenge.  Her boyfriend sheriff type tags along, of course, and they go hunting.  Paul Bettany, the Priest, even says that he'll kill his niece if she's "infected".

It was at this point that I started to wonder just how slavish this movie would be towards The Searchers.  Thankfully, not much more.  Karl Urban shows up as a human/vampire mix - an Old West Wesley Snipes - and proceeds to steal the movie right out from under everyone else.  The showdown on the train between the Priest and Black Hat (imaginative!) is pretty fun, as long as you can overlook all the stealing from better movies.

This movie is fine, in it's own way.  It's completely derivative.  It's mindless and fun.  You'll forget you saw it within a few days, but you'll remember having some stupid fun.  And for a summer movie, that's about all you can ask.  Well, that and air conditioning.