Fifteen Years On, Priest’s Hunt for Vampires Still Rates a 1.6 Out of 10

Priest tries to be a fantasy action film, a horror film, and a revenge thriller. It settles for being a mess. The 2011 film from director Scott Stewart, based on the Korean comic by Hyung Min-woo, follows a veteran Warrior Priest as he hunts vampire kidnappers across a ruined, theocratic world. It is a film that spends more time explaining its own rules than obeying them.

Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The Setup

In this world, vampires and humans have fought for centuries. The humans won by building walled cities, training elite warriors called Priests, and cutting off the vampires from sunlight. The vampires, for their part, are fast and strong, and they do not die easily.

Most vampires were killed after the last Vampire War. The rest were placed in reservations. The surviving Priests were abandoned by the Church, left to struggle in obscurity. The film’s central mission begins when Priest’s niece, Lucy Pace, is kidnapped by vampires. Her boyfriend, the sheriff Hicks, asks for Priest’s help. Priest must break his vows to hunt the vampires down.

The Niece

Lily Collins plays Lucy Pace, the kidnapped niece. She is a sheltered city girl, not a fighter. That should make her a character of consequence. Instead she is a damsel in distress, used to justify the Priest’s journey and then mostly forgotten. The film gives her almost nothing to do beyond being captured. It is a wasted performance.

The Sheriff

Cam Gigandet plays Hicks, Lucy’s boyfriend and the sheriff of Augustine, a free town outside the walled cities. He is the only character who understands Priest’s skill and fear. He is also the only one who believes the vampires exist at all.

His belief is the film’s only source of tension. The Church leaders refuse to listen to him. Even Priest’s own leader, Monsignor Orelas, dismisses the vampire story outright. This should mean something. It does not.

The Priestess

Maggie Q plays the Priestess, a former elite warrior who joins Priest’s hunt. She is introduced as a rival to Priest, sent by the Church to bring him back. She instead chooses to ally with him. That alliance is the film’s one clear character choice, and it is used to set up a fight against the Hive Guardian.

The Action

The action scenes are the film’s strongest moments. The fight against the Hive Guardian is a good example. The film knows how to stage a fight. It does not know how to stage a conversation. The dialog is stiff, the pacing is off, and the scenes involving the Church leaders are mostly dead air.

The Problems

The film is deeply flawed. Its writing is thin, its acting is uneven, and its editing is choppy. The world it builds is interesting, but it never lets that world breathe. The vampires are mostly shown as familiar silhouettes rather than real threats. The humans are mostly shown as wary, frightened masses rather than people with names.

The Score

The film earned over $78 million at the box office against a $60 million production budget. That is a modest success. The film was panned by critics, who praised the visual style and art direction while criticizing the movie’s use of genre clichés, writing, acting, editing, and action scenes. The film’s own tagline, “The war is eternal. His mission is just the beginning,” is a promise it never delivers.

The Verdict

Priest is a film that cannot decide what it wants to be. It wants to be a horror film, a fantasy film, and a revenge thriller. It is none of them well. The performances are mostly competent, but they are not enough to carry the film. The script is a mess. The pacing is a mess. The editing is a mess.

This is a film that will be forgotten. It is not worth your time. On its own terms, it fails at everything it tries to do.

1. The writing is thin and repetitive.
2. The acting is uneven and underused.
3. The pacing is off and the stakes are unclear.
4. The action scenes are the film’s only real strength.

Priest is a failure. It is a film that should have been a good time. Instead, it is a slow, dull, and empty hour and a half. The world it builds is interesting, but it never lets that world live.

2011 movies · action movies · film review · Priest · vampire horror