So, over the Labor Day weekend, Mike and I actually had a chance to watch a movie together. Alone. Without the kids.  An actual, non-animated movie, which contained no talking animals or quirky teenage witches/wizards/sparkly, angsty vampires/insert other kid-themed film genre here.  We got to watch one of the many films I’ve been dying to see since before they came out in theaters which, due to scheduling conflicts with parenthood, I still have not seen even though they now are out on DVD.

This post may end up being slightly spoiler-ish, so be forewarned.

Priest is a vampire film, but no sparkly vamp-lovers here.  Priest sends vampires back where they came from: the dark, monster-filled realm of nightmare fodder.  The vampires here are creatures entirely separate from humanity.  The war between humanity and vampires wreaks havoc on the land, and sends humanity cowering inside walled cities controlled by the church.

A warrior-caste arises: the Priests, people of unique gifts who are trained to fight and destroy vampires.  They fight back the vampire menace, until what is left of the vampire clans are confined to reservations.  With the war over, the Priests are no longer needed, and are ordered to re-assimilate with the public.

This then, is the time in which the film takes place, years after the end of the war, with humans still crowded in church-ruled cities and vampires corralled in reservations, and only the “un-godly heathens” populating the still-radioactive wastelands in-between.

When a vampire attacks a Priest’s family back in the wastelands, he braves the sanctions of the church to track down the vampires responsible and rescue his kin.

First things first:

The acting was brilliant all-around in this movie, especially Paul Bettany and Maggie Q.  They managed to imbue such stoic characters with so many levels of deep feeling.

The special effects were briliant, in that it never actually occurred to me at the time that they were special effects.  Everything from the stunning post-apocalyptic vistas to the slobbering, double-jointed, eye-less vampires flowed seemlessly with the live action.

The story drew me in, and even though I saw the “twist” coming for a ways, it really worked and so I didn’t mind.

Where Priest excels, though, is in the vision of the world itself.

I found myself totally immersed in the world of the priests – The cities are places of darkness and dirt, the sun blotted out by smoke from the fossil fuels burned constantly to meet the overcrowded populaces needs.  The Priests have difficulty “re-integrating” into society, much like our own soldiers often do.  They’re relegated to menial work, and ostracized by the society they saved.  The church is an ever-present, all-powerful authority. Their motto:  To go against the church is to go against God.  That is indeed the choice the Priest must face, when the clergy forbid him to leave the city to help his family over concerns that a Priest returning to the wastelands will spark fear that the war is not over.

The image of our protagonist is one of a man of deep faith, frustrated by the clergy he serves.  He turns to the church for answers and peace, and finds only platitudes and indifference.  The hierarchy is more concerned with maintaining control than serving truth.  He chooses to follow his heart and his conscience, knowing that he will be ostracized by the church. The Priest is a man of few words, but Bettany manages to say volumes with none.  It seems clear all the time that the Priest is deeply conflicted and struggles with the cognitive dissonance between the picture he is presented of God, the edicts of the church, and doing what his heart knows to be right.

As the story goes on, we meet a female priest (played by Maggie Q) who served with him during the war.  It becomes clear that there are (or were) strong feelings between them, but for the Priest, his vows to the church, and some personal baggage to boot, are enough to keep him chaste.  The romantic tension between these two is palpable, and my heart ached along with them.

This movie is easily one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  I highly recommend it!