Starring: David Carradine, Bruce Campbell

Director: Anthony Hickox
Released: 1989

Mood: If you want to get into the spooky season spirit but you’re also a big chicken so you need a movie that has a lot of laughs behind its pointy teeth.

Many of my favourite movies are from the realm of cheesy-camp horror-comedy, so it makes perfect sense that Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat found its way into my possession.

I mean, come on. David Carradine AND Bruce Campbell, in an ‘80s vampire Western?! If that premise doesn’t appeal to you, you’re not my people.

Sure, I had a tiny hope that it would be a little scarier. More Evil Dead than Army of Darkness. But it turned out that my life was missing an even better army – one of glam rock vampires in leopard leggings, Civil War vampires, and bushy-bearded hillbilly vampires in overalls, all on horseback, chasing nerdy scientist vampires with terrible French accents.

This is definitely not the most Western-iest of Westerns. It’s got a Western town and a massive shootout that involves galloping around on horses and a handful of nods to specific Western tropes, and that’s about it. But if you like cheesy horror and Bruce Campbell, you might allow its existence on the farthest edge of the genre.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat begins with a long, scrolling text explainer that vampires exist, and a group of them have become peaceful under the leadership of one Count Mardulak.

“Armed with sunblock, UVA/B protected glass, and nourished with fake blood produced in a lab (that will not work without the help of a human), the true test of the vampires’ brave new world is about to begin…”

Here’s a quick takeaway on the rest of the delightfully ridiculous plot:

• Purgatory is a town populated with vampires
• Some of them are peaceful and follow the ‘don’t kill humans’ code of the elegant Count Mardulak (David Carradine)
• Others crave the old blood-sucking ways, and are secretly planning to rise up behind Jefferson (Western icon John Ireland)
• There are issues in the fake blood production lab, so the guy who invented it (Jim Metzler) is coming to town with his family – blissfully unaware of what the blood is for
• But that guy’s wife previously dated a local (Maxwell Caulfield) who is now a vampire, and he still wants her
• AND the gangly, awkward, last remaining Van Helsing (Bruce Campbell) is also on his way to town, on a mission to destroy all vampires

Although Carradine and Campbell are both on brand, Carradine with his smooth monologues and Campbell with his comical overacting, several of the smaller roles steal the show.

The immensely talented, late M. Emmet Walsh is hilarious as Mort, a lumbering hillbilly vampire with a short fuse. Mort and his two brothers, Milt and Merle (played by Burt Remsen and Sunshine Parker) are the kind of characters you instantly want to see in a spinoff.

Late TV veteran John Hancock gives a memorable turn as the jovial Black sheriff vampire, who you know is supposed to be Jamaican because the score abruptly switches to reggae every time he’s on the screen.

Another name in ‘50s and ‘60s Westerns, Dabbs Greer pops up as Otto, the vampire general store keeper. And THE valley girl Deborah Foreman plays a sweet young vamp with a taste for Van Helsing, who turns into a badass with an assault rifle.

From start to finish, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is a mash-up of genres and styles that shouldn’t make a lick of sense. And yet, somehow, it works. Mostly.

The score is primarily ‘50s and ‘80s melodies. There are also cars and fashions from multiple decades, a ’50s-style diner, and a line for what seems to be a hair metal bar that you never actually see. And then when you get to the big battle in which the two armies clash, it looks like they drove around a studio lot and kidnapped a hundred random extras from other movie sets, gave them guns, threw them on horseback and said “git!”

The story is entertaining, despite quite a few plot points that nobody bothered trying to make sense – like where the hell did the bad vampires get that many horses? On the downside, the ending is slightly disappointing, I wanted better casting of the secondary villain (Shane), and the ‘animated’ vampire bats look like a kid’s elementary school arts and crafts project.

But Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat WANTS to be cheesy and camp. It’s wearing these labels with pride, while still paying tribute to the horror and Western genres.

The ending includes a nod to Spaghetti Westerns with a squinty, close-up showdown between the boss vampires. David Carradine and John Ireland both appeared in their share of Westerns, and probably both knew, or least crossed paths with, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. So there’s an added layer of enjoyment for Western fans.

I got a kick out of this movie. It’s not exactly how I expected to start my quest to find the best horror Westerns, but I’m sure I’ll watch it a few more times.