Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Anthony Hickox |
Written by |
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Produced by | Jefferson Richard |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Levie Isaacks |
Edited by | Christopher Cibelli |
Music by | Richard Stone |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Vestron Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 104 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2.8 million |
Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is a 1989 American Western comedy horror film directed by Anthony Hickox and starring David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, Morgan Brittany, and Deborah Foreman. It was written by Hickox and John Burgess.
Its only public screenings were at film festivals in Seattle and Palm Springs, as well as at Cannes. Released in 1991 on VHS and in 2008 on DVD, it has earned a cult following. [1]
Under the leadership of the ancient Jozek Mardulak, a colony of vampires seeks a peaceful life in the desolate desert town of Purgatory. Key to the transition is repairing the town's artificial blood factory. Mardulak summons the human designer of the plant, who brings his wife and two young daughters along for what he thinks will be a pleasant desert vacation.
Ethan Jefferson is a vampire who wants to return to hunting and feasting on humans. Soon, the plant manager and his family are caught up in a civil war, as Jefferson organizes a revolution.
In the midst of the vampire civil war, a young descendant of the Van Helsing family arrives intent on destroying all vampires.
Parts of the film were shot at Moab, Spanish Valley, Thompson Springs, Hittle Bottom and Arches National Park in Utah. [2]
In Creature Feature, the movie received 3 out of 5 stars, noting that it was infused with cinematic vitality [3] TV Guide similarly gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, finding the movie to be enjoyable, but that the ending collapses under its own cleverness. [4] Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a C−, finding it to be anemic. [5]
David Carradine was an American actor, director, and producer, whose career included over 200 major and minor roles in film, television and on stage, spanning more than six decades. He was widely known to television audiences as the star of the 1970s television series Kung Fu, playing Kwai Chang Caine, a peace-loving Shaolin monk traveling through the American Old West.
Professor Abraham Van Helsing is a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker. Van Helsing is a Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. He is a doctor, professor, lawyer, philosopher, scientist, and metaphysician. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the arch-nemesis of Count Dracula, and the prototypical and the archetypical parapsychologist in subsequent works of paranormal fiction. Some later works tell new stories about Van Helsing, while others, such as Dracula (2020) and I Woke Up a Vampire (2023) have characters that are his descendants.
Dracula: Dead and Loving It is a 1995 comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Leslie Nielsen. It is a spoof of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and of some of the story's well-known adaptations.
Dracula is a 1958 British gothic horror film directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name. The first in the series of Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, the film also features Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, along with Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, and John Van Eyssen. In the United States, the film was retitled Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with the U.S. original by Universal Pictures, 1931's Dracula.
Deborah Lynn Foreman is an American photographer and actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role in the 1983 film Valley Girl opposite Nicolas Cage. She is also regarded as a scream queen and known for playing in various horror films of the 1980s, such as April Fool's Day, Waxwork, Destroyer and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat.
Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code supernatural horror film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning from a screenplay written by Garrett Fort and starring Bela Lugosi in the title role. It is based on the 1924 stage play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is adapted from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Lugosi portrays Count Dracula, a vampire who emigrates from Transylvania to England and preys upon the blood of living victims, including a young man's fiancée.
Morgan Brittany is an American actress. She began her career as a child appearing in films Gypsy (1962), Stage to Thunder Rock (1964) and Yours, Mine and Ours. In 1970s, Brittany began work as a model joining Ford Models. She played Vivien Leigh in films The Day of the Locust (1975), Gable and Lombard (1976) and The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980). Brittany is best-known for portraying Katherine Wentworth, the scheming younger half-sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes, on the primetime soap opera Dallas.
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Vampires are frequently represented in popular culture across various forms of media, including appearances in ballet, films, literature, music, opera, theatre, paintings, and video games.
The Last Man on Earth is a 1964 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. The film was produced by Robert L. Lippert and directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, and stars Vincent Price and Franca Bettoia. The screenplay was written in part by Matheson, but he was dissatisfied with the result and chose to be credited as "Logan Swanson". William Leicester, Furio M. Monetti, and Ubaldo Ragona finished the script.
Wavelength is a 1983 science fiction film written and directed by Mike Gray and starring Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie, and Keenan Wynn.
Waxwork is a 1988 American comedy horror film written and directed by Anthony Hickox in his directorial film debut and starring Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, David Warner, Dana Ashbrook, and Patrick Macnee. It is partially inspired by the 1924 German silent film Waxworks.
The Tomb is a 1986 American supernatural horror film directed by Fred Olen Ray and starring Michelle Bauer, Richard Alan Hench, David Pearson and Susan Stokey. Despite being respectively given first and second billing, Cameron Mitchell only has a supporting role, and John Carradine features in single scene. Sybil Danning also only appears in the prologue, despite being prominently shown on the poster. The plot concerns an ancient Egyptian vampire who kills those in possession of artifacts stolen from her and taken to the United States by grave robbers.
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Transylvania Twist is a 1989 comedy film that parodies horror films. Originally released by Concord Production Inc., this film is distributed on home video by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the film Angus Scrimm reprises his role of the "Tall Man" from the Phantasm films, as a parody. The humor of the film is most often said to be in the style of Airplane!, and Mel Brooks comedies. It occasionally breaks the fourth wall rule with characters looking at the camera, and one even saying "I'm in the wrong movie". The film's main theme has been released on a variety of albums, it and the entire soundtrack was released on CD and as a direct download in the year 2010, twenty-one years after the movies initial release.
The Bat People is a 1974 American horror film directed by Jerry Jameson, produced by Lou Shaw, and distributed by American International Pictures. Starring Stewart Moss and Marianne McAndrew, the film tells the story of a doctor, who after being bitten by a bat in a cave, undergoes an accelerating transformation into a man-bat creature.
My Babysitter's a Vampire is a 2011 Canadian television series, based on the television film of the same name. In Canada, the series premiered in French on Télétoon on February 28, 2011, in English on Teletoon on March 14, 2011, and on Disney Channel in the United States on June 27, 2011, and finished airing October 5, 2012, on Disney and April 11, 2013, on Télétoon. The show was created by Fresh TV, creators of 6teen, Total Drama, and Stoked. The show follows Ethan Morgan, who, in the television film, learns that his babysitter Sarah is a vampire. In the film, he learns he is able to have visions and his best friend Benny Weir is a spellmaster. The series follows the three as they take on supernatural forces and have adventures, with occasional help from fellow vampires Rory and Erica, while dealing with the troubles of regular high school life.
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