Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat (Lionsgate DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Film: B-

 

 

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat promises two things to its viewers – David Carradine (Bill of Kill Bill, TV’s original Kung-Fu) as Count Dracula and Bruce Campbell as Van Helsing.  I see this box and my immediate reaction is “GENIUS!”  It has its flaws, but is still rather entertaining.

 

This is by no means a good movie.  By no means.  However, it’s fun.  The concept – a town full of vampires, run by Dracula, and isolated in the desert, called Purgatory, has a manufacturing plant for artificial blood, thus allowing vampires and humans to live together in harmony.  Along comes the Harrison family, of which the patriarch Daniel is able to speed up production on the machine.  In struts the great grandson of Van Helsing to kill Dracula and save the world from the evil, non-threatening vampires.  In the midst of all this, a few vampires start building an army and revolt against Dracula and the town.

 

The features on this disc are okay.  A commentary with the film’s director and cinematographer, an interview with David Carradine, as well as one with Bruce Campbell, and another with M. Emmett Walsh.  This release definitely doesn’t have all it can, but for a low budget film from eighteen years ago, this will do.

 

If you like vampire movies (the sellout crowds for Twilight indicate many do) and would like to see an interesting, entertaining, comedic one, see this.  If you like Bruce Campbell, you can see this, but you wouldn’t be missing much of a performance.  He has about fifteen minutes of screen time, if that.  If you feel like getting drunk with some friends and watching a dumb cult movie, then why not?  But otherwise, meh.  It’s ultimately forgettable, though entertaining.

 

 

-   Jordan Paley