BloodRayne film officially sucks

In news that will come of absolutely no surprise to anyone at all, Uwe Boll's latest big screen videogame adaptation has been slammed by US critics following its Stateside release.

According to Hollywood news site Variety.com, BloodRayne netted $1.2 million in its opening weekend - which might be enough to buy yourself an Xbox 360 off eBay and still have change for a bag of chips, but it's actually not very much at all in movie terms. Schlock horror Hostel, for example, pulled in more than $20 million over the same weekend.

And it gets worse. Distributor Romar had announced that the film would appear on more than 1900 US screens - but in fact it only ended up on 985. Variety claims that hundreds of prints were sent to cinemas who never asked for them in the first place, and who remained insistent that they would not show the film.

No doubt BloodRayne star and Romar investor Billy Zane will be disappointed - just last week he was reassuring us that Boll "has totally made his mark and put his naysayers and critics to rest with this film."

Er, sorry Bill. The first reviews are in, and it seems the critics and naysayers are up to their old tricks again.

"This is the type of film that studios push toward dead months like January with the tact of a landlord sweeping rats under the fridge," said the Michigan Daily, while the San Francisco Chronicle went for: "Uwe Boll is such a bad director that it must be intentional."

"Even the costumes are silly," according to the Dallas Morning News, which specifically referenced Michael Madsen's wig - "Think Billy Ray Cyrus as Conan."

But cheer up, Uwe, it's not all bad - TV Guide reckons BloodRayne is "indisputably the best" of your videogame adaptations. Although the review did go on to state that, "This gory, ludicrous horror-action picture isn't good by any standard."

At least the New York Daily News had something positive to say, in a manner of speaking: "In the domain of bad taste, Boll has become an acknowledged master. By those standards, 'BloodRayne', with its riotously atrocious performances, boldly gratuitous nudity and laugh-out-loud hairpieces, is his finest work yet."

You might think that no one would dream of letting Boll near a director's chair now - but you'd be wrong, apparently. In fact, Boll is even claiming that he's been offered the chance to direct the Metal Gear Solid film, according to horror movie site Bloody-Disgusting.com.

In an interview conducted at the premiere of BloodRayne, Boll told the site: "Now people are coming to me with Metal Gear Solid. They wrote a script, and Konami basically paid these people to write it. And I hope that Metal Gear Solid will be working."

So is Boll keen to take up the challenge? Oh dear, you betcha: "Yeah, absolutely. And especially with the Doom situation. I think we could do it a lot better... It's one of the top five of all time." What?

Boll went on to announce that his other forthcoming videogame epic, Dungeon Siege, will not be appearing in cinemas as two separate movies as previously planned.

"No, we do a movie for theaters, and then we had a longer one for DVD. Like, we have a theater version that is 150 minutes and a 190 minute DVD," Boll said.

"This is a good movie. I think that Bloodrayne is a good genre movie. It's fast, it's bloody, it's gory, it moves forward but it's not... Like... Great in a way. Dungeon Siege gets you. It's emotional, the story is good, the characters are good... It’s over two and a half hours and it's exciting and heart breaking."

Can't wait.