Writers: John Burgess, Anthony Hickox
Director: Anthony Hickox
Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is a vampire-Western genre mashup that starts from a suitably ludicrous premise: a group of vampires (led by ‘Mardulak’ (David Carradine), hmm…) has decided to give up killing humans and live together in an isolated town where they make artificial blood substitute. The ludicrous bit is that the town they’ve chosen (‘Purgatory’) is in the middle of the desert, under the blazing sun! As a result they go round wearing factor 100 sunblock, oversize sunglasses and large sombreros.
The story revolves around three strands. Number one is that the artificial blood plant isn’t working well so the vamps call in the process creator David Harrison (Jim Metzler) who arrives with his perfect family. At the same time a group of dissatisfied vampires are planning a rebellion. And if that wasn’t enough, this just happens to be the day that a descendant of Van Helsing (Bruce Campbell almost unrecognisable in dorky mode) discovers the town.
It’s all got massive potential and for the first half hour or so I really enjoyed it. There are some great scenes with the vamps looking ridiculous in their sun gear and trying to act normal. There are also some great characters and performances, especially M. Emmet Walsh as the short tempered Mort.
But somewhere along the line the script loses its way. It seems to forget that it’s a comedy. The laughs get thinner, the story starts taking itself more seriously. That would be okay if it worked as a serious film, but it doesn’t. By the time we get to the final confrontation – which should have been the comic high point – it’s a fairly tedious showdown that could pretty much come from any cowboy movie.
There’s also a problem of conflicting styles. I like dry comedy, I like comedy played for laughs and I like spoofs. But combining all three is a tough job and Sundown doesn’t manage it. We have the Harrisons spoofing the ideal American family, David Carradine doing a superb job of playing Mardulak totally straight-faced and Bruce Campbell playing his character for laughs. All great on their own, but together they just don’t gel.
Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is a film with a lot of potential that promises much and has a few great moments, but ultimately it’s a bit of a mess that needs some serious gagging up for the second half.