After rumors of years and speculation, the engrossing science fiction world of The Matrix is back this December with the revival film The Matrix Resurrections. Featuring a digitally simulated world controlled by machines to keep humanity complacent while it siphoned their energy, the long-awaited sequel to 2003's The Matrix Revolutions is poised to bring back iconic characters, including Neo, Trinity and someone that appears to be a mysteriously reborn Morpheus. However, as the popular franchise makes its return, here is a revisit to one of its strangest, canonical adventures taking place in the 2003 video game Enter the Matrix as its characters fought a small army of literal vampires.
When The Matrix returned to cinemas in 2003 with not one, but two, theatrical sequels in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, there was an unprecedented, multimedia push to promote its return. From an animated prologue in The Animatrix to a more conventional documentary on the production of the first film in The Matrix Revisited, the franchise's resurgence was ubiquitous and all-encompassing. The trilogy's filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski would also write and direct a video game tie-in Enter the Matrix, largely occurring concurrently with the events of The Matrix Reloaded and exploring what supporting characters Niobe and Ghost were doing to help Neo and humanity survive against the coming mechanical onslaught. Boasting the sequels' cast and live-action footage filmed by the Wachowskis, the game's events were considered canonical to the overall franchise like the follow-up online multiplayer title The Matrix Online.
Approximately halfway through Enter the Matrix's story, protagonists Niobe and Ghost infiltrate a chateau run by a rogue computer program known as the Merovingian in order to obtain a master key needed by Neo to get to the heart of the Matrix itself. Shortly after entering the chateau, the heroes are ambushed by a vampire named Vlad, who leads a private army of vampires lurking throughout the chateau, intending to feast on Niobe and Ghost's blood. Breaking free, the two heroes battle through the chateau and its underground crypt to slay any vampire that crosses their path, beating them down with martial arts before administering the finishing move with a well-placed wooden stake to the heart.
This extended mission in Enter the Matrix expands upon an offhand plot point introduced in The Matrix Reloaded that the Merovingian heads a private army of rogue programs and glitches in the system that have become what humanity regards as vampires and werewolves. The Merovingian's wife Persephone is hinted at being a vampire herself, feeding off the raw emotion of others through kisses while she stands in open defiance of her husband in the film by killing one of his henchmen with silver bullets to further underscore the integration of supernatural elements into the franchise. Enter the Matrix makes this distinction more explicit through the utilization of a wooden stake to finish off enemies and the vampires lurking around crypts and coffins.
While many details behind The Matrix Resurrections are still tightly under wraps, the return of the supernatural side to the franchise is likely not one that will be explored further in the upcoming film. Still, Enter the Matrix provides one of the quirkiest, bonkers moments in the film series to date, with characters besting the digital undead in escalating martial arts bouts for the fate of humanity. On paper, it's a genuinely ludicrous premise in a franchise that twists cyberpunk and apocalyptic fiction together and yet, complete with its hard-rocking industrial soundtrack is a peculiarly enjoyable part of the overlooked video game.
Directed, produced and co-written by Lana Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections opens in theaters and for a limited window on HBO Max starting Dec. 22.