Rise
Tags: revenge, cult, gothic, flashback

Plot synopsis:
[NOTE: This summary attempts to combine both the edited and the unedited versions of Rise: Blood Hunter, so some scenes may be out of order, depending upon the version being watched. Scenes that appear only in the edited version are marked in blue. Scenes found only in the unedited version are indicated in red.]Businessman Lloyd meets hooker Collette in a bar. As they prepare to leave together, vampire Sadie Blake intervenes and offers Collette $500 to go home with her instead. Once home, Sadie asks Collette to undress and then to wash her hands. The soap is in the shower, Sadie tells her. When Collette enters the shower to retrieve the soap, the shower doors suddenly snap shut, trapping Collette inside. The next thing Collette knows, she is hanging by her feet in the shower, duct tape over her mouth. An old man in a wheelchair rolls in and admires her. Mr Harrison tells Sadie that she did good and orders her to leave. Sadie reminds him of his promise to tell her Bishop's whereabouts. Harrison gives her an address (1653 Kinney Drive). As he turns back to his upside-down dinner, Sadie shoots him in the heart with her crossbow. She then releases Collette and warns her not to say a word about what happened. After pushing Collette outside and closing the front door, Sadie stares at her trembling hand and then, apparently exhausted, she collapses on a bed and falls asleep.---------------------FLASHBACK: Sadie was once human, working as a reporter for the L.A. Weekly. An article she wrote entitled The Grateful UNDead, which featured an exposé Sadie got by infiltrating a cult of goths who drink pig's blood, had just made the front page. After being congratulated by her editor, Sadie learned from co-worker and computer geek Ethan Mills that he had traced a number given to her by one of her interviewees, Tricia Rawlins. The links were extremely tortuous but eventually led to a website with a message: The Path is Within Your Own Blood - You Must Walk It Alone - The Scripture is Written in Your Soul. - Go Forth in Darkness. - THE FEEDING COMMENCES TONIGHT. That website was covered by a transparent image map that led to an address -- 987 Arapahoe -- in Koreatown. Ethan offered to check it out with Sadie, but Sadie said, for her, the story was over. She'd already arranged to take her little sister Beth, who just graduated high school, to Mexico for three days.That night, at midnight, Tricia Rawlins and her friend Kaitlin drive up to the house on Arapahoe after learning about tonight's "feeding party". Tricia didn't like the looks of it and decided to wait in the car while Kaitlin went inside for a few minutes just to say hi to the hosts -- Bishop, Eve, and Rourke. When Kaitlin hadn't returned after 45 minutes, Tricia went to fetch her. Finding the front door ajar, she stepped inside. The place seemed deserted. She heard music coming from the basement, so she made her way downstairs where she found Bishop and Eve feeding on Kaitlin's bloody body. Tricia tried to run, but Rourke ran after her. She tried to hide in a closet and call her dad, Detective Clyde Rawlins, but all she got was his answering machine. Hours later, Tricia and Kaitlin's mutilated bodies were found in a dumpster. Det. Rawlins was summoned. When photos from the crime scene reached the L.A. Weekly, the editor showed them to Sadie because she recognized Tricia as one of Sadie's interviewees. Sadie remembered Tricia mentioning she was going to a "feeding party", but Sadie thought she was kidding. Although Ethan hadn't shown up at work for the last two days, Sadie decided to go snooping at the house in Koreatown, even if she had to go alone. In the airport on her way back from Mexico, Sadie picked up a newspaper and noticed an article about the slaying of Tricia Rawlins, whose blood-drained body was found in a Koreatown dumpster. After dropping off Beth, Sadie called Ethan to join her at the address in Koreatown. Ethan didn't answer, so Sadie went alone. The house was boarded up and appeared to be abandoned. Inside, there was nothing to show the house was anything but dilapidated and deserted. In the basement, however, she found blood splatters everywhere, a bed soaked in blood, and a bloody bathtub. Horrified, Sadie ran from the house. As she ran to her car, she bumped into an old Japanese man (Poe) who asked her what she was doing there. Nothing, Sadie replied and wrested herself out of his grip.That evening, Sadie drove to Ethan's apartment and found it totally trashed. She put down her purse and went searching for Ethan. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. It was a guy (Rourke) claiming to be a friend of Ethan's. When Sadie tried to leave, Rourke showed her the pepper spray he had just taken from her purse. When Sadie again tried to get past him, Rourke sprayed her with the pepper spray and took her to Harrison's mansion where she was met by two more vampires. Their renfield Poe seated her in a chair, and their leader Bishop began to ask her questions about Tricia. How much did Tricia tell her? When Sadie denied knowing anything, Bishop plopped a black garbage bag on the table in front of her. What is that?, Sadie asked. Poe untied Sadie's hands so she could open the bag. It was Ethan's head. Sadie screamed in horror and babbled about Ethan finding an address on a website but she didn't take it seriously and only became concerned when she read about Tricia's death in the newspaper. Kicking and screaming, Sadie was led to a bedroom, where Bishop slit her neck, he and Eve drank her blood and raped her, and then discarded her lifeless body in a dumpster where the police found it. When Detective Rawlins heard another girl's body had been found drained of blood, he raced to the scene, although he was so drunk presiding detective Joe Easton sent him home. Sadie's body wound up in the morgue where she was identified by her mother and sister, who were led away by the attendant just moments before Sadie reawakened and kicked her way out of the drawer, removed the tag from her big toe, felt the deep gash in her neck, realized she could no longer see herself in a mirror, donned some hospital scrubs, and made her way outside.After she made it out of the hospital, Sadie wound up in a homeless shelter, undergoing an attack of the shakes due to her need for blood, so she smothered an old homeless man, bit his arm, and sucked his blood hungrily until she noticed a homeless child watching her. Sickened by what she was doing, Sadie left the shelter, not realizing she was being followed. She tried to telephone her mother, but her sister Beth hung up the phone, reminding mom that Sadie was dead. Feeling lost to the world and haunted by memories of her rape and murder, Sadie threw herself from a bridge to the freeway below. She awoke to find a Mexican couple, Arturo and Morena, caring for her at their home. They dressed her wounds, and Morena brought her bowls of blood. You found out the hard way that you cannot die, Arturo told her. He said he was interested in helping her get this Bishop guy and his companions -- Rourke, Eve, Harrison, and Poe -- she talked about in her sleep, so he fashioned a crossbow for her, provided her with blood so she didn't have to prey on the living, and offered to teach her how to live with this "shadow side" of herself. His first lesson was she must start with the weakest of the five and leave Bishop, the strongest, for last.When she was strong enough to be back on her feet again, Sadie followed Arturo's advice. She tracked down Rourke at his hotel room, where she found him feasting on his latest victim. What do YOU want?, Rourke barked at her when she entered his room, her crossbow cocked and ready. You, Sadie replied and let fly with a dart to his chest. Rourke fell backwards, crashing into the window and falling to the ground below. Sadie ran out to him and asked for Eve's whereabouts. He suggested The Red Angel. When Rourke tried to stand and even offered to take Sadie to Eve, Sadie pumped another dart into his chest. Sure enough, it was near closing time at The Red Angel, but Eve was there. Heeding Arturo's warning not to let Eve get inside her head, Sadie followed Eve into the ladies' room where she was about to slit the neck of her next victim, a horny sailor. Pointing her crossbow at Eve's heart, Sadie ordered the sailor to leave, then she and Eve settled in a booth and shared some drinks. Eve was not surprised Sadie survived; in fact, she was pleased. Both she and Bishop tried to kill her, she confessed to Sadie. They emptied her of so much blood, she said, Sadie didn't even have enough left for a pulse. Still Sadie hung on. Bishop finally gave up and gave Sadie to Eve to finish off, but Eve couldn't do it either, so she started the process of Sadie's turning. I may have started the process, Eve admitted, but you finished it on your own, alone in that morgue. Eve also told her Arturo used to be their leader until Bishop got sick of it. Arturo just used you to be his pawn to kill Bishop, Eve said. When Eve told Sadie how much she admired her strength, intimating she loved Sadie and was glad Sadie had come back to her, Sadie pumped a dart into Eve's heart and left her slumped over in the booth.With Rourke and Eve down, next on the list was Harrison, who Arturo predicted would readily hand over Bishop if Sadie would provide him with something he wanted. Hence, the gift of Collette, whom Sadie set free after she got Bishop's address and killed Harrison. Unfortunately, Collette got picked up by the police as she was wandering on the highway, and she blabbed. In his office, Rawlins was looking over his bulletin board filled with photos and newsclippings of his daughter's murder along with photos and clippings of all the other unsolved murders he thought might be related, when he learned about Collette being picked up. To check out her story, he went over to Harrison's house. He rang the doorbell, awakening Sadie, who made a quick run out the back door. Rawlins let himself in and discovered Harrison's body, so the police were called. Once again, Detective Easton tried to send Rawlins home, but Rawlins would not hear of it. Rawlins thinks he's getting closer to discovering what's going on and how his daughter Tricia was murdered. ---------------[END FLASHBACK]It's night, and it's raining. Sadie is on the way to Bishop's house on Kinney Drive to eliminate the last two who murdered her. She picks up a hitchhiker named Alex who is making his way north to Santa Barbara for a little partying with his law school buddies before the semester starts again. Sadie tries to convince herself she doesn't need "it" that badly, but she reminds herself about Arturo's warning she must be strong to face Bishop, so she asks Alex about himself. After ascertaining Alex has no girlfriend, wife, or kids depending upon him, she drives off the road where she pretends to come on to Alex before she slits his neck and drinks his blood. Covered in blood and crying uncontrollably, she gets out of the car and begins to dig a grave for Alex's body.Meanwhile, not knowing that she is about to become Bishop's next victim, Jenny is swimming in his pool while Bishop sits on the patio "feasting his eyes" on Jenny. Jenny is flattered such a rich and handsome single man could be interested in her. The party's at midnight, Bishop tells her. They share a bottle of red wine and talk about Jenny's background. Bishop begins to ask her some odd questions, such as whether or not she bled much when she first got her period. He tells her a friend of his once said sex and murder are the only real pleasures left to man. Amused, Jenny asks him which he is going to use her for. Both, Bishop replies. Jenny laughs and allows Bishop to lead her into his bedroom. As she undresses, Bishop takes out a knife.Crossbow in hand, Sadie finally arrives at Bishop's house, but no one is home. As she searches the rooms, she slips on a pool of blood and sees Jenny's blood-covered body lying on a bed. Suddenly, she hears a sound and hides. It is Poe, come to clean up. Sadie jumps out of her hiding place and points her crossbow at Poe, takes away his cellphone, and asks him where Bishop is. Poe replies he doesn't know, then turns and runs down the hall into the bathroom. Sadie forces open the door. They struggle. Poe tries to smother Sadie with the shower curtain, but she gets off several blows to his head. Poe tries crawling down the hall again, but Sadie follows, asking him once more where Bishop is. Poe stabs Sadie in the foot with a knife, and Sadie kicks Poe down the stairs. As he lies on the floor, his face bloodied, Poe tells Sadie that Bishop is on the run. He thinks a cop is after him. He doesn't know it's Sadie. When Poe refuses to say more, Sadie fires a dart through his heart.Sadie drives to a motel room where she can tend to the wound in her foot. While in the bathroom, she hears Poe's cellphone ring. Hello, Bishop, she answers. Bishop doesn't seem to recognize her voice, so Sadie suggests they meet so that he can see her face before she kills him. She drives to Wonton's Ripley's, the bar from where he made the call, and asks the bartender, after describing Bishop, whether he remembers anything more about him. It's a public phone, the bartender replies. The guy came in, had a drink, and made the call is all the can remember. He never saw him before. A $100 bill with the name Eve and Sadie's phone number written on it makes him agree to call if he hears anything else. As Sadie returns to her car, she is confronted by a guy who was watching her in the bar. He says he knows where Bishop is. He was told to bring her to him. When Sadie turns to her car to get her stuff, she is knocked out by a second guy. Taylor and Dwayne stuff Sadie in the trunk of their car. Taylor drives Sadie to meet Bishop. Dwayne follows in Sadie's car.Rawlins is sleeping when he is awakened to see the door to his bedroom slowly opening. A bloody hand appears next to the doorknob. Rawlins grabs his gun. Suddenly, Rawlins wakes again, and the door is closed. Apparently, it was all a dream during a drunken stupor. He looks away but, when he looks back, the door is open again. He gets out of bed to close it and sees his blood-covered daughter sitting on the side of his bed. Tricia holds out a hand to him. Suddenly, Rawlins is awakened for the third time by the ringing of his cell phone. It is Easton, calling to tell him two more bodies have been found, those of Jenny and Poe. This time, however, they got a parking lot surveillance shot of the killer's license plate when she stopped at a convenience store to buy supplies to dress a knife wound. The police have placed an APB on her.Sadie awakens to find herself locked in the trunk of a moving car. She kicks open the hood. When Taylor notices the trunk is open, he stops the car to check on Sadie, but she is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, his car starts to drive off. It stops, then it backs up and hits him, knocking him to the ground and breaking his leg. Sadie gets out of the car and asks for her bag (where she carries her crossbow). When Taylor refuses to answer, she steps on his privates. It's still in her car, he squeals, the one Dwayne is driving. Sadie asks where she can find Bishop. He's at a place called The Crest, about 20 miles west, a deserted compound with a bunch of stables. Taylor denies knowing anything else, claiming he was merely instructed by Bishop to go to the bar and bring back anyone who came in asking for him. He was hoping only to meet some cute goth chicks at the party tomorrow night. Sadie leaves Taylor lying in the street and drives off in his car. Meanwhile, Dwayne has been picked up by the police for stealing Sadie's car. Rawlins shows up and, when he sees the bag with the crossbow, he dismisses the police, claiming he will take responsibility for Dwayne. After the police have driven off, Rawlins slugs Dwayne, knocking him to the ground. Rawlins asks where Dwayne got the car and the crossbow. When Dwayne tells him about Ripley's, Rawlins drives off.On her way back to her motel, Sadie takes a chance to peek in on her mother. Mom is sleeping fitfully, so Sadie strokes her mom's forehead, which seems to ease her bad dreams. Then she continues driving back to her motel. As she is driving about to hop into the bathtub, she gets a call from the bartender at Wonton's Ripley's. He says Bishop just walked into the bar. Sadie puts her clothes back on and heads over to the bar. When she gets there, however, she doesn't find Bishop. Instead, Rawlins is waiting for her. When Sadie starts to head back out the door, Rawlins tosses her bag on the table, telling her he got it out of her car stolen by Dwayne Musgrove. Looking at Rawlins, Sadie remembers seeing his face somewhere. Because she doesn't want to talk, she picks up her bag and leaves. When she is outside, she opens the bag only to find her crossbow and darts have been replaced by wrenches. Back into the bar she goes, but this time Rawlins grabs, cuffs, and pulls a gun on her. Did you kill her? he demands. When Sadie doesn't answer, he forces her into the back seat of his car where Sadie sees her crossbow and a photo of Tricia Rawlins. As Rawlins goes around the car to get in the driver's seat, Sadie slides her cuffed hands to the front and notices a photo of Tricia Rawlins. When Rawlins gets in the car, Sadie tells him she didn't kill Tricia. In fact, it's because of Tricia she's in this mess, she says. I'm after Bishop, she explains. He's the one who killed Tricia same as he did to me. When Rawlins doesn't believe her, Sadie tells him to look at her in the rearview mirror, tells him her name, and reminds him he zipped her into a body bag. Sadie again offers to kill the man who murdered his daughter and asks Rawlins kill her when she is finished. Not able to deal with the situation, Rawlins gets out of the car, leaving Sadie to slide her cuffed hands to the front. When Rawlins gets back into the car and still refuses to help, Sadie puts him in a stranglehold and forces him to give her the keys to the cuffs and then to hand her the crossbow. She then orders him to toss his gun out the window. As Sadie walks away from the car, Rawlins grabs another gun from the glove compartment, jumps out of the car, and orders her to stop. When Sadie keeps going, he fires two shots into her back. Sadie collapses on the ground. As he bends over her body, Sadie suddenly rolls over and points her crossbow at him. That f***in' hurt, she says.Dwayne has made his way back to The Crest. As he stumbles around in the dark stables looking for Taylor, his flashlight shines on some buckets of blood on the floor and a bloody hook hanging from the ceiling. Suddenly, an arm shoots out from the dark and grabs him by the neck. Bishop asks Dwayne to describe the girl Taylor is supposed to be bringing. After Dwayne says he is young, has black hair, and is Asian, Bishop rips out Dwayne's throat.Rawlins has taken Sadie back to her motel room to remove the two slugs from her back. Sadie passes out from the pain. When she comes to, it is late afternoon. She is handcuffed to the bed. She asks Rawlins to uncuff her so she can use the bathroom. When she has finished and Rawlins helps her to get her jeans back on, Sadie reminds him of their deal -- she kills Bishop, then Rawlins kills her. Rawlins agrees. After the sun has set, they scope out The Crest from the road, but there is no evidence of a party going on. Rawlins removes Sadie's cuffs, hands her a gun, and warns her they must stick together. Sadie hands Rawlins a letter to her mother and asks him to mail it when they're done. Together, they walk up the road to The Crest.First, they check out the stables where they find Dwayne's bloody body. A bit further into the stables, the hall splits. Sadie goes down one and Rawlins goes down the other. Rawlins hears some sobbing coming from a stall and finds Tricia in a cage. He unlocks the door and takes his crying daughter into his arms. Just then, Sadie walks up and tells Rawlins to get away from Tricia. She's one of them, Sadie says, and reminds him he saw Tricia's dead body in the dumpster. As Sadie points her crossbow at Tricia, Tricia picks up her father's gun and points it at Rawlins, who is standing between Sadie and Tricia. Rawlins reminds Tricia the is her father. He loves her. Bishop is my father and my brother and my lover, Tricia snarls and shoots Rawlins in the chest. She turns and runs.Sadie runs after Tricia, firing a dart at her, but she misses. Tricia leads her downstairs into a meat locker in which several humans have been strung upside down, their necks slit and their blood dripping into bowls set under them. Tricia fires a shot at Sadie, but misses. Sadie fires another dart at Tricia, this time hitting her in the ankle and forcing her to crawl along on the ground. Sadie asks Tricia to reveal Bishop's whereabouts, but Tricia refuses to say, so Sadie shoots her in the heart with another dart. Just then, Bishop appears. Sadie quickly reloads her crossbow.The trigger jams. Angrily, Sadie tosses the crossbow at Bishop. He easily overpowers her and bashes her head against the wall.When Sadie comes to, she is hanging upside down in the meat locker. Bishop places a bowl underneath her and berates her for not accepting the gift she's been given, the only cost being the lives of a few closet pedophiles and spoiled teenagers. Sadie continues to defy him, so Bishop slices her neck and leaves her to drain. When Sadie begins to think she must be dead, Rawlins suddenly sneaks into the meat locker. The bullet did not hurt him because he was wearing a bulletproof vest, he explains as he lifts her down, wraps her in his coat, and carries her out of the locker and back up the stairs to the stables.Suddenly Bishop reappears. Rawlins puts Sadie down and throws a few punches at Bishop, who does the same. Rawlins fires two shots into Bishop, but he keeps coming. Bishop grabs a strap, loops it around Rawlins' neck, and tries to strangle him. As Bishop and Rawlins struggle, Sadie forces herself to get up. Noticing her dart, the one that missed Tricia, sticking out of the wall, she pulls it out and walks up behind Bishop. You'll never be a true leader, she taunts, because you don't pay attention to the details. Rawlins whips Bishop around, and Sadie plunges the dart into Bishop's heart. Drained of blood and exhausted, Sadie collapses on the floor and reminds Rawlins of his promise. As a half dozen or more policecars with their sirens blaring come up the road, Rawlins reluctantly raises the dart used to kill Bishop and plunges it into Sadie's heart.For the second time, Sadie is zipped into a bodybag and taken to the morgue where her body ends up in a drawer. A few minutes after the morgue attendant has left the room, Sadie kicks open the door.