Opening today in theaters, the 3-D action curio Priest seems to have designs on a pair of audiences once thought irreconcilable: Young, overserved vampire-genre devotees; and the older, Christian demographic that loves its religious mythology with a healthy side of moralized violence. Each has their blockbusters, and ne’er the bloody twain shall meet. Until now.
Except that historically the vampire genre is anchored in Christian faith. Humans meet their undead nemeses with crosses and holy water, superstitions and the enduring (if periodic) promise of sunlight. Stakes are ritually driven through hearts. Vampires are evil not because they threaten our lives, but because of their threat to extend it indefinitely on Earth — a clear defiance of God’s law, and an abomination for which they must die. Based on the hit Korean manwha series by Hyung Min-woo and directed by Scott Stewart, Priest offers a world in which centuries of war between humans and vampires — a holy war not so dissimilar to the Crusades — is finally ended by a legion of kick-ass men (and, quite radically, at least one woman) of the cloth. As if it could have ended any other way.
But what follows — and where Priest begins — refracts the genre into something a little more advanced for an era that’s a lot more cynical. These heroic priests return from battle tormented, socially outcast and virtually unemployable. They’re subject to menial labor and years of nightmares. The crosses tattooed on their foreheads only worsen their pariah status. The broodiest of them all, known simply…
Jennifer ODell Jennifer Scholle Jennifer Sky Jenny McCarthy Jessica Alba Jessica Biel Jessica Cauffiel
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