Director: Anthony Hickox

This movie ended up on my doorstep quite literally by accident. It somehow got added to my Blockbuster Video queue by mistake, but it turned out to be one of my better mistakes.

Although the producers claim this to have been a low-budget movie, you wouldn’t know it from watching the final product. Whatever the budget was on this movie, it managed to pay for a fine cast of both seasoned actors (David Carradine, M. Emmet Walsh, John Ireland) as well as some yet unknown up-and-coming ones (Bruce Campbell). This is one of Bruce Campbell’s earlier performances, made back when he would accept practically anything for an acting gig. The role of Van Helsing isn’t very big in this picture, but he certainly makes the best of it.

Both Bruce Campbell and David Carradine have a knack for starring in “cult classics”. Having them both in a single film that hardly anyone has seen makes this movie quite a gem. As Campbell stated in one of the DVD interview segments, this movie wasn’t so much released as it “escaped” from the studio. Lionsgate obviously did not put much effort into promoting the film, and as a result it has become almost lost to time.

There are a lot of things to like about this movie. One of the most striking is its very effective use of widescreen in what is in many respects a western film. The entire movie was shot on location in Moab, Utah, and some of the panoramic shots are just brilliant. It gives what is supposedly a low-budget movie a very high-budget feel to it, which is complemented brilliantly by the film’s vibrant, old west musical score. The music score was apparently something that did have a decent budget in this film, and stands out in stark contrast to the very visibly low-budget “special” effects.

The screenplay was above average, although there were a few points in the film where it was quite obvious it was written in the late 1980′s. That, and the 80′s hair, is really the only thing that dates this film at all. The print conversion to DVD was as fresh as any new release I have ever seen. I hadn’t read when the film was originally released prior to viewing it and was certainly surprised to see that it was over 20 years old. It stands up quite well after that much time, and definitely doesn’t fall into the category of being a period piece.

The story? It’s a combination of horror, western and comedy. The only real tie-in to horror is the fact that the entire fictional town of Purgatory, Utah is occupied by vampires. The owner of the town is a character named Mardulak (David Carradine), which seems to be an anagram of “Drakula” with the letter “M” in front of it. Whatever. That’s about all that this movie has in the way of horror though. There was only one scene I can recall with any blood in it, and the gore was pretty much comical. There are no “scary” scenes in this movie. It’s mainly a comedy that uses vampire elements which is set against a western backdrop. It’s like the movie “Oklahoma”, just replace the singing with vampire bats.

Most of the humor is fairly tongue-in-cheek, so don’t expect it to be along the lines of “Scary Movie”. It’s a very low-key parody with a handful of serious moments and more than a little bit of over-the-top, cheesy acting. For anyone who likes horror movies, it’s one of those films that stays respectful to the genre without taking it too seriously.

There are a couple of extras on the DVD worth watching. One is an interview with David Carradine and the other is an interview with Bruce Campbell. Carradine seems to have taken the film rather seriously and lamented that it didn’t get a wider release. Campbell, on the other hand, didn’t seem to take it too seriously, and had a few good laughs at David Carradine’s expense. Both interviews look as though they were likely shot sometime during the 21st century, so provide plenty of perspective, as opposed to a lot of “on the set” interviews where everyone acts like the movie is going to be a smash hit. This movie went nowhere, and everyone involved knows it by now. Over 20 years later, it could still end-up becoming a cult classic in its own someday though.