Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is one of those movies that you’ve never heard of and after seeing it you can’t really fathom why.
According to the few documentaries on the recently released DVD this film was shot in 1990 but never released theatrically. My husband – who is the consummate film buff – knew of it only because he is a fan of the director, Anthony Hickox, and several of the film’s stars including David Carradine, Bruce Campbell and Deborah Foreman.
Being a big Bruce Campbell fan myself, I had no objections to purchasing this dvd and we watched it last night.
The basic plot of this film is one of the most original I’ve seen in a vampire film. A vampire, Count Mardulak (David Carradine), has gathered the world’s vampires into a small town in the American west – Purgatory (nice and subtle, eh?). To assimilate into human culture they have taken to wearing sunglasses, sunblock, sleeping at night and drinking synthesized blood.
Another town leader (John Ireland) decides that he would rather stick to the old ways and war starts between the reformed vampires and those that prefer the real thing.
Bruce Campbell plays a descendant of the famous Van Helsings there to settle an old score with a certain vampire and Maxwell Caulfield camps it up as one of the ‘bad’ vampires who’s more concerned about his desire to steal back his old girlfriend than any blood feud.
Get it? – Blood feud.
Anyway, this movie was a lot of fun with some really great touches. Being vampires, these people originated from different time periods. This is reflected by the fact that they’re all dressed from various eras and locations. There are European dandies, hillbilly hicks, western cowboys, Edwardian businessmen, mod hippies and more. Then there’s Maxwell Caulfield’s birthday suit, which is one of the nicer costume designs, in my opinion.
If you like your horror movies with a unique flavor, humor and a wholly original plotline, this movie could be for you.
For details about the film, visit the IMDB entry.
To purchase this movie, visit Amazon.com
And finally, here’s a fan-made trailer:
