Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Diagonaldi Very well executed

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

FlashCallahan Which is a shame, because this almost parody of Near Dark had a lot going for it with the wonderful cast, and Hickox is notorious for making some very exciting B-movie fodder..Under the leadership of their ancient and powerful leader Mardulak, a colony of vampires seek a peaceful life in the desolate town of Purgatory. Imperative to the transition is the town's bloodmaking facility and it is just not working. Mardulak summons the designer of the plant, who brings his family along for what he thinks will be a busmans holiday, but he and his family are caught up in a war as another vampire, who detests the idea of vampires being anything other than predators.Like Ché, he starts a revolution, and a descendant of the Van Helsing family arrives intent on destroying all vampires........It sounds wonderful, two warring groups of Vampires fighting over synthetic/real blood, they should have waited until 2008 and made a seven season TV show about it all, it may have explained it all a little better...............From the creator of the Waxwork movies, I wasn't expecting something so mundane and trudging through the narrative about as fast as M. Emmett Walsh walks through his scenes, when we have the added bonus of Campbell as a Helsing relative, and Carradine doing what he does best, make bad material seem quite good.It's not terrible though. The scenes at the petrol station are genuinely funny, and the sets, although looking very cheap, are authentic and intimidating.But what you have Miles O' Keefe being in a totally different film, and the humour falling flat at almost every turn, it's quite difficult to enjoy what otherwise could have been a throwaway B-movie.No wonder it's almost vanished without a trace.

one-nine-eighty Bruce (Evil Dead) Campbell and David (Kung Fu) Carradine headline this 1989 109 minute comedy horror which crosses over into the Western genre too. I found this film a nice surprise and entertaining to boot. A town of Vampires headed up by 'the Count' himself (played by Carradine) are looking to co-exist with humans in what feels like a retirement village set in a John Ford-esque Wild West town. Unfortunately Jefferson (John Ireland) has different ideas and feels that his species shouldn't have to co-exist in harmony, why wear factor 1000 sunblock and drink synthetic blood when living humans are a plentiful source of food. As it happens to synthetic supply is in danger and the only way to fix the situation is a living human scientist with the relevant skills so it's through his family's eyes that we tend to follow the action and story. Throw in Bruce Campbell as a bumbling idiotic modern Van Helsing and you have some great ingredients for making a film that it's stuck in the horror genre alone. Laughs a plenty with a cute story and some fun events make this a great if slightly camp way of enjoying 109 minutes, to me this is more entertaining than watching "True Blood" which also features vampires and synthetic blood because it really doesn't take itself too seriously :P 7 out of 10 from me on this.

Boba_Fett1138 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 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

James Bourke I can still fondly recall the first time I ever watched 'Sundown - The Vampire In Retreat' on VHS.There was a certain air of easy going charm about the movie that welcomed into it's overwhelming charms and as such I pretty much had a VHS copy within my collection ever since.Since I first heard through the grapevine about the Liongsgate release, I carefully bided my time, that is until my wife secretly ordered me a copy that arrived much to my surprise on Christmas Eve 2008.Now having watched the movie countless times down throughout the years, I decided, when time was on my side, ie, my wife was out of the house, I created space for myself, gathered myself a few beers and sat down to watch the movie with the audio commentary switched on.Since the arrival of DVD, the notion of having a director's commentary has always been the ultimate selling point in buying any of my personal favourites, I like to know the in's and out's of how the movie came to be.Of course the major problem that some of the classics have when it comes to the audio commentaries for the vast majority of films always depends on how old the movie is and generally how good the memory of the participants can be.Specific movies that come to mind that let the side down when it came to the audio aspect were 'Hell Night' & 'The Prowler' of course the makers of such classics would go on to make many other classics within and outwith the genre, but more often than not, their collective memory would often more sketchy than fulfilling.Such is the case with Sundown, too many gaps exist within the commentary, I guess it's too bad that the movie languished in distributor hell for so long.To be honest whilst watching the movie complete with the commentary I found myself quoting the dialogue the movie.However rather than dwell on such a small thing as that, the vast majority of the extras still rock, especially the memories of both Bruce Campbell & M. Emmet Walsh.The movie itself has stood the test of time, the overall casting of the movie added to the joy of the movie, watching the likes of Jim Metzler, so good 'Circuitry Man' & Deborah Foreman oozing such sex appeal as Sandy are timeless examples.It's too bad Vestron Pictures no longer exist, but as long as companies like Lionsgate have the belief to resurrect such great examples of straight to video classics and breath new life into them by releasing them onto DVD is both reassuring and exciting.This movie as well as the first 'Waxwork were both fine examples of what Anthony Hickox could do with limited funds and snappy scripts.This special Edition rules in every way possible and that's why my rating is 10/10