My reason for disliking this movie
This is one of the worst vampire films I have ever seen. The dialogue was so cheesy I practically winced. Some of it didn't make sense. WHY did Christopher Lambert's character (who was British) call Elizabeth Bathory's daughter a tourist while they were IN Hungary? WHY are people able to bleed IN purgatory? What was with the vampire hunter?
The main character is what many call a Gary Stu. A Gary Stu is the male equivalent of the Mary Sue, a very flat, two dimensional protagonist designed to be an ideal that the audience members are supposed to relate to. He's the sort of character that is frowned upon in role playing games for being uncreative and contrived.
The more you think about it, the less sense the film made and it over explained simple things like the term clinically dead. This was just bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. This felt like a Syfy original movie, that's how bad it was. I can't even put into words how much I disliked this movie. On the list of bad vampire movies this goes up there with the Twilight films, Dracula 3000, Queen of the damned and the Fright Night remake, just bad.
This was so bad I was tempted to shut it off many times while watching it. It did not make sense. Our "good guy" vampire had wiped out an entire family just because of who they were descended from, it's mentioned repeatedly. But our Gary Stu... I mean hero never questions this or even considers that it might have been wrong to kill innocent people just becuase of who they were related to or are we just supposed to assume that everyone in Christopher Lambert's character's blood line is evil by default?
This film is so bad that not only are the heroes utterly questionable (But apparently it doesn't matter because they're in "lub" yes, I said lub instead of love there) and the Gary Stu completely sympathizes with the poor, misunderstood Blood Countess but also no one working on this film seemed to care about what they were doing.
When the main character wakes up from purgatory (now turned a vampire because he spent too much time in the realm between life and death and would have died completely if he wasn't turned) he was impaled but somehow there was no bloody hole in his jacket. Vampirism heals clothes now? Also why did all of his friends die from being tossed from the car but he was only "clinically dead" for being tossed from the car and imapaled? (He'd have been all right if he had just returned to his body in time but he took too long so she made him a vampire to save him...)
If this was a plot in a role playing game I was taking part in I'd have called the person who came up with it stupid.
If you want an interesting vampire romance just go watch Bram Stoker's Dracula. This was awful.
The plot of Metamorphosis: Okay, so it begins with the sad, misunderstood ...Elizabeth Bathory (yes, the woman who bathed in virgin blood) as her daughter (also named Elizabeth) is ripped from her arms. He comes off as a cheesy villain. "Mwahaha! You'll never see your child again! Mwaaha!" And flings her over a horse (obviously a doll at this point because her head bobs up and down way to fast as they gallop away). Apparently the daughter grew up, cursed God for what became of her family and became a vampire.
Cut to modern day Hungary. British Christopher Lambert (yes, the Highlander. I have trouble buying that too) shows up at his brother's funeral where he tries to stop a vampire hunter from staking his brother. Apparently Chris is playing the last of his family. The family descended from the man who separated Elizabeth Bathory from her daughter. The 'evil family' was cursed to each become vampires at the time of their death. And the daughter has been killing them off one by one. That's right. Our vampire hero (yes, she's supposed to be the good guy) has been killing men, women and children just because of who one of their ancestors were! Christopher Lambert drives off and has a car crash and dies.
A a group of American tourists are driving through the Hungarian countryside (which suddenly has a LOT more desert than Hungary really should... yet the film claims to have been filmed on location...) They pick up the strangely dressed Elizabeth and then meet with some monks who tell them that life has three phases. Life, purgatory, and what comes after. But in Purgatory your soul can be utterly destroyed and is very dangerous. Why the monks tell them this... exposition for later, of course!
The leader of these tourists is the guy who also played Mathew in Dresden Files (the Hellion from the episode Rules of Engagement). I'll call the character Gary Stu from this point out. He's flat, two dimensional and very obviously there to be the hero / love interest. He's poorly developed.
He sympathizes with poor, misunderstood Elizabeth Bathory. 'She just needed help' And worst of all the cruel field (Lambert's character's ancestor) ripped her daughter from her arms. He also memorized a Hungarian poem even though he doesn't speak the language just because it "sounded beautiful" so Elizabeth (who is familiar with the poem and loves it too) translates. I'm sorry but WHO memorizes a poem because it "Sounds beautiful" if you don't understand the language!?
The other passengers are annoying stereotypes including one shallow bimbo in a half-cut hoody.
Eventually all the heroes end up in a castle where Christopher Lambert is dressed in period clothes. Elizabeth gloats about having killed his entire family while he gives of cheesy one liners and lines that sound like they directly rip off Dracula. When he's not paraphrasing Dracula he's delivering these very, very cheesy and over used one liners that sound like they belong in a comic book. They were so bad I wanted to wince. At one point he shouts at her "I will not be defeated by a tourist!" Umm... She's not a tourist. You are. You're British, SHE is Hungarian, you are IN Hungary. Unless he means the American boy but he was saying it to Elizabeth while fighting her. It does not make sense. He even, at one point, gives the over used line about The Bible being the world's greatest Best selling fiction.
All the while Elizabeth keeps "mysteriously" telling Gary Stu that he needs to go to the light. One of his friends is caught in a cartoonish loop of running down a flight of stairs, through a door and then down the same flight of stairs again and again and again, apparently not noticing it's the same stairs over and over and over again!
Finally Christopher Lambert and all his cheesy one liners are defeated but both Elizabeth and Gary Stu are badly wounded. Again she pleads with him to go to the light (and sure enough there's a glowing vortex of light) but instead he chooses to stay with her because he lubs her (Yes, I said lub instead of love because it's just that cheesy). She says 'Forgive me' and then bites him.
Gary Stu wakes up, impaled on a stake-like shaft of broken wood sticking out of the ground. Apparently all his travel companions died in a horrible car crash. He pulls himself off the stake and staggers to an old shack and as he does we see that the back of his jacket doesn't even have a hole in it even though he was impaled! At the shack Elizabeth is waiting and she tells him that in the real world only four minutes passed while it seemed like hours in purgatory and if he didn't go to the light in time his brain cells would have died for he was only clinically dead (which she also has to explain to the audience because apparently we're morons...) Vampires apparently could pass from the real world to purgatory at will since they are of both the living world and the dead but if you're killed in purgatory the soul is destroyed. She informs Gary Stu that vampirism isn't so bad and they can even go in the sun, the whole burning in the sun thing is only in the movies. This part doesn't bother me because in Dracula they could go in the sun too.
Well, Gary Stu eventually forgives her for making him a vampire since she did it out of lub. They make out on the side of the road and who should be driving by but the vampire hunter from Christopher Lambert's brother's funeral! He sees them (or rather doesn't see them) in his rear view mirror and pulls over his pick up truck. Yes, the vampire hunter has a pickup truck. He climbs out and takes two stakes and a hammer from his trunk (which is loaded with stakes, crosses and garlic) and he gets back in the front seat with the stakes and hammer next to him. The final scene is our vampire lovers hitchhinking and getting into the back of the pickup truck with the vampire hunter, apparently not noticing the stakes and hammers right next to him or the smell of garlic from the back!
Then the credits rolled and my head hurt...