Editorials
Hands-On With ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’
Until about a week ago, I had spent maybe an hour total with the Witcher series. It’s not that the games didn’t look appealing to me, they simply fell into the always-growing list of intriguing games I never get around to playing. This changed when I was invited by CD Projekt Red to spend some time with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in a bar in San Francisco.
This trip, by the way, was made possible by the developer. They paid to get me there, offered me a place to stay, and I even got a swag bag, the contents of which I’ll be handing out to some of you in the near future.
I had only a very superficial understanding of what this series was about, and even that knowledge was limited to “this game is going to be pretty,” and “it’ll likely have boobs.” Five minutes into the demo and both had already proven true.
The Witcher 3 is currently slated for a May release, but even that’s not set in stone. CD Projekt Red has already proven willing to push the game back should they deem it necessary, and they seem open to doing it again if they have to.
After spending just over three hours with it, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. It’s still very much a work in progress, but it’s far enough along that I can’t see them moving its release date again unless something bad happens.
Have I mentioned that this is a stunning game, because it is. Unless their initials spell GTA, open-world games of this size tend to make sacrifices in their visuals. If The Witcher 3 did this, I didn’t notice. It’s pretty.
The game follows Geralt of Rivia, the titular Witcher and cat-eyed anti-hero from the first two games, who has been tasked with finding his apprentice, Ciri. Something about a prophecy that claims this Witcheress is the one who can stop the Wild Hunt — essentially a gang of all-powerful, human-hating war gods — from enslaving humanity.
Or maybe they want to eradicate humanity? It’s one of the two, I’m sure.
I only briefly got acquainted with the Wild Hunt when they descended from the heavens on a massive flying ghost ship (no joke), but they were sufficiently intimidating. The guy with the skull helmet was a real dick, too, in case you were wondering.
I have to say I was not at all prepared for how willfully incompetent this game would make me feel. It’s not that complicated, but each fight does require a certain amount of strategy — more than say, Dragon Age or The Elder Scrolls might require of you — and there’s a number of complex systems that demanded I get familiar with them right away.
The thing I had the most trouble getting comfortable with was Geralt’s arsenal of magical abilities that can be used to set enemies ablaze, slow them down, or deploy a protective shield around Geralt, if you’re feeling defensive.
If that doesn’t sound complicated, it’s because it isn’t. It’s only when you combine it with the rest of Geralt’s arsenal, which includes a number of consumables (bombs and whatnot) as well as his basic abilities, such as counter attacks, guarding, etc.
Creatures behave realistically, even intelligently. Larger enemies tend to use their size to try and overpower Geralt, while smaller enemies, which I usually found in packs, would often try and flank Geralt in an effort to surround him. Their unpredictable movements combined with how deadly they can be even for a veteran player makes every fight a challenge.
It would’ve been terrifying for a novice like me had I not been controlling Geralt, Monster Slayer Extraordinaire.
As I mentioned earlier, I only spent a little over three hours with The Witcher 3, and that’s nothing when you’re talking about a game that promises over a 100 hours worth of things to do. The world is massive and brimming with content, events, and places to explore.
I tried to do a little of everything before my time was up, partly because I wanted to glean as much info about this game as I could for this preview, but also because I was hooked.
Eventually, I had to set down the controller, but not before I had accomplished a fair amount.
I played a couple rounds of a Dwarven card game called Gwent, I brought an arsonist to justice, I felt bad when the arsonist was executed for a drunken mistake, I aided a man in his search for his missing brother, and I even killed a Griffon.
I also helped an elderly woman reclaim her lost cookware. I’m not above good deeds, however small they may be.
I was only able to bludgeon a few of the many critters who roam the world of The Witcher 3. I would’ve slayed more, but I have this problem when I play open-world games where I get distracted so unbelievably easy, so I often got sidetracked by mysterious markers on my map. I couldn’t not investigate, because doing so would let the Wild Hunt win, and no one wants that.
When I wasn’t investigating its stunning world, I would spend my time taking on packs of rabid dogs, mowing down creatures that scour charred battlefields for corpses to eat — I think they were called Ghouls — and clearing out nests of Drowners, which may or may not be the distant cousins of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I knew this series had epic fights, and my hunt for the Griffon did not disappoint. It was my primary objective, aside from finding a young woman named Yennefer, and it was so much more involved than finding the creature’s nest so I could murder it in front of any offspring it might have. This fight took preparation, I had to get to know my prey before I could engage in fisticuffs with it, and that made bringing it down exponentially more satisfying.
This game has sold me on The Witcher. I almost feel obligated to try the second game so I can go into Wild Hunt with a better understanding of this rich world that CD Projekt Red has created. It’s a beautiful game with a rewarding combat system, an engrossing story and some truly fantastic writing. Even the option side quests were well-written and interesting. That’s important.
If you’re new to this series, it’s about time you acquaint yourself with it. That’s what I’ll be doing.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is slated to release on May 19 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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