Underworld (film)

The Underworld series is a set of horror-action movies revolving around the conflicts of Werewolves and Vampires, complete with an Ancient Conspiracy, an intricate Backstory, plenty of Dark World imagery, and lots of gratuitous gory action.

The main plot revolves around the struggle between the Lycans, a former slave race to the vampires, rebelling and the latter vowing to exterminate them. All because Lucian, a Lycan, and vampire lord Viktor's daughter fell in love and conceived a child. Viktor ordered her killed to ensure the "Abomination" would not come to term. Lucian escaped and the rest, as they say, is history.

In the modern day, Lycans have been "hunted to near extinction", or so the Vampire nobles think, but in reality they are gathering in numbers and planning on wiping out the vampire leadership with a plot to create their own hybrid on the eve of the vampire elders switching power. This is where Michael comes in. He is, among the descendants of the Corvinus clan, the only one with the genetic makeup capable of letting him be turned into a vampire and a werewolf. Normal humans can only be turned into one or the other; trying to "mix" causes death. Selene, a vampire Death Dealer with a personal vendetta against all werewolves, notices the Lycan's botched kidnapping of Michael, and helps him escape capture. Along the way, they begin to fall in love, an issue that gets all the more complicated when he gets bitten and starts turning into a werewolf. Can their love survive their species' natural hatred?

The series consists of five movies at the moment:

• Underworld (2003) introduces the basic setting, as well as the main characters: Selene and Michael, who are caught in the conflict between Viktor's vampire court and the rebellious Lycans led by Lucian.
• Underworld: Evolution (2006) picks up immediately where the first movie ended: with Viktor and Lucian dead, Selene and Michael (now the dreaded Vampire-Lycan hybrid) find themselves on the run from Marcus, the father of all vampires. Luckily, they are helped by Marcus' immortal father, who is just as interested in stopping him as they are.
• Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) depicts the origin of the Lycan rebellion against their Vampire masters, sparked by the Star-Crossed Lovers Lucian and Sonja, Viktor's vampire daughter. As may be expected from a prequel, it has a Downer Ending.
• Underworld: Awakening (2012) is set approximately 12 years after Evolution and revolves around Selene, fresh out of torpor, trying to find her and Michael's daughter in the midst of the extermination of both Vampires and Lycans at the hands of humanity.
• Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

Not to be confused with The Underworld, that underworld, Ultima Underworld, the band Underworld, this one or a Metro Specific Underworld, which it may loosely reference.

Tropes used in Underworld (film) include:

• Abnormal Ammo: Silver bullets are to be expected, but special liquid silver nitrate bullets are used to prevent the projectiles from being easily removed. The Lycans, for their part, have developed UV rounds for use against the vamps.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Victor's sword, which Selene uses against him.
• Anachronism Stew: Rise of the Lycans, in which the vampire nobles (the women, at least) seem to be wearing modern evening wear, some even featuring bare midriffs. The date and setting of the film is inexact, but it is clearly supposed to be a medieval setting.
  • Based on the first two movies, this takes place roughly 600 years ago, as Selene's family was murdered "the winter of Lucian's escape."
• Anatomically-Impossible Sex: Selene and Michael's infamously awkward sex scene in Underworld: Evolution. The way their bodies are positioned, Michael is basically making love to Selene's stomach, though they were sensible enough to photoshop out his penis. This scene is particularly awkward when you realize that Kate Beckinsale is married to the director, who obviously would have been watching the whole time.
  • To quote Mrs. Beckinsale during an interview about this very scene: "...if they move, then it’s terribly embarrassing, but if it doesn’t move it’s terribly insulting and you think they’re gay. So he lashed it to his leg, tied it in three knots and... I think was in physical torment as well as everything else"
  • To be fair, that was just for the first few shots of the scene, probably just 'foreplay'. In the last few shots Michael actually looks positioned right.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Both the masquerade setting itself, and within the vampire clan under the noses of its members.
• Anticlimax: In the first movie, a Lycan starts to transform and it looks like it's going to have a knock-down drag-out fight with a vampire. Said vampire is quickly knocked down and torn to pieces.
  • Also in the first movie, Raze and Viktor are about to get in a big fight. The strongest vampire and the strongest lycan, Except that when Raze jumps at Viktor, Viktor catches him in midair and breaks his neck.
  • And in more traditional anticlimax fashion, the final fight. The entire movie is spent building up how absurdly, ridiculously powerful the blending of Vampire and Lycan would be. And he is, at first... until Victor suddenly starts Worfing him so that Selene can be the one to effortlessly finish Victor off.
• Anti-Villain: By the end of the first movie, Lucian is a villain only by virtue of being on the opposite side.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The vampires.
• Awesome but Impractical: Selene's automatic pistols. Apart from the required Bottomless Magazines, pistols are too underpowered to reliably stop mere people, inherently inaccurate even when shot one at a time and in Selene's case, don't even produce particularly good results with the in-universe issue of Lycans extracting or pushing out silver bullets. Notable despite Rule of Cool because EVERYONE else uses at least a heavy magnum pistol or submachine gun.
  • Possibly a case of Fridge Brilliance. Vampires thought they had all but exterminated their old slaves, only to find a surprisingly significant Lycan population growing (literally) under their noses. Maybe the Lycans were purposely playing possum and the vamps didn't realize their weapons and tactics weren't so effective anymore.
• Badass: Most of the cast, especially Selene.
• Badass Baritone: There are no special effects involved in Kevin Grevioux's voice.
• Badass Longcoat: Vampires and Lycans both wear them, and they have a noted tendency to catch the breeze.
• Badass Normal: Raze when still human. First thing he does when confronted with one of the wild and feral Werewolves? Punches the damn thing down.
  • Detective Sebastian in Awakening. He may look as if he bought his detective outfit at a Halloween costume store, but when the chips are down he still shoots lycans with some sort of giant gun and survives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Jacob Lane in lycan form.
• Bat Out of Hell: The vampire Elder Marcus, on account of his becoming a hybrid, seems to have grown leathery gray skin and enormous, sycthe-like bat-wings.
• Black and Grey Morality:The whole vampire werewolf conflict, also Rise of The Lycans and Evolution are the only films with the protagonists can be argued to be the more heroic participants in the conflict, rather than the guys with the current viewpoint.
• Big Bad: Viktor in the first movie and Rise of the Lycans, Marcus in Evolution, Dr. Lane in Awakening.
• Boom! Headshot!: When Selene is escaping in Awakening a guard shoots her in the head. It just pisses her off.
• Bottomless Magazines: Selene's automatic pistols must just be magical, roaring with one continuous noise as they spew bullets like water out of a hose. Her infamous Bullet Hole Trap Door is only one example.
• Bullethole Door: Selene makes one through the floor. With silver bullets, no less. MythBusters attempted to reproduce this specific stunt, and couldn't do it, even with 10 times the ammo.
  • The stunt itself was no picnic. Kate Beckinsale states in the commentary that the shrapnel from the broken floor tile was exploding into her face.
  • Inverted with the bottom of a rapidly descending elevator in Awakening. The elevator lands on her, but the bullets made the floor weak enough (and she's tough enough) that it doesn't particularly bother her.
• Capulet Counterpart: Selene.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Selene in Evolution to Alexander Corvinus, in response to his Not So Different lecture.

Selene: Everything I've done can be laid at YOUR feet - hundreds of thousands have died because of your inability to accept that your sons are monsters, that they CREATE monsters!

• Cat Fight: Subverted in the second film. Twice. In the span of ten seconds.
• Cleanup Crew: Alexander Corvinus leads a group of men, appropriately called The Cleaners, who cover up the evidence of lycans and vampires. They are all killed by Marcus in Evolution, which is what probably led to humans learning of the existence of lycans and vampires in Awakening.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: On Lucian, in Rise of the Lycans.
• Creator Cameo: Raze is played by Kevin Grevioux, who was one of the co-creators of the story.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: The vampires and the lycans.
• Cute Little Fangs: Selene.
• Dark Action Girl: Selene.
• Delayed Causality: Selene's duel with Viktor.
• Demoted to Extra: Michael in Awakening. In a more literal sense, he isn't even played by Scott Speedman.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: UV rounds for killing vampires, silver nitrate rounds for killing Lycans.
  • Arguably, the special rounds should have averted the Armor Is Useless trope since both rounds are essentially fragile liquid containers and would probably have splashed harmlessly across any decent armor.
• Diagonal Cut: Selene's duel with Viktor.
• Did Not Do the Research: The "silver nitrate" bullets the werewolves use have a liquid metal inside them, but actual silver nitrate is clear and colorless, not metallic. Probably mostly there for the convenience of the audience.
• Different As Night and Day: Markus and William were twin brothers, yet wound up as different breeds of supernatural creature.
• Dirty Coward: Kraven.
• The Dog Bites Back: Literally when Lucian leads the Lycan rebellion. Lucian himself runs afoul of it when Kraven kills him.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Kraven, right at the beginning of Underworld: Evolution.
• Dual-Wielding: In the first film, one of the vampire lieutenants decides the best way to fight a hulking werewolf in an environment with many projections and obstructions is to uncoil a pair of silver razored whips. It doesn't work out when one of his whips gets wrapped around one of the projecting pieces of structure.. Viktor also whips out a pair of large knives from his sleeves during his battle with Selene.
• Dying Like Animals: In Awakening after the humans have hunted vampires and lycans to the brink of extinction. Lycans apparently went out like boars, rose up and fought the humans; and were massacred. Vampires seem to be chickens, mostly just hiding. The leader of one coven is like a mouse; but in fairness he saw what happened to the boars. Subverted in that the lycans weren't wiped out, they were able to infiltrate the government. They used humans to wipe out vampires, while secretly making themselves stronger.
• Every Helicopter Is a Huey: Very nearly averted in Evolution - the helicopter shown in long-shots is a modified SA 360 Dauphin that just happens to sound like a Huey. Unfortunately, sometime between the helicopter landing and The Squad piling out the back, it's turned into a Huey anyway. In an apparent compromise, the prop used after it inevitably crashes and turns into a Helicopter Blender looks like some unholy fusion between the two.
• Evil Brit: Seemingly played straight with Lucian in the first film. But then subverted when it turns out he isn't the villain, or at all evil.
• Exposition of Immortality: Underworld mostly employs a combination of dialogue and flashbacks for this. Selene states that she's been a vampire for six hundred years and that Viktor was her maker. Flashbacks in the first and second films show the date for the Lycan-Vampire conflict, establishing Kraven as at least as old as Selene.
  • The werewolf doctor in Underworld has a family tree showing the dates for the Corvinus family dating back to the 5th century AD with Marcus Corvinus.
  • And then there's Alexander, who reveals himself to have been the father of the original Marcus Corvinus; still alive after approximately 1600 years.
• Expy: Thomas in Awakening is basically a more cowardly, not-as-evil version of Viktor. Charles Dance clearly took lessons in being Bill Nighy for the part—just listen to his first line-uh.
• Faux Action Girl: Sonja in Rise of the Lycans. Despite being the leader of the Death Dealers, Sonja needs almost constant rescuing.
• Fan Service: Selene's entire wardrobe composes of leather catsuits. The men are lucky—or villains—if they get more than pants.
  • And for the ladies, Michael almost always fights shirtless, while in the third film, Lucian shows off just about everything.
• Follow the Leader: The setting was similar enough to White Wolf's Old World of Darkness tabletop RPG that there was a legal fracas over it around the time of the first film's release. Otherwise, the film is generally thought of as The Matrix with vampires and werewolves.
• Foregone Conclusion: If you watched the movies in production order, there's no way you didn't know how Rise of the Lycans was going to end.
  • Watching them in chronological order, however, takes away the first movie's twist that Kraven didn't kill Lucian as Selene claimed in her Opening Narration. Either way, you will be spoiled—though the chronological order can still work okay if you like internal reveals.
• Fur Against Fang: The premise.
• Genetic Memory: Carried in the blood of both werewolves and vampires are the "parent's" memories, which can be accessed by drinking.
• The Ghost: Marcus in the first movie. He's only mentioned as one of the three vampire elders, who was supposed to take power before Selene awakened Viktor instead. We don't actually see him until Evolution, where we learn how important he really is to the series' backstory.
• Gorn: There's a scene in Evolution where an exiled vamp is having a threesome. One of his partners bites him. Bleeding just made it hotter.
• Guns Akimbo: Selene wields almost all her guns, in all three of the films she appears in, in pairs.
• Healing Factor: Both vampires and lycans (except against silver in the latter's case). Best illustrated in the second film, when Selene suffers severe burns from short-term exposure to the sun, which are gone minutes later.
• Helicopter Blender: Used at the end of Evolution.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Selene. Just look at the poster.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Lycan doctor Singe managed to put behind his U-boat experience.
  • Thomas, from Awakening, still doesn't care for the wolf, and always pays his debts.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Viktor, letting Selene live and turn her into a vampire, because she reminds him so much of Sonja, only to end up getting killed by his "daughter". In the second film, Selene rips off one of Marcus's spiked wings and stabs him with it.
  • And Viktor again, in Rise of the Lycans. When Lucian is born, he gets the feeling that he should kill the infant, but doesn't, leading to the following exchange:

Viktor: I should have crushed you under my heel the day you were born!
Lucian: Yes, you should have. *stabs Viktor through the mouth* But you didn't.

• • Dr. Lane in Awakening has his neck ripped out through his throat by the hybrid he created.
  • The super lycan in the same film is doomed by his own Healing Factor. See Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me.
• Hiss Before Fleeing: Vampires in general.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In Awakening. Subverted when at least part of the anti-monster purge and subsequent genetic research turns out to be a lycan plot.
• Hybrid Overkill Avoidance: Why there are no hybrids before Michael.
• Hybrid Monster: Michael Corvin becomes one, specifically the first Half-vampire-half-Lycan. Later, Marcus also becomes one. There's also Subject 2, the daughter of Michael Corvin created in a lab. Oddly, none of them are quite the same kind of hybrid, despite being mixes of the same species.
  • Michael started out as a lycan with the dormant Corvinus gene who had the vampire DNA added later. Marcus was the other way around. Subject 2, on the other hand, was born from Michael's already-existent hybrid DNA mixing with Selene's vampire DNA which had already mixed with pure immortal DNA from Alexander Corvinus. These different combinations and scenarios could explain the different appearances of the hybrids.
  • Lucian and Sonja's child would have been a hybrid if it had lived.
  • Selene passes her own hybrid blood on to the vampire David in Awakening, reviving him after he is killed and possibly making him a Vampire/Immortal hybrid as well.
• Idiot Ball: Viktor, why did you leave the closable roof of the room in which you intended to torture Lucian open on the night of a full moon?
  • That depends on which movie you're watching. In Rise of the Lycans, Lucian can change at will, rather than under a full moon.
    • Also, it's never actually stated that Lycans who can't change at will even need to be in direct moonlight to transform.
  • A more likely candidate would be Kraven. From slipping up and dropping Lucian's name in argument with Selene to...just about everything else his ego leads him to do.
• I Did What I Had to Do:

Selene: It wasn't the Lycans. It was you. How could you bear my trust knowing that you killed my family?
Viktor: Yes, I have taken from you but I have given so much more. Is it not a fair trade for life I have granted you? The gift of immortality?
Selene: And the life of your daughter? Your own flesh and blood?
Viktor: I loved my daughter! But the abomination growing in her womb was a betrayal of me and the coven! I did what was necessary to protect the species! As I am forced to do yet again!

• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Both Sonja and Selene suffer this.
  • Selene initially averts this. She is very loyal to Viktor, and is well-enough known for the trait that Andreas Tannis flat-out disbelieves her when she states she killed him.
  • Arguably, Sonja also doesn't really suffer from it early on. It's only after she becomes pregnant with a hybrid child fathered by Lucian and subsequently realizes that Viktor will never truly accept Lucian as a son-in-law or the unborn hybrid in her womb as a grandchild that she finally turns on her father.
• Immune to Bullets: Not exactly, but they don't seem to be very effective. Older werewolves can just push them out of their flesh (or skull, in Lucian's case), and vampires seem able to survive all sorts of impalements. In the second film, Selene takes a shotgun blast to the torso without visible injury, and Marcus survives five or six such shots in a row and is only slowed down with minor bleeding.
  • Silver bullets do kill lycans, but they can heal from it. The silver nitrate liquid rounds kill them very quickly; and the UV bullets are similarly effective against vampires. Marcus can shrug them off because he's that tough, and Selene's corset may be bulletproof.
• Implacable Man: Marcus.
• Ironic Echo: "It's easier if you don't fight it. Trust me." Spoken first by Jacob Lane to Subject 2 in Awakening as he is attempting to kill her. Repeated in the opposite direction between the same two characters during the final battle as Lane is dying from the fatal wounds inflicted by Subject 2.
• Just a Stupid Accent: In the first film, Viktor's accent is somewhere between Colonel Kurtz and Colonel Sanders. By Rise of the Lycans, it's a pretty standard English sneer.
  • Probably this is Translation Convention at work, as it's unlikely that genuine period speech would be intelligible to audiences even if they'd been speaking English.
• Large Ham: Lots of them, but Viktor takes the cake. Or at least shares it with Kraven.
  • He has his moments in the first, for example coming out of nowhere nasally saying, "What's... this... ruckus?". But in the third, he definitely goes for it. "I whanted to believe your liessss. I KNEW it couldn't be truenotmyowndaughter, how could youuu?"
• Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me: When Selene is fighting the Giant Mook lycan at the end of Awakening, she punches a hole through him and leaves a grenade inside and he announces, as he heals instantly, "I heal instantly!"
• Love Across Battlelines: Sonja and Lucian in Rise of the Lycans. The never-ending feud between vampires and werewolves becomes a full-out war because of Viktor's refusal to accept their relationship.
• Mad Scientist: The lycans have their own mad scientist, complete with German accent, in the first film. Dr. Jacob Lane in Awakening also fits the part.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Death Dealers in all incarnations whether its full-face medieval helmets or gas masks.
• Mama Bear: Selene in Awakening.
• The Masquerade: It's revealed in the second film that Sir Derek Jacobi and his merry men have been following the vampires around and cleaning up their mess. They even mention bribing witnesses to keep their mouths shut. The fact that Markus kills all of them is probably what led to the Broken Masquerade.
  • The Unmasqued World: In Awakening, humans have found out about vampires and lycans and started hunting down both of them. Selene, while breaking into a sporting goods/gun store, sees vampire and lycan teeth on sale.
• Meaningful Name: Viktor is surprised when putting someone named Kraven in charge of his household doesn't turn out so well.
  • Selene, which means "moon".
• Mono-Gender Monsters: Going by the movies, there was exactly one female Lycan, Lucian's mother, who was infected while pregnant. Though presumably the virus is just as contagious to both genders, the use of this trope was Justified as the vampires wanting only male lycan slaves.
  • Alternately, proto-lycan females could've been culled after Lucian's birth, because their instinct to protect their offspring made them unmanageable even for whip-wielding vampires. Lucian's mom did look ready to pounce on anyone who came near when she was killed.
  • Although Lucian's mother is the only prominent female Lycan, technically two can be seen the background in the first movie. One sits on a raised platform as Raze brings his injured comrade back to the den. Another is visible among the imprisoned Lycans in the Lucian/Sonja flashback.
  • There's also a few distinct mentions of female Lycans within the novels of the movies.
• Monster Progenitor: William Corvinus is the Progenitor of all Lycans. Markus Corvinus, his brother, is the progenitor of all Vampires. Unlike other Lycans, William cannot change back to a human. Markus, unlike other vampires, is capable of changing form to that of a vampire with bat wings, giving him flight; but only after he becomes a hybrid.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Selene. By Awakening, she's able to jump through concrete and bring other vampires back to life by sticking her hand into them and squeezing their heart.
  • Somewhat justified as, in Evolution, she became a hybrid 'True Immortal' and Vampire thanks to Alexander Corvinus.
    • Additionally, the heart-pump was preceeded by slashing her own palm open, presumably to allow her enhanced blood to infuse and alter the deceased, albeit to a lesser extent or on a temporary basis.
• Nigh Invulnerable: Hybrids are TOUGH. Markus, original vampire, has a magazine emptied into his face (courtesy of Selene) and then crushed between a truck and a cliff-side. He shrugs it off. Selene is only able to kill him after impaling him through the head, with his own razor wing, and throwing him into helicopter blades. Word of God is that while the Helicopter Blender killed him, he would have recovered from the impaled head. Michael is impaled on a pipe, which does seem to kill; only for him to be Only Mostly Dead. Selene, a vampire immortal hybrid, might actually be indestructible.
  • Not to mention Eve, the daughter of Selene and Michael, whom Selene flat-out states will grow to become even more powerful than she is.
• No Ontological Inertia: As the first vampire, Markus managed to convince the other vampires that killing him would destroy all of them, and killing his brother William (the first lycan) would destroy all lycans—thus depriving them of their slaves. When Selene hears about this a thousand years or so later, she immediately sees it for the lie it is, but the one telling it to her notes that Victor believed it enough to not risk it.
• Not So Different: Alexander Corvinus gives both this and a Reason You Suck Speech to Selene when she asks him for help killing Markus. For her response, see Calling the Old Man Out.

Selene: (on whether or not Corvinus could have stopped the war) Yes!
Alexander Corvinus: Could you kill your own sons?
Selene: You know what Marcus will do! If he finds me, he finds William's prison! You have to help us stop him!
Alexander Corvinus: You are asking me to help you kill my son - YOU, a Death Dealer? How many innocents have YOU slain in your six-century quest to avenge your family? Spare me your self-righteous declarations! You are no different from Marcus and even less noble than William - at least HE cannot control his savagery!

• Of Corsets Sexy / Spy Catsuit: Selene's outfit.
• The Older Immortal
• Our Vampires Are Different: The vampires are stereotypically pale, blood-drinking, almost completely immortal, highly athletic, and use plenty of Gun Fu, but the entire condition is supposedly just the result of a mutant virus.
  • Keep in mind that the Gun Fu vampires are the "death dealers", the assassins/soldiers of the vampires. The main population seems to be standard "we get to live forever so let's just sit around and drink blood."
  • They're also not undead, and do not require special things to kill them. For example, sunlight will cause them to burst into flame. However, a stake through the heart is unnecessary; sufficient bullet wounds and similar gore will kill them. A stake through the heart is likely to kill them, if only because that's a pretty nasty injury for anybody to go through.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Caused by the brother strain of the above virus, these Weres are large, vaguely humanoid, also immortal, and most can shift at will.
  • Also there are three different "species" of Werewolf in this series. First there's William; the first one to ever exist, who looks the most Wolf-like. Then there's those who are infected by William, known as "1st Generation" Werewolves. Like William, they are unable to return to their Human form ever again. And then there are the "2nd Generation" Werewolves, otherwise known as Lycans. This breed came about when Lucian's mother was bitten and turned into a "1st Generation" when she was pregnant and gave birth to him whilst imprisoned by Viktor. Lucian was born in his Human form and could change between that and his Werewolf form. And when he grew older, Viktor used him to turn more slaves for the Vampires to use, resulting in the majority of the Lycan population.
  • Awakening features super lycans, enormous beasts at least twice the size of regular lycans, with commensurately greater strength and stamina. They're also immune to silver.
• Partial Transformation: Lucian can give himself fangs to bite someone without fully transforming. Even more practically, the beefed-up lycan in Awakening can transform his hand to acquire sharp claws.
• Razor Wings: Marcus uses his wings to impale targets, as well as fly.
• Replacement Goldfish: Kraven, probably accurately, believes that Viktor only turned Selene because she reminded him of his dead vampire daughter. Which becomes really awkward when its revealed Viktor killed his daughter, and Selene's family.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Selene does this in Awakening first to search for Michael and later to rescue Eve.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: William, in his sarcophagus. Justified, however, in that it was all a trick by Marcus to make sure that the vampires wouldn't kill his brother.
• Self-Made Orphan: Marcus, and also Selene, if you consider Viktor, the vampire who infected her, to be considered her "father."
• Scary Black Man: Raze.
• Single Line of Descent: Subverted, at least partly. Alexander Corvinus, the originator of the virus, had one human son, who did (in fact) produce plenty of modern-day progeny, if the wall of Xed-out photos is any indication. But the only one of those people still carries his special genes, and happens to also share his last name.
  • Lineage Comes From the Father does seem to ring true, however, as the surnames shown are all variants of "Corvinus", suggesting the Lycans didn't bother tracking the bloodline through any of Alexander's female descendents.
    • It might have been that tracking down the female descendants would have been lot harder, due to the name change, so they just focused on the male-line descent.
• Sissy Villain: Kraven.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Werewolves are the Slobs, living in a derelict industrial complex, wearing earth tones, long hair, Perma-Stubble, and generally being gritty/dirty. Vampires are all pale, wear almost exclusively blacks and reds, are immaculately groomed, beautiful, and live in a decadent Victorian manor...while being arrogant d*cks.
  • Overlaps with Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty.
  • Keeping in mind, the lycans have had to survive on the fringe for the past several centuries, biding their time while being persistently hunted by the Death Dealers. They simply haven't had the time or resources to properly integrate into advanced society.
• Smug Snake: Kraven. Also Tanis, to a lesser extent, in Evolution and Rise of the Lycans.
• Stairwell Chase: In the first film, when the Lycans find Michael and Selene's safe house.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Lucian and Sonja in the backstory, later (and with far happier results) Selene and Michael.
• Stock Subtitle: The sequels.
• Styrofoam Rocks: In the commentary, the movie's creators point out in a scene towards the end of the movie that some of the stone debris from someone getting thrown through a wall can be seen to float in a pool of water. Oops.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Kraven in Evolution.
  • And apparently Michael in Awakening. Although it turns out to be a Disney Death.
• A Taste of the Lash: In Rise of the Lycans, after capturing Lucian, Viktor subjects him to thirty lashes for betraying his trust, with even one lash being brutal enough to Lucian, and Viktor makes it clear that he wants Lucian to suffer even after the first twenty-one lashes, even forbidding Sonja, his own daughter, from intervening on pain of serious punishment. A Kick the Dog moment if there ever was one.
• Those Two Guys: Pierce and Taylor.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Happens in the first movie when a death-dealer simply stands idly by as a Lycan transforms. Bad idea!
  • Would have been much smarter to just shoot the Lycan, thus stopping him mid-shift. It's mentioned, just minutes later, that having silver in a Lycan's body stops them, not just from transforming, but also from regenerating.
    • He does appear to have lost his gun.
• Treasure Chest Cavity: Viktor has one half of the key to William's prison hidden inside his chest. (The other half is hanging around Lucian's neck, or at least was in the first film.)
• Unreliable Narrator: In-Universe, nearly everyone. Virtually none of the mythology that is passed down is actually true and the one story that Viktor openly mocks is.
• Vampire Monarch: Marcus Corvinus is the first of the vampire elders.
• Viral Transformation
• We Have Been Researching Phlebotinum for Years: when Selene tells Michael about the werewolves and the vampires.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The city that the films are set in not only doesn't conform to any one location, but the continent that it's on can't even be conclusively determined. Characters speak with a mix of American, British and European accents, while the city contains a mix of North American and European characteristics in the vehicles (Mercedes police cruisers alongside large Ford sedans) and architecture.
  • The first movie shows German words in Michael's address, the second movie has Russian or Eastern European cops going after Michael (when he tried to eat normal food) and the fourth movie seems to be set up in either a Future American City or an Airstrip One Expy. Notice that in all movies, vehicle license plates resemble those used in European Union countries sans the country indicator.
• World of Ham
• Would Hit a Girl: Kraven gives Selene a vicious slap to the face.
• Written by the Winners: Viktor rewrote vampire history to appear as if he was the original vampire, when, in fact, it was another Elder, Marcus. While he is quite willing to acknowledge the legend that vampires and werewolves came from the brother Corvinus ("One bit by a bat, the other bit by a wolf"), but he makes fun of it, probably to diminish the connection between Lycans and Vampires. On the other hand, he's quite willing to rewrite his murder of Selene's entire family.
  • Selene shows signs of being aware of this. She recognizes that Kraven is not enough of a warrior to have actually killed Lucian, but as the only survivor could claim that he did. She also initially comments that the Lycans started the war, but then admits that that is what is said anyway. By the second film, she's (accurately) assumed virtually everything Viktor has said is a lie.
• You Sexy Beast: Vampires are sleek and seductive, dressing in stylish gothic fashions. Werewolves are brawny, rough-and-tumble men in leather. They have sex.
  • The vampires have plenty of sex, but Lucian is the only Lycan ever shown having sex. Plenty of Lycans brawling naked, though.
• Zero-G Spot: In Rise of the Lycans, a vampire and a lycan have gravity-defying sexy, hanging off the edge of a cliff.