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+

I've known about this film for quite a while, I read some good reviews for it when it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. I've been wanting to see it since then, but it being a small New Zealand flick, it played nowhere near me. When it was released on DVD, our local Blockbuster only had two copies, so it took a few weeks for me to luck into getting it. Let me tell you, it was well worth the wait!

Horror-comedy is my favorite genre, it's also the toughest to pull of. You need the right amount of each for it to work well. Black Sheep gets that mix exactly right. It's incredibly gory, and fairly suspenseful and scary in a few sections, but it's also downright hilarious through the whole thing. I admit that my humor runs pretty dark, I was probably laughing at more than most would; like the way the characters land in a pile of human remains. But there are some brilliantly humorous scenes, that I believe almost anybody would find funny; at least those that would want to rent a flick like this.

My favorite comedy bit of the year is from this film. The characters are just discovering that the sheep have turned and they're escaping in their truck, a sheep attacks the guy who is driving and he's trying to keep the truck on the road, while also keeping this mutant sheep at bay, punching and kicking him in the head. Finally he bales out of the truck, right before it goes over the cliff and there's a quick shot of the sheep sitting up behind the wheel and his facial expression as he drives off the cliff is priceless.




The film starts with our hero being traumatized by his older brother, he kills the young boy's favorite sheep, and attacks him while wearing the sheep's bloody coat. Soon after they learn their dad's died. Cut to twenty years later and the young man now has a sheep phobia, he's on his way back to the family farm for the first time in many years, to sell his half to his older brother. Unbeknownst to him, his brother has been experimenting on the sheep, and of course that can only lead to one thing, killer, mutant sheep.

Meanwhile, a couple of tree-huggers have snuck onto the ranch to liberate some of these experiments. The guy gets bit by the nasty little thing, and starts to change into something worse than the sheep, a were-sheep! The girl escapes and runs into the hero and one of his old buddies, that's when the sheep-shit hits the fan. Stuck in the middle of their huge ranch, with no truck and no cell service, surrounded by thousands of mutating sheep, they must find a way to survive and warn everybody.



Right from the start, the filmmakers realized that the whole idea of killer sheep is so ridiculous that they set the film up to be a comedy. Even the characters within the film treat the idea as absurd, trying not to believe it, even while their lives are put at stake numerous times.

So while you're laughing at the situations, you also have to treat them somewhat seriously because the mutant sheep look so believable. Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop, did a wonderful job of building the sheep, through a combination of make-up and puppets, wisely keeping the digital effects to a minimum. I think that digital monsters still don't work, that when an actor has something to physically get into trouble with, it sells the fear far better.

Writer/Director Jonathan King is a fabulous new talent. He makes the crazy idea mutant sheep work and keeps the tone of the film just right throughout the entire film. He gets good performances out of his actors, when the film's premise and tone makes it tough. He's got a great eye for how to shoot a horror film. Everything in this film is far better made than you would ever think possible. If it weren't Shaun of the Dead, I'd call this the best horror-comedy of the decade; it's right there on the same level. Make sure to see this film!