Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat (1990)

This one was an interesting take on the old vampire genre by "Waxwork" director Anthony Hickox. In the middle of a desert resides the town of Purgatory, which is populated by nothing but bloodsucking vamps. Except you can't really call them bloodsuckers because these guys only drink synthetic blood that comes in a bottle. John Carradine plays the head vampire who hires a mortal to come into Purgatory and develop the technical aspects of making synthetic blood. Of course, this guy has no clue he is working for vampires, even though everyone in town cringes at the mention of garlic, and the town's "population" walks around in the sunlight wearing gallons of sunscreen and really big hats. Carradine represents the good vampires, while the other half of the town longs for the days of sinking their fangs into soft, tender, human flesh. A mini-war is started amongst the vamps, with the engineer and his family caught in the middle alongside Bruce Cambell portraying a descendant of the Van Helsing family. "Sundown" was a nice change of pace from the usual vampire garbage, and director Hickox pulls off his typical blend of horror and humor fairly well. Cambell and Carradine were great in their roles, and the rest of the acting was actually not too bad either. Not really all that gory, though we do get a very nifty decapitation at the beginning of the film. Also features two of the foxiest ladies I've seen in a motion picture in quite awhile, I'm talking about that blond vampire waitress and the engineers wife...you ladies can visit "Apocalypse Headquarters" anytime! Good fun and worth a rental.