How this movie escaped my attention for so long is kind of a mystery. Well, not really much of a mystery, as the film was never released in theaters and languished on VHS until September of 2008, that's when Netflix recommended it to me. What the mystery is, is how I didn't even know it's name. As a huge Bruce Campbell fan, how could I never have heard of an early horror-comedy of this caliber, with him in a prime role? I've been through his IMDb page countless times, trying to find a hidden gem, that I haven't yet seen, but I don't ever remember seeing this title. It sits unassumingly at #77 between Maniac Cop 2 and The Dead Next Door. Now that's not to say that Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, is some kind of hidden classic, but it's a very worthy addition to Campbell's resume, and is probably better than 90% of his other films, which admittedly isn't saying much. But as a Bruce Campbell fan it's a must see.

Bruce doesn't show up until about 20 minutes into the film, but the film is full of cult actors, most notably David Carradine as the head vampire Count Mardulak. The film also features Morgan Brittany, Maxwell Caulfield, Deborah Foreman, John Ireland, but it's M. Emmet Walsh that gets the first big laugh. He and his vampire brothers sit on a swing, wearing sunglasses and bonnets, watching a Jeep approach their gas station. Walsh takes his sweet time, applying a handful of sunscreen, before making his way out to pump gas. When the Jeep's owner gets impatient with this ridiculous looking old man, he gets his head knocked clean off. It's a cheesy gag, but it works for a joke.

A whole group of new-age vampires have moved out west to the tiny desert town of Purgatory, where they've taken over and want to live a quiet life. And thanks to the miracle of sunscreen, vampires can venture outside during the day. They've also stopped feeding on the blood of living humans, instead they have a synthetic blood that a factory in town manufactures. For decency sake, the town's sheriff puts Walsh into jail for a few days to cool him down, although he could break out any second, due to his tremendous strength.

Salvation is on its way to town in the form of David Harrison and his very human family. His expertise is going to help streamline the factory's output of synthetic blood. They're in no real danger from the town-full of vampires, except for Ethan and his faction of outsiders, who want to go back to the way things were. Amongst the baddies is Sarah Harrison's ex-lover, the sleazy Shane, who wants nothing more than to convert Sarah, and live out an eternity of sinfulness. There's a hilarious scene right after the family arrives in town, where Shane flies into Sarah's room and attacks her vampire-bat style. The effects are pretty awful here, a badly done stop-animation bat, flying over a fuzzily matted Morgan Brittney flaying away. It looks worse than something Ray Harryhausen was creating twenty years before, but it adds to the cheesy charm of the film.

Bruce Campbell ambles into town around this time, stopping at a small diner, he immediately falls for the beautiful vampiress Sandy White, a name more fitting a 50's sitcom, but they're trying to be ironic. We soon learn that he's a descendant of Van Helsing, attempting to finish his great-grandfather's life work. His mission doesn't last long, before he's turned into a vampire himself, with an over-the-top comic performance that only Bruce Campbell could get away with. (See directly below.) Before long the family finds themselves in the middle of a vampire war. On one side is David Carradine teaming up with Bruce Campbell to fight for the good vampires, on the other side is Ethan, Shane and their henchmen full of character clichés throughout the ages, including pirates, cowboys and punk-rockers.



This battle takes up the last 30 minutes of the film and it really grows tiresome. Since they live in a desert in the west, they have to fight it out Western style, wood bullets providing the kills. It's entertaining at first, but by the time they show the 1000th smoky shot fired, with a stunt-man falling cinematically to the ground, it brings this otherwise fun film to a screeching halt. The cheesy dialog, performed by charismatic B-actors has ended, the goofy special effects are gone, vampires pretending to be something they're not, over; in its place is the entire cast lined up, firing blanks at one another.

If you're into forgotten films, if you're into B-films or cheesy horror-comedies with or without Bruce Campbell, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is fun enough to recommend. The first two acts of the film are quite entertaining. The filmmaking, except for the special effects, is quite good throughout. The film is nicely shot in widescreen to take advantage of the beautiful desert scenery. The film is full of great character actors, having a lot of fun playing sun-drenched vampires. But you can't call something a cult classic, when the whole final act of the film leaves you with the taste of boredom in your mouth. If they'd found another way to end it, I might have heard of it a lot sooner. - Grade: C+

Through IMDb, I just discovered that Cannonball! was directed by Paul Bartel one year after Death Race 2000, which I was going to compare this film to, seeing as how they're both 70's carsploitation (I just made that word up.) flicks, starring David Carradine. It's been a few years since I've seen Death Race 2000, but I think it did everything right where Cannonball! did everything wrong. Race is funny, gory, sexy and endlessly entertaining; while Cannonball! is sloppy, boring and dull. Yeah, boring and dull are the same thing, but I couldn't come up with any more adjectives to describe this cinematic turd. There is no way I should be bored by an exploitation flick, it totally defeats the purpose.

David Carradine is Coy "Cannonball" Buckman, an ex-con and ex-professional race car driver, who wants to race his flame orange Firebird in in the illegal Cannonball Run across the country. Unwillingly along for the ride is his parole officer and girlfriend, one in the same. Since he's the favorite to win, he's got everybody gunning for him, including a gangster who's laid a big bet on another driver. It's a pretty basic set-up, that should provide for some fun, mindless entertainment. There's a couple of good scenes, which I'll post below, but that's about it. The rest of the film is incredibly dull, the racing scenes are mostly uninspired, the acting hovers between good and bad, so you can't get into the characters, but you can't laugh at the actors ineptitude. The score is an earful of awful, it sounds like it was ripped straight from a 70's porn movie that the composer was working on at the same time.

Don't bother in the least. Watch Death Race 2000 again, or one of the other 100 better 70's car-chase films, like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, The Vanishing Point, or Bullit. Or if you're in the mood for an 80's comedy version of the Cannonball Run, than check out the ultimate guilty-pleasure film, Cannonball Run, featuring Burt Reynolds in his charismatic prime. - Grade: D

In this scene David Carradine uses some of his Kung Fu skills to beat down a fake cop, sent to take him out of the race. I love the way Carradine pauses for a second before unleashing a fury of kicks.



Here Carradine's had enough of his main rival in the race, Cade Redman, and decides to dispatch him. He jumps an unfinished bridge 20 years before Speed. It's easily the best put together scene in the film, if all the chase scenes in this film had this kind of energy, it'd be a cult-classic.



This has got to be the most ridiculous car crash scene in the history of cinema. It just goes on and on, with cars crashing into each other long after everyone should have stopped. Each collision ending in a huge fireball. It's cheesily entertaining though, I'll admit.

After a fairly inspired opening, with an Empire State Building window washer getting his head bit off, and some funny sarcastic remarks by David Carradine playing a New York City detective who cleans up the mess; I thought I was in for some good cheesy fun. But unfortunately the film quickly devolves into a boring mess. About every 15 to 20 twenty minutes the ancient bird-monster Q shows up and carries some poor soul off to eat, and those moments are decent, but they're too few and far apart.

For some reason a movie called Q: The Winged Serpent, is more about some low life scum named Jimmy Quinn, played by Michael Moriarty (also in the much better Troll). Quinn is an unemployed alcoholic with a shady side; he has hopes to be a better man, mostly for his long-suffering girlfriend, but with no job offers, he takes up with a couple of jewelery robbers as a getaway driver. When they force him to come into the store with them, the robbery goes wrong, and he escapes with the jewels and runs for his life; eventually he makes his way up into the top of the Chrysler Building, where he finds a giant nest full of human skeletons.

Meanwhile, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, great B-Movie casting, but sadly wasted, are detective partners looking for a serial killer with an Aztec twist. It seems an Aztec Priest, who's been sacrificing people by carving their skin off, has invoked the god Quetzlcoatl, a giant bird monster who has a penchant for rooftop sunbathers. Not a bad idea, but it's not too deeply explored. Again, they spend way too much time with Quinn. The guy's a total drag, he's constantly whining about how horrible his life is, and wondering why he can't be a better person. I wanted to see some people get eaten by a flying monster, not a lamely done drama about a guy with a conscience problem.

Quinn proves that he's a real scumbag when he holds the city hostage by not revealing the location of the bird's nest. He insists on a million dollars and some respect, or the killings won't stop. The last five minutes of Q are by far the best part of the film. We finally get to see more than a beak or a claw of the monster, as they show all of Q in glorious stop-motion animation, flying around the Chrysler Building as Carradine and his crew of cops shoot her down; the poor thing only wanted to collect some food for her soon to be hatched egg. So what if some heads had to be removed, she's an endangered species and should be protected.

If the movie had been about Q attacking New Yorkers, and Carradine and Roundtree investigating, it could have been a fun B-Movie; when those elements were on screen, it is an entertaining film. But they let what should have been a minor character take over the film; I didn't care about Quinn in the least, he could have found the bird, and that would have been enough. I didn't care about his feelings or his relationship with his girlfriend. His unredeemable character drags the film down so far, that it's not worth sitting through for the few good scenes of Q swooping in to grab people. It's unbearable for even those that love bad movies. - Grade: D