On the lower end of mediocre. I guess I would expect more entertainment from a film with a cast like Bruce Campbell and David Carradine. I chuckled a few times but a good amount of the humor fell flat for me.
Sundown definitely gets points for being one of the most original vampire movies I have ever seen: vampire western comedy.
The movie is good, but I didn't particularly like it. What that means is all the elements are there, however there is a balancing act that is failing to find a proper footing. Does the movie want to be goofy or serious? Does it want to be a western, a comedy, horror, both, none?
I really get the feeling that the writer wanted to make a vampire western, but didn't know how to make the synthetic-blood story work in the old west, so he didn't. With the movie being set during the time it was made, only in a small, desert town, it feels like a period piece, with a few anachronisms here and there. Ultimately, I think a lane needed to be picked. Either set this in the mid nineteenth century or present day, then lose the cowboy parts.
What might be the best example of the push-pull issue here is Carradine versus Campbell. Carradine is playing this straight; he is dead serious, and the movie is better for it. Campbell is being is usual cartoon-character self; while he does a great job, he just feels so out of place - mostly because his character feels jammed in at the last minute, but also because he's way over the top.
I really like the idea of warring vampire clans set in the old west. I'd love to see a serious version of that. Probably exists.
Anyway. This has to be a cult classic. Too weird to not be someone's favorite movie, just not mine.
Shout by RyanVIP 5BlockedParent2022-08-14T18:28:48Z
There's no need to bury the lede on my opinion of Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat. I hated it. The story is baffling. Pieces of it could have been interesting if they chose to show us things vs. an info dump in the opening text full of gobbledygook. The music felt out of place. I couldn't point to any of the acting that I appreciated. This really surprised me, since it does have Bruce Campbell. His role serves no purpose to the story and could have been cut with no consequence. Then we have David Carradine who claims to be the 'greatest vampire of all time,' and again the movie shows us absolutely nothing to back this up.
Ultimately, this just seemed to be incompetently made. I really thought it was terrible.