Just when you thought there was nowhere else Hollywood could take vampires, they pop up in the wild west – and an alternate universe to boot. Based on the Tokyo manga graphic novel series by Min-Woo Hyung, Priest takes place in a post-apocalyptic world decimated by years of warring between vampires and humans. A group of elite warriors of the church, known only as Priests, last defeated the vampires at an enormous cost, leaving the warrior Priests as outcasts living in hiding. The city that remains exists in darkness, shrouded from the sunlight by smokestack soot lining the sky as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, the vampires are starting to resurface, happily feeding on the unsuspecting inhabitants of a city where it is always night.

Bloody-Disgusting tackled the dusty sets of Priest way back in late 2009 on day 31 of the 60-day shoot. Originally slated for release in late 2010, Priest will now make its way to theaters May 13th, 2011. Directed by Scott Charles Stewart (Legion), Priest stars Paul Bettany as Priest; Maggie Q as Priestess; Cam Gigandet as Sheriff Hicks; Lily Collins as Lucy; Karl Urban as Black Hat and Brad Douriff as The Salesman.
The slightly modernized western backlot sets in Newhall, California are best remembered from HBO’s “Deadwood” – yes, the very sets where Ian McShane set the Guinness record for utterances of the word “cocksucker” over his three seasons as Al Swearengen. To accommodate the cyberpunk-esque settings of Priest‘s alternate universe, the western town sets have been enhanced with touches of minimalist steel architecture.

Priest is a blenderized mash-up of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, post-apocalyptic classics like Bladerunner and The Road Warrior and a dose of Kurosawa thrown into the mix for good measure. It also pays a less than subtle homage to the John Wayne classic, The Searchers. “There are some direct visual homages to `Searchers,’ ” director Scott Stewart tells press. “Instead of a woman opening a door and looking out on a valley, she looks out onto the apocalyptic desert landscape. There’s some `Bladerunner’ in it too. It’s a hyper-industrial city. The world is very Orwellian, so there’s a lot of `1984′ and `THX 1138′. It’s a religious industrial theocracy, so there’s a city that’s all industry and even the cathedral at the center is all smokestacks.”

To add a dose of irony to the vampire tale, two actors perhaps best known for their roles as vampires, “True Blood“‘s Stephen Moyer and Twilight‘s Gigandet, portray non-vamps in Priest.

“ `Twilight’ was a blast and everything,” says Gigandet, “but I like playing this side of it. I’ve played the bad guy a lot over my young career and this is a good change.”

“These days it’s actually hard to find someone who hasn’t played a vampire,” admits Stewart. “Stephen Moyer plays Aaron, Paul’s brother. We just looked for the actors we thought would fit best in the roles and those were the guys we liked the most.”

The Priests themselves are the other unique element to this adaptation of the manga, hardly the hail Mary and holy water types. “The Priests are the foot soldiers of the church, the Jedi Knights,” says Stewart. “They have an ability beyond normal human beings to fight vampires, which are very hard to kill because they move so fast and so erratically and so unpredictably.”

“[Priest] was found by the clergy when he was a little older than usual,” Bettany says of his character. “He left a life and went to fight the war. He’s come back since the war has been over, back into the real world, and I guess the war has rendered him unfit for normal life. He’s working a shitty job, nobody wants to talk to him. He’s frightening looking and nobody wants to be reminded of that era. That’s where the movie starts.”

“This takes place a generation after the war,” says Stewart. “Priests had won the war and captured vampires had been put in internment camps. The Priests were decommissioned and reintegrated into society. Like Vietnam vets, they became societal outcasts. They have no names. They are just known as Priests. People stay away from them, so they’re very, very isolated.”

Each of the Priests has a different ability and weapon of choice. “I favor a knife.” Bettany tells press. “None of them use firearms at all. They all have the ability to sort of slow down time. We’re shooting on the Phantom Camera at times and objects can just slow. That’s how Scott tells the story of just how fast Priest can move when he wants to. It’s nearly superhuman, but somehow remains believable.”

“Mine’s a rope dart,” says Maggie Q. It looks like a Rosary. It’s bad-ass, but it’s still a little feminine.”

Hicks, on the other hand, not being a servant of the church, yields a less than subtle firearm. “It’s a monster of a gun,” says Gigandet. “They have three different phases of the gun. I have one that’s two pounds and one that’s three or four pounds and then the real ones, I’m not kidding, they are at least ten pounds. There are scenes where I’m holding it up and we have to split the scenes in half because I literally cannot do it any more. My hand is shaking and, slowly, my arm goes down and by take four I’m aiming at their feet.” (Laughs)

The overall impression during our day spent on set was that everyone was having a blast making the movie. Besides getting to step into the bizarre mix of genres, Gigandet, Bettany and Maggie Q formed a strong bond during the shoot, particularly in the case of the two men.

“We have a lot of fun and give each other a hard time,” says Gigandet. “Paul really taken me under his wing and, you know, no judgment.”

“They’re complete homosexuals, those two,” jokes Maggie Q of Bettany and Gigandet’s newfound friendship. “It’s a camaraderie. I want to make you better, make me better. I love that. You so rarely see that.”

Priest opens in theaters nationwide May 13th, 2011.