Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

This was a pleasant surprise - a charming vampire western that respects the genres (Western fans will love the classic John Ford-esque setting and epic soundtrack!) while maintaining both an action plotline and likeable, understandable characters. Bruce Campbell is hilarious as an over-the-top Van Helsing descendant (who goes thru a most unexpected change!), John Ireland is impressive as the rebel vampire leader and David Carradine is strong and dignified as the Count who keeps an ancient secret identity. Lots of human warmth and sympathy (Carradine's townful of Western vampires, drinking a synthetic blood substitute, yearns to be free of human predation and to someday live on equal terms with mankind) distinguishes this from many other modern vampire flicks; the Count's reaction upon feeling forgiven by God is genuinely moving. Even your non-horror-fan friends will like this one.

The Underrated and misunderstood bruce Campbell does it again and with an excellent cast including david carradine. Has a great story a great slapstick script and was executed well. Its campy and low budget but it's a must see for any comedy buffy. Heard this bombed while earth girls are easy boomed but sorry this us a much better movie. So sit back with a big bowl of extra buttered popcorn and enjoy a good laugh!! Oh and a little western horror thrown in.

Once you see the vampires in sunscreen and sombreros, you will know exactly what kind of movie Anthony Hickox has made with his "Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat". Not only is it totally silly, but it's also pretty unique.

The plot of this vampire western comedy goes something like this: the powerful Count Mardulak (a quietly comic David Carradine) has founded a colony for reformed vampires in an old ghost town called Purgatory. The denizens of Purgatory fight the urge to kill and drink a milky-looking blood substitute ("It isn't even the right color", huffs one vamp). But it turns out that reform doesn't suit all the vampires that well, and things only get more tense when a few humans come to town.

B-movie lovers will likely be charmed by "Sundown", stop-motion bats and all. It certainly strays from horror cliche. Adding to the lighthearted festivities is Bruce Campbell as the artless but well-meaning Van Helsing. Overall, it's a kooky good time for movie fans of a particular mindset.

There are plenty of reasons why this movie could had been a real fun one and a bit of a cult-classic even. It has the right premise and settings, as well as the right cast for it. I mean, David Carradine as Dracula and Bruce Campbell as Van Helsing, set in a small rural town in 'modern' day America, how could things go wrong? The answer is very simple unfortunately; the script.

It's really disappointing how incredibly lame and poorly the story got written. The right ideas were there it seemed but yet they didn't really had an idea how to use them. The story feels like it's all constant buildup, without ever a decent pay off. It's such an uninteresting done story, in which all of the characters also don't work out at all. All of the characters motivations remain unclear to me really. I had no idea what Dracula wanted or what Van Helsing was trying to achieve and why the Harrison's are the centerpiece of the movie remains also quite unclear. It all still starts of promising enough but the movie starts to run out of steam pretty fast and there is far too little good, original or interesting happening in the story.

The comedy of the movie is typically '80's like, even though it's an 1990 movie (though some sources say it's an 1989 movie). This means that the comedy is quite simplistic and childish really, which more often makes the movie lame than funny really. And that for me was the movie its downfall. I mean I could had so easily forgiven the movie for all of its weaknesses, if only the movie was a more fun and funny one to watch.

I love vampires and all, as long as they don't sparkle but there for me was very little to enjoy in this movie. The movie might just as well had been one about zombies, or nuclear affected freaks and the movie would had been all the same really. Not even David Carradine could impress me much as count Dracula. There is simply very little typical vampire stuff going on in this movie and most of the well known actors also get heavily underused. I still thought it was great that David Carradine played the famous count. A role that his father John Carradine had played more than a few times during his career, also in a couple of official Universal studio movies and who had died just a few years prior to this movie. As far as I know if this was the only time David Carradine played the blood sucking count. Perhaps he did it as an homage to his, at the time, recently deceased father.

There is a very good reason why this movie isn't known any better really; it's very forgettable.

5/10

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Anthony Hickox skilfully blends a vampire story with a Western set in contemporary times, and plays it for laughs (but not for camp) allowing for more serious aspects to come through. Among these more serious aspects, which are treated that way, are an extramarital affair that has created serious resentment, and the condition of being a vampire. When Robert Van Helsing (hysterically played by Bruce Campbell) arrives in Purgatory, Mort is already in jail for murder, and Jefferson is planning a revolt against living on synthesized blood. Dressed as a pilgrim, he insists Count Mardulak is a traitor to his kind, while Mardulak counters that feeding on humans is so special to be in common with "the tapeworm, the flea, the fungus, that's how special vampires are." The twist ending shows who the real traitor to his kind is. Inept Van Helsing spares beautiful diner waitress Sandy so that she'll lead him to Mardulak, and starts to fall in love with her. Mardulak allows Sandy to bite him, and he wakes up with his cross burning his neck and screamin' at his lack of reflection! The fact that Dave Harrison must work with the man who seduced his wife while they were married creates some serious tensions, and Shane develops wood-tipped bullets to fight against Mardulak's so-called traitors. Deftly written, and lacking in the sadism of films like _From Dusk Till Dawn_, this film presents well developed, humorous characters, and everything seems to work, without ever turning camp.