Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

Sundown: Vampire in Retreat (technically 1989, released on video in 1991)

Dir. Anthony Hickox

Written by John Burgess and Anthony Hickox

Starring Morgan Brittany, Jim Metzler, David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, M. Emmet Walsh, John Ireland, Dana Ashbrook, Deborah Foreman, Maxwell “Texas Holden” Caulfield, George Buck Flowers

Despite the awkward title, SUNDOWN: A VAMPIRE IN RETREAT is pretty good, a fun, silly vampire-western-action-comedy romp. Since it’s pretty much the only movie in history to fit that particular description, I’ll even be bold and can call it one of the best vampire-western-action-comedies ever made. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “Whatever you are, be a good one.” Actually now that I think about it Lincoln himself recently starred in a vampire-western-action-(comedy?) which was pretty good itself, so he definitely knew what he was talking about there.

Sittin' pretty.

S:aViR has kind of a hard plot to describe, because it’s sort of an ensemble piece, there’s a ton of different characters each with their own agendas and conflicts, they kind of overlap loosely as they run around the isolated desert town of Purgatory, which is entirely run by vampires hoping to live a more peaceful existence. It’s kinda like NASHVILLE, but with vampires, and also not in Nashville. And worse music, but more karate. The vampiric town is run by the ridiculously named Count Mardulak* (David Carradine, DEATH RACE 2000, and also every other movie from 1966-2012) as a kind of refuge for vampires who are tired of the whole being a vampire thing and want to settle down for a quiet, less murderous life. They’ve combated their vulnerability to the sun with heavy sunscreen and dark glasses, and are developing synthetic blood to make sure everyone stays fed without needing a constant supply of victims. But their dickish head chemist Shane (Maxwell Caulfied, Rex Manning in EMPIRE RECORDS) is having problems with the formula, and requires the help of David Harrison (Jim Metzler, minor roles in 967-EVIL and ONE FALSE MOVE, even more minor ones in LA CONFIDENTIAL and UNITED STATES OF LELAND), a clueless human who bumbles into town incorrectly assuming that the worst of his problems is that years ago, Shane happened to have an affair with his wife (Morgan Brittany, Love Boat, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazzard, Fantasy Island…pretty much every cheesy TV show the 80’s could produce, plus now she’s obviously qualified to appear regularly on Sean Hannity’s show too). Also, there’s a Robert Van Helsing (Bruce Campbell**, MANIAC COP 2) suspiciously snooping around and worrying everyone, but it turns out Purgatory’s biggest problems may come from within.

This is just screaming to be turned into a meme.

Like I said, that’s a ton of plot and characters, and there are a bunch more I didn’t even mention (M. Emmett Walsh and Dana Ashbrook and John Ireland and Deborah Foreman are all in there too!). But the strength of S:aViR isn’t in narrative, it’s in the tone and performances. It’s not an out-and-out comedy but it has a nicely light-hearted adventurous tone, the sort of thing you used to get back in the days when it seems like every movie didn’t need to target a niche as directly as they do now. It's offbeat and sometimes vaguely flirting with surrealism, perhaps trying to evoke Twin Peaks (which peaked in popularity as SUNDOWN was being produced) but maybe a little too silly and schlocky and cheerful to bother with the darker undercurrents of that series.

It has some delightfully funny moments; every time a strange human comes around, the vamps have to pretend to be a normal American town and some of them don't have a whole lot of experience at this. You gotta laugh at their confusion over how to portray ordinary diner customers (many haven't eaten human food in hundreds of years, so they're a bit out of practice as to what this would look like). That's pretty clever, how have I never seen that idea in a vampire movie before? The movie doesn't even have to go blue to get laughs. In fact, save for a couple of not-very-graphic beheadings and one inexplicable flash of full-frontal male nudity this could have been a perfect one for youngsters just starting to get into horror, with its broad characters, colorful cast and cheerful but action-packed story. Along the lines of NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, or GREMLINS or something. Horror movies which take their plots and characters seriously, but are more interested in having fun with their clever concepts than they are in proving how hardcore they are. Director Anthony Hickox (son of famed British B-movie director Douglas Hickox) also managed to capture that feeling pretty well with his slightly better-known WAXWORKS and WAXWORKS II: LOST IN TIME, though unfortunately it seems like his career went downhill after this, stagnating in HELLRAISER III (better than it’s rep, but still problematic) and nosediving into the unwatchable with SUBMERGED (one of Steven Seagal’s worst films, and that’s really saying something) and a DTV crime film starring Eddie Griffin and Breckin Meyer, why not. Oh well, at least we’ll always have the late 80’s.

Big hug!

There’s some pacing issues here, and the fact that the various characters and plotlines don’t always overlap very much makes the whole thing (especially the climax) feel a little looser than it should. But it’s a fun ride, completely charming all the way through. My only gripe (SPOILERS) is the way the conflict between Shane, David, and his wife is resolved. Wifey had an affair with Shane previously (which she greatly regrets), and now the guy has designs on her again. It would be nice if the conflict was about giving her a chance to definitively reject the jerk and take back some control of her life, but instead the movie sees the conflict as being between the two men. It’s David who has the defeat the guy and claim the prize (his wife), while she remains a somewhat passive victim. Kind of sexist in my opinion (not to mention less satisfying), but hey, the 90’s were a less enlightened time. (END SPOILER). But don’t be turned off by that minor complaint; mostly this is a fun, breezy ride featuring great characters and some clever twists and remixes of an old formula. Sadly American audiences never got to fall in love with it because it never made it to theaters and languished unreleased til it unceremoniously hit video a few years later. Too bad, because this is exactly the sort of cheerful romp which we sorely need a dozen or so DTV sequels for. Like I said, there ain’t too many vampire-western-horror-comedy-action joints out there, so America, I call upon you to posthumously give some love to this movie, one of the bold, the few.

*I hypothesized that his name is a phonetic rendering of traditional Romanian boogieman the vârcolac, but I can’t be sure. Could be a Marmaduke reference too, I guess.

**Campbell, only a year or two off EVIL DEAD 2, hams it up so tenaciously that I’d advise Jews, Muslims and vegetarians to avoid watching him, just to be safe. He’s fun, but seems a little out of place here amongst a plethora of veteran character actors who all get as much or more mileage out of playing it straight than Campbell does going way over the top. For the inevitable remake, I hope they get him back --now a veteran character actor himself-- for another go-round, maybe as one of M. Emmett Walsh's brothers? See below:

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No, there is a reference to Dracula, though.
• SEQUEL: None, tragically
• REMAKE: None, they should totally do one though.
• FOREIGNER: Nope
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None, but tons of veteran character actors. John Ireland was once nominated for an Academy award, but by this point in his career was probably not "A" list
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: David Carradine, M. Emmet Walsh, Bruce Campbell
• BOOBIES: No, full frontal male nudity, though
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Yep
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Beheadings!
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Vampires!
• POSSESSION: Seems like I remember the vampires using their Vampire-y hypnotism.
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Nah
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): Yeah
• EVIL CULT: Not exactly
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No dolls
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Man becomes vampire, vampire becomes adorable stop-motion bat.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: High. Never hit theaters, snuck onto video 2 years after its "premier."
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Never take a mysterious job in an isolated town named after a realm of the undead to help your wife's ex-lover use science to create synthetic blood. You would think that would be obvious, but some guys just gotta learn the hard way.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Clunky as it is, I suppose it's basically accurate. The town is a "retreat" for vampires to escape the modern world, and sundown is an important time of day for them.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

A little too loose to earn a five-thumb medal, but a strong B+.

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)

Dir. Scott Spiegel

Starring Robert Patrick. Bo Hopkins, Duane Whitaker, Muse Watson, Raymond Cruz with Bruce Campbell and Danny Trejo

Everyone likes FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, right? Of course they do. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable piece of trash; a kinetic, freewheeling, sleazy B-movie from back before Robert Rodriguez discovered irony. It even sports a making-of documentary which is almost as entertaining as the film itself, 1997’s FULL TILT BOOGIE which is up there with HEARTS OF DARKNESS in my pantheon of great filmmaking documentaries. But I was never sure the concept (“There are Vampires at this bar you can go to in Mexico”) was really strong enough to turn into a compelling series, so I never bothered with the straight-to-video sequels, despite the lure of both Robert Patrick and Bruce Campbell.

That is, until now. Now I have bothered with them. Or one, anyway. And I’m glad I did, because this turkey is thoroughly entertaining and even a little good. At the very least, it’s trying really hard to show you the craziest possible time with the resources available, so you can’t fault its enthusiasm.

Like the original DUSK TILL DAWN, this one starts out by hinting it’s going to be a different movie than you know it actually is. As a sequel, it gamely ups the ante by doing this twice. First we get Bruce Campbell and Tiffani Amber-Thiessen as sleazy lawyers who get eaten by bats. Then we find out that was (I guess?) just something Robert Patrick was watching on TV. Fair enough, we got our Bruce Campbell cameo, now on to the real red herring. We get introduced to Mr. Patrick’s character Buck as he’s finding out his friend and partner-in-crime Luther (Duane Whittaker, also co-writer) has escaped from prison. Sheriff Bo Hopkins (and his deputy James Parks, more on him later) have a feeling Luther’s going to try and hook up with his old partner and make a run for it, even though Patrick insists (somewhat convincingly, too – he had me fooled) he’s gone clean. Fortunately for all of us, you should never trust Robert Patrick, and the sheriff is hardly out the door before he’s off putting together a team for a Mexican bank robbery.

So you got your men-on-a-mission angle, your heist angle, your escaped fugitive angle, and (as if you had to ask) your one-last-job-and-then-I’m-going-clean-for-real angle. But it being a DUSK TILL DAWN sequel, you know that none of that is going to matter because it’s going to turn into a vampire movie halfway through. Sure enough, poor Luther is hardly across the border into Mexico before his car hits a giant bat and breaks down. As luck would have it, he seeks assistance at a familiar strip bar, where Danny Trejo’s bartender character Razor Eddie (Mexico’s Woody Harrelson, I bet) offers to give him a lift. Trejo actually gets a decent bit of screen time in this, and he makes the most of it with his trademark cocktail of stone-faced charisma and menace (that’s a metaphorical cocktail. We don’t get to find out what his trademark cocktail at work is, so I’m going to just assume it’s a Mint Julep. Feels right).

Funny thing is, ol Razor Eddie seems kind of like a nice guy right up until he hears that Luther hit a bat. I honestly think he was legitimately offering a ride out of the goodness of his heart until the inevitable collision between the two uneasily symbiotic cultures of vampires and ex-pat American banditos turned everything ugly (see, CRASH? We all already knew everything you’re rambling on about because we all watched this DTV sequel to a 90’s vampire western. You don’t remember when we watched that? I dunno, man, maybe you passed out already, but yeah, the rest of us all watched it).

This is the first scene which surprised me with its unexpected greatness, because Luther isn’t exactly an idiot but also can’t quite figure out what’s going on. He can tell the encounter has suddenly turned hostile but can’t possibly understand why. His confusion and mistaken belief that he’s still talking with a minor character in a heist movie creates a different layer of tension than you’d expect for this kind of scenario. It’s still a cheesy DTV horror sequel, but it’s got a little something extra.  

Of course, Luther ends up turning vampire, and heads back to the hotel where his colleagues are waiting (sadly, Trejo just turns into a bat and flies away. They could get Robert Patrick but couldn’t afford Danny Trejo for more than two scenes?). And here again the movie has a neat little twist, but there’s no way to describe it to you without spoiling it, so please direct your attention to the

SPOILER WARNING before proceeding.

 

So what happens is, Luther comes back to the hotel where he finds team member Jesus (Raymond Cruz) engaged in extremely unconvincing awkward sex with a very cute gal who spends 90% of her screen time here extremely convincingly naked. Jesus ends up bit too, and now it seems like we’re going to get into the standard vampire siege story in this run-down motel. But here’s where things get awesome. Luther and Jesus don’t try to kill everyone – they go about the robbery as originally intended, except now they’re vampires! So it is a heist/siege movie after all, but with an ever-increasing ratio of vampires to humans. They tricked me into thinking they were planning on tricking me into thinking this would be an abrupt genre shift like the first one, and then turned my expectations of having my expectations turned on their head on their head. That’s just the kind of absurd overthinking which makes this one fun, and you can see it constantly on display in the direction and style of the film.

Director Scott Spiegel, it turns out, is more closely related filmatically to Sam Raimi than Robert Rodriguez (Wikipedia says he went to the same high school as Raimi and Campbell, I guess that explains it, there’s something in the water there) and this film plays almost like a parody of EVIL DEAD’s inventively goofy visuals. I count no less than 15 outrageously unnecessary point-of-view shots in this thing, including but not limited to:

POV from Tiffani-Amber Theissen, observing a bat between her boobs

POV from a cooler, opened to take beer out

POV from a water dish, as a dog drinks

POV from a rotating fan, going back and forth

POV from the hood of a car with bull horns on the front

POV from an actual bull

POV from a bat, flying around

POV from a TV of the people watching it

POV from a guy doing push-ups (up and down – hoping they’d bring this back during the sex scene, but no dice)

POV of map, looking at the ceiling

POV from a bag, as things are put into it

POV from the dial on a safe, spinning around

POV from inside a vampire’s mouth (twice)

POV from inside a skull (regular)

POV from inside a skull (on fire)

                                         A whole fucking lot of the movie looks like this.

And those are just the ones I remember, two weeks later. Spiegel is no Raimi, and most of the rest of the film is shot about as cheap and ugly as you might expect from a 1999 DTV horror sequel. There’s a few other attempts at creative visual shots (one which works shoots Robert Patrick through the spiral telephone cord, --remember those?—which turns the shot into an abstract spiral going towards his face) but nothing that would really be worth reporting on were it not for the escalating craziness of the POV stuff. But the POV shots are so numerous and so egregiously unnecessary that they’ll either make the whole film worthwhile or they’ll cause you to turn it off in a blind fury by minute 20. At the very least, they make this one memorably unique, and how many of its peers can say that?

Besides the funny expectation-doublecrossing premise and the suitably manic style, the film also has a surprisingly effective cast of mostly unknowns. Duane Whittaker, Muse Watson, and Raymond Cruz all have done tons of tiny roles in other films, but here they actually get to be front and center and make the most of it. They chew through the scenery like gypsy moths, adding flavor and weight to their roles without forgetting to have a little fun. Raymond Cruz is especially dynamite as Jesus, who can be forgiven the stereotypical nature of his character by the intensity which he brings it. He’s way over the top but absolutely dedicated to seeming like a macho psychopath constantly ready to snap. The fact that the characters seem serious enough to pay attention to makes the film’s jokier bits work way better. Finding Jesus preparing his dog “Jaws 2” (really) for a dogfight, Buck comments, “You’re pumping steroids into a pooch? Damn Jesus, that’s immoral.” And Jesus responds by looking him square in the eyes and intoning without even a hint of a smile, “This ain’t the fuckin’ Olympics, Buck.” He’s great as a human, and even better as a vampire where he gets to bring a smirking menace to the role, as if he’s just barely bothering to conceal his contempt for anyone who thinks they can stop him. There’s a unique bravado to his role which really ought to have led to some bigger and better parts.

Unfortunately, the fifth guy was obviously someone’s friend or something and gives a truly awful performance in an ill-defined character who seems set up to have an arc which never happens. So that’s a shame.

But other than that, this is a small but worthwhile pleasure. My one beef is the subtitle. Although the film does start in Texas, all the action and the blood money (Oh my god, I just realized that’s a vampire pun. Maybe this movie is too smart for me) are down in Mexico, which is played here somewhat believably by South Africa. So I don’t know how that one slipped past them, but that title is factually inaccurate. Why not just call it Mexico Blood Money? Why we gotta drag Texas into this? Is Texas really that much more marketable? Are they trying to suggest this is a chainsaw massacre sequel of some kind?

I’d have happily traded the map POV shot for a subtitle that makes a lick of god damn sense. Not the oscillating fan POV shot, though – that’s one for the ages.