Summary: After tiring of living in hiding, a mysterious elder vampire leads the remaining vampires to a small town in western United States where they are developing a blood substitute. But not all the vampires are content….
Between True Blood and Twilight, it seems like these days everyone wants stories of vampires trying to fit in with humans and when I realized that was the premise of Sundown my immediate reaction was “Great, another one of these”. But then I remembered that this is from 1990 (the poofy hair and pants that stop just below the boobs helped with that), so I think it can be forgiven. If anything True Blood is just ripping off some lower-than-B-movie nobody has ever heard of. And good for it, because at least someone is getting good mileage out of a great idea.
Although this is nowhere near the worst movie I have reviewed for you, my gentle readers (I still have nightmares of Alien Vs. Hunter), it does commit that most heinous of bad movie sins: it is kind of boring. I know, it’s shocking. How could you possibly make a boring revisionist vampire/western movie? Well, they managed it. As with AVH, much of the acting is bad but not so bad it’s good. Fortunately, this movie has some ringers in it: Bruce Campbell and David Carradine. They are really the only reason I watched this movie and they are definitely all that is worth watching. Actually, there is also one of those actors you love but have no idea who they are – M. Emmet Walsh (Blade Runner, Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Arthur Dales on The X-Files). It saddens me to say it, but Bruce Campbell is actually the worst of the three, although it is not his fault. He is completely miscast as the great grandson of VanHelsing, a nerdy, bookish type with a cravat and terrible mustache. I kept waiting for him to kick some ass, Ash style, but it just never happened. Bruce does the best he can and is always fun to watch, but it is just not the role for him. David Carradine owns his role as the head vampire, leading them to live in harmony with the humans. That man can sell the absolute worst dialogue you can give him. Alas for Bangkok.
For a vampire movie there is almost no gore. The best that you get is M. Emmet Walsh backhanding a guy and knocking his head clean off. All through the movie there is also a story (arguably the main story) about a human and his family’s dark past with one of the vampires, but I couldn’t really care less about that plotline.
Although this is nowhere near the worst movie I have reviewed for you, my gentle readers (I still have nightmares of Alien Vs. Hunter), it does commit that most heinous of bad movie sins: it is kind of boring. I know, it’s shocking. How could you possibly make a boring revisionist vampire/western movie? Well, they managed it. As with AVH, much of the acting is bad but not so bad it’s good. Fortunately, this movie has some ringers in it: Bruce Campbell and David Carradine. They are really the only reason I watched this movie and they are definitely all that is worth watching. Actually, there is also one of those actors you love but have no idea who they are – M. Emmet Walsh (Blade Runner, Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Arthur Dales on The X-Files). It saddens me to say it, but Bruce Campbell is actually the worst of the three, although it is not his fault. He is completely miscast as the great grandson of VanHelsing, a nerdy, bookish type with a cravat and terrible mustache. I kept waiting for him to kick some ass, Ash style, but it just never happened. Bruce does the best he can and is always fun to watch, but it is just not the role for him. David Carradine owns his role as the head vampire, leading them to live in harmony with the humans. That man can sell the absolute worst dialogue you can give him. Alas for Bangkok.
For a vampire movie there is almost no gore. The best that you get is M. Emmet Walsh backhanding a guy and knocking his head clean off. All through the movie there is also a story (arguably the main story) about a human and his family’s dark past with one of the vampires, but I couldn’t really care less about that plotline.
C-
originally posted Sept. 7, 2009
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