Operation Blood Hunt is the kind of movie that you casually watch on a Halloween night just for the heck of it. While the choice of using a werewolf costume instead of going for CGI is quite courageous, it also prevents the audience from taking anything seriously. Add to that the fact that Johnathan Rhys Meyers plays a no-nonsense bartender called Ryan Murphy (could they be more original with the name?) and you have the recipe for a perfect B-movie here. My only complaint lies in the movie not going more insane and not quite ending up in the ‘so bad that it’s good’ category, which I was hoping for. Anyway, in this article we’re going to talk about the needlessly complicated plot of Operation Blood Hunt and its ending that practically tells you this is not the last time you’ll be seeing Reverend Conte (again, is the director a fan of the French footballer?) and Major Murph.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in the Movie?
Let us jump the gun right away. This is a world where vampires and werewolves exist. In fact, Operation Blood Hunt begins with two gleefully idiotic marines (so much for authenticity, well done) getting chomped by this werewolf on the Island of Kota. That’s a real place around the South China Sea, and the story is set around the time of the Second World War, which justifies the logic of these marines being stationed there. There’s constant unrest on the island as the Chinese (they’re obviously the bad guys) continue to try invading it and taking it away from the Americans. Not to mention, they also torture the local tribe, who have become quite fed up with the war brewing on the island. The twist here is the tribe being a werewolf tribe, which the movie reveals much later. But I don’t see any reason not to bring it up here as you’ve watched it already.
Who are Reverend Conte and Major Murph, and what’s their business?
With werewolves around, there needs to be people who can take care of them. Well, it’s mostly the reverend, as he’s the one who actually goes to the island while Murphy stays back. But considering someone like Johnathan Rhys Meyers (arguably the biggest name in the cast) is playing the part, the director has found a clever way to keep him relevant. Conte and Murph both are sort of supernatural experts who don’t share a good relationship with the American military, who are pretty much imbecilic here (my apologies if you’re offended). Murph himself is a vampire who used to be friends with Conte’s father, who died mysteriously on Kota island. In a very confusing black-and-white flashback, we see Murph giving a vial to Conte’s father, who was fast approaching death. The liquid in the vial was supposed to delay the process. Anyway, in the present day, the military visits Murph’s bar and requests Conte to go to the island with a team they’ve assembled (hardly avengers though) and take care of the problem. To make matters expectedly worse, nobody in the team is aware of the werewolves. The members of this ragtag suicide squad are exactly what you would expect in movies like this—overly dramatic and majorly animated. I don’t blame the actors here, by the way, given the movie introduces these characters as ‘Blackjack,’ ‘Gambler,’ ‘Sharpshooter,’ ‘Spy,’ ‘Assassin,’ ‘Veteran,’ ‘Casanova,’ and our main guy, ‘Reverend’.
What happens on the island?
It is pretty much business as usual once the team lands on the island. They find corpses, the bloodied bodies of marines who were stationed there before. They fail to communicate with the local tribe, except there’s this woman, Heirani, who offers to take them to the military camp (which we saw in the first scene). She herself is a werewolf, by the way, as we have already seen the tribe performing a ritual on her. There are some Chinese disturbances as well, which the ragtag team handles pretty easily. There’s always a twist in the tale in movies like this, and Operation Blood Hunt is no exception, as it brings lost treasure into the plot in the form of former Japanese general Yamashita’s gold. The military is after it, actually, and the reason Conte was sent there was to keep the werewolves occupied. We see Veteran, aka Foley, receiving clear instructions from the generals to leave the reverend on the island and come back with the gold. Except Murph has managed to eavesdrop on the military radio and find out about their plan. He has been added by a really annoying vampire, by the way, who this movie should have done away with.Â
Does the reverend survive and return?
Surely there wouldn’t have been any point had the reverend died here. And the others were doomed the moment they became a part of the team. They had no idea what they were dealing with in the first place, and by the time they come across the real danger, it is too late. So we get a lot of delightful violence here – of hands getting ripped out of the body and a bit of decapitation as these guys start falling prey to the werewolves one by one.
Not the reverend though, as he came prepared already. Thanks to Murph, he has the perfect weapon—a cool crossbow that shoots silver arrows. The silver here is apparently extracted from the moon, which makes it like kryptonite for the werewolves. Quite naturally, the reverend takes care of the problem. He is unable to save most of his team though, other than ‘The Sharpshooter’ aka Billy the Kid, who has become pretty much of a fanboy by now. Anyway, Heirani survives as she turns back into a human and lets the reverend know that they’ve grown tired of all the bloodshed. She also gives him closure by telling him his father was embraced by the tribe, and they tried to save him by turning him, which didn’t work out. Reverend Conte and Billy return, thanks to Murph, who continues to hold the military generals at gunpoint until Conte is back to safety. Murph also takes three and a half crates of gold from the military for all the trouble they’ve given him. With everything sorted, Murph and Conte get to having a celebratory drink, but an Egyptian man arrives looking for the reverend. Clearly, this is the biggest hint the director’s planning a sequel with these characters. I just hope they make it pulpier and crazier if it really happens.
