35:29: Good guys and bad guys alike arrive at a smallpalace inhabited by Meat Loaf. Again, we couldn’t accurately tell you why. We find vampire Meat Loaf sprawled on a bed wearinga £2:99 Hallowe’en wig. He is surrounded by completely naked vampire ladies, who is transpires are actually played by local Romanian prostitutes. Boll hired them because they were cheaper than actresses, and presumably so that he could get ten exposed nipples and one full-frontal in the same scene. Meat Loaf does a very good impression of a man coming down off a three day acid bender.
A completely tension-free fight kicks off, during which Madsen nails an vamp withhisarm-mounted crossbow, which appears just for the occasion before instantly vanishing again.
Everyone: Where the f*ck did that come from?!
Ben: It’s a crossbow. You can’t exactly hide something like that up your sleeve.
But that's exactly what Madsen does, before pulling it out again to smash a window and inflict sunlight flame-death on Meaty. We can’t work out whether Boll intended the weapon to be concealed, messed up the editing, or just plain old couldn’t care less. But what we do know is that we now all want arm-mounted crossbows.
1:09:40: After a few more shots of someone riding a horse and a really shaky camera pan up a mountain to a castle, Rayne arrives at Kagan’s place for the climax. She gets into the castle using the none-more-cunning plan of pretending to offer up the legendary vampire heart and hoping that no-one checks to see that it’s actually in the box she’s given them. Naturally, it works. Madsen and co. however, have a different infiltration method.
Madsen: Well Sebastian, I’m afraid there’s only one way in there.
Camera cuts immediately to a shot of a rat in the castle’s dungeon.
James: As rats!
Sadly their plan just involves blowing a door open with a couple of medieval grenades. It’s unclear as to why Madsen felt so ominously about this scheme.
1:15:23: But even better than the break-in plan is Madsen and Sebastian’s method for escaping after being predictably thrown in the dungeon.
Madsen (in ‘empty’ cell’): Thrall, my companion has gone! I don’t know what’s become of him.
In a move both impossibly moronic yet agonisingly inevitable, the guard goes into the cell in an effort to work out how Sebastian has managed to vanish into thin air in front of his companion's face. Sebastian swoops down from the ceiling and kicks him in the head. Our reaction is a mixture of cheering, laughter and despairing tears.
1:16:15: Rayne is tied up, ready to have the mythical vamp’s eye cut out of her head by Kagan (don’t ask). He already has the rib, but how or why is never explained. Madsen and Sebastian loft swords and make a rescue attempt. The orchestra swells.
Ben: Ooh, dramatic! Actually, not it’s not. It’s just shit.
The ensuing fight is indeed crap, but is occasionally lifted by excessive dismemberment and the use of Madsen’s magic crossbow. Rayne is eventually freed, and having finally bothered to check the box, Kagan realises that she still has the heart. They fight, they exchange quips, and Kingsley phones it in from the moon. Without a phone.
Eventually everyone apart from Rayne is dead. She has won. She has the rib, and thus freedom is in her grasp. She can grab the last relic and make sure that it never falls into evil hands again.
Everyone: Get the rib! Get the f*cking rib!
But instead she sits down and looks a bit mopey, seemingly having forgotten the entire plot of the movie. The last shot is lifted straight from the end of Conan The Barbarian. The credits roll.
Ben: He got the ending to his own film wrong.
Justin: Let it be recorded that Justin was entertained.
David: I was both entertained and amused.
