Run an Internet search on filmmaker and occasional boxer Uwe Boll and you’ll find pages and pages of sites, blogs, and message boards all ‘Boll bashing’ his various video game adaptations including House of the Dead and BloodRayne.

The litany of scathing reviews and unflattering awards includes a worst director Razzie nomination for 2005’s Alone in the Dark (though it ‘lost’ to the Jenny McCarthy comedy Dirty Love) and three showings on the ‘bottom 100’ list of the Internet Movie Database.

Many of the attacks get personal, such as on UweBollIsAntichrist.com, which writes that the German-born 41-year-old filmmaker ‘is on a quest to destroy the video game industry by producing some of the worst movies ever.’

‘We believe that you are the Antichrist,’ it adds.

And yet, he keeps coming back for more, and keeps bringing his projects and their sizeable spends to B.C. Boll has directed nine films in the province since 2000, the budgets for which add up to more than $115 million.

Boll – speaking to Playback on the Vancouver set of his latest film, Postal – is quick to defend his record.

‘Alone in the Dark, in Thailand, we were three weeks in the top 10, in Russia four weeks in the top 10,’ he says. ‘In the Middle East, we opened the same weekend as War of the Worlds and we were number one… We had a good distributor who worked his ass off.’

House of the Dead cost a reported US$12 million and has grossed US$12.9 million worldwide according to Variety. Boll says its total gross – including pay-TV and DVDs – stands at US$87 million. Alone in the Dark cost US$17 million and has grossed US$63 million, says Boll, though its box office came in at just US$7.1 million.

‘Theatrically they may not be a success, but they do make money,’ says Shawn Williamson, co-head of Vancouver’s Brightlight Pictures and a frequent collaborator.

He’s also popular on set. ‘Our crews love working with him. He’s a down-to-earth regular guy that doesn’t have an attitude, but has a great sense of humor,’ says Greg Chambers, business manager at ACFC West, which represents technicians, including makeup, construction crew and wranglers. ACFC crews have worked on Seed, BloodRayne and Postal.

‘In terms of numbers, there are 70 and up to over 100 on a larger film like Postal,’ he adds. ‘It’s great for our members, too, that they roll over from show to show.’

Boll had high hopes for 2005’s BloodRayne ‘but it tanked’ in the U.S., he admits, pulling in between US$2 million and US$3 million after running up bills of US$25 million. It was not released in Canada.

‘There were supposed to be 2,000 screens and at the last minute exhibitors dropped out and the 900 screens we had were bad screens,’ he alleges. Boll is suing the U.S. distributor, Romar Entertainment.

Despite the failure, Boll will film BloodRayne 2 in Vancouver’s lower mainland this winter. The former literature scholar (he holds a doctorate) now calls Vancouver home.

Unlike his aggressive reputation, he’s at ease, leaning back over the arm of his chair, smiling and answering questions with his trademark no-bullshit honesty between shots.

‘When I first applied for film school I was rejected,’ he recalls. ‘When I finally got in it was too much theory and rules so I quit.’ He wrote, directed and produced his first film, German Fried, in 1991.

But Boll is not always so easygoing, and last fall answered his most vocal critics with his fists, challenging six of them to a three-round boxing match in Vancouver. Six hundred showed up to see ‘Raging Boll’ – an amateur boxer, by the way – knock each one out, including Somethingawful.com webmaster Richard Kyanka, Rue Morgue writer Chris Alexander and Jeff Sneider of Ain’t it Cool News.

‘In the beginning I was mad at how many reviews were written by critics who had never even seen the films,’ he says. ‘I will never please the gamers who write most of that shit. They have their own versions, their own movies in their heads – they’ll always hate what you do.’

Boll believes the gamers turned ‘normal critics’ against him. ‘The boxing match was like therapy. I wanted to draw attention to show what [they] were doing,’ he says. ‘Now I don’t care about it. You can’t change the mind of stupid people.’

On the Postal set, Boll directs the action from one corner of an old generator building in east Vancouver – not unlike a coach at a boxing match.

The scene has 50 postal clerks, uniformly dressed, seated in perfect rows and typing on manual typewriters like automatons. He laughs out loud as he watches his creation. Once again, he’s sparring with controversy. The darkly comedic film is based on a 10-year-old computer game inspired by the spate of shootings by U.S. mailmen in the mid-1990s.

The game was also derided by critics for its wildly graphic violence and was a runner-up in the ‘ten worst games of all time’ in PC World magazine. A sequel was released in 2003 to similar acclaim.

‘I want to offend and shock. I want to make people think and entertain [them] too. The world needs a film that is tougher in its mockery of the world than South Park. That’s why I cast comedic live actors instead of [doing] cartoons,’ says Boll.

Zack Ward (Almost Famous, A Christmas Story) stars as Postal Dude, who, unemployed and desperate to find work, ends up with his Uncle Dave, played by Dave Foley (A Bugs Life, NewsRadio), a financially strapped cult leader trying to rip off an amusement park. It turns out that the Taliban are trying to pull the same heist. Larry Thomas (Seinfeld’s ‘Soup Nazi’) portrays Osama bin Laden.

Boll will appear in a cameo and get killed. ‘That should make the critics happy,’ he laughs.

Williamson and Brightlight have been involved in many of Boll’s films since 2000, including Postal and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Their business relationship is not the norm. The pictures are not copros as such, but Brightlight gets a fee-for-service and a percentage of revenues.

Boll finances all his films through Boll KG, tapping into a German tax shelter that lets investors write off as much as 100% of their investment as a tax deduction.

‘I handle casting, negotiate the rights to the properties for selected projects, find locations, crews, et cetera.’ says Williamson. ‘Uwe finances his movies from beginning to end from his own German financing fund.’

Williamson readily admits he didn’t want to do Postal. ‘We differ creatively, on every level. Postal wouldn’t have been my choice, not my favorite… This is an in-your face, over-the-top, aggressive comedy,’ he says.

‘But, he is the one with the money at the end of the day. He’s the only person I work with that has the final decision.’

Williamson also didn’t agree with the boxing match. ‘I thought it was ludicrous. I wanted no part of it.’ And yet he and a Brightlight film crew attended to shoot a documentary about Boll.

Boll wrapped Postal at the end of October and took clips of his three completed but unreleased films (Seed, Dungeon Siege, and Postal) to the American Film Market in November. After the BloodRayne debacle, he wants to make sure the theatrical releases are solid, especially for the $60-million Dungeon Siege, which is also based on an action/fantasy video game. It stars Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Ron Perlman and Leelee Sobieski.

Boll KG plans to distribute pictures from third-party producers, he says, looking to break the typical and ‘idiotic’ deals.

‘Lots of producers are getting ripped off by distributors,’ he says. ‘We’re revolutionizing the system. We split 20/80 – the producer gets 80%. We cover everything, with no extra charges. Normally they get charged to death by distribution, and the movie may sit on the shelf and the producer gets nothing. It’s bullshit.’

While seeking distribution deals for films already in the can – and wrapping BloodRayne 2 – Boll has set his sights on a new arena.

‘I want to make Canadian films with Canadian content, here in B.C. I love the mountains,’ he says.

But, realistically, Boll’s bottom line is always the bottom line. ‘I make a profit because I know how to work the money. It’s cheaper here than L.A. The crews, actors, settings for shoots are great, the production facilities, and,’ he nods, ‘the tax incentives.’