Strange Things Happen at Sundown

Low budget, independent horror/comedy following several vampires in 21st Century New York. Bit of a tough one for me to review. On one hand I am tempted to say this is an overlong piece of crap, but on the other hand it certainly has some merits to make it watchable (provided the viewer appreciates low budget flicks). The good - I felt compelled to stick with it as I wanted to know what was going to happen to the various characters, all of whom are vampires, or people attacked by them. Interestingly these vampires can walk around in daylight, the Sun has no fatal effect on them. I liked the soundtrack, a crucial element to any movie. There is a fair amount of bloodshed and violence. Camerawork is pretty good, at times using imaginative angles, and there are some creepy dreamlike, nightmarish sequences. The bad - acting is at times poor, but then this is to be expected with movies of this type of budget. There is a dose of comedy but sadly at times it is just dumb, especially a couple meant to be Vlad the Impaler and Countess Bathory, real historical characters associated with "vampirism. But the worst thing for me was the film's mega running time - my DVD clocked up 140 minutes! Way too long for a film like this, in the unlikely attempt that I should feel the urge to revisit STHAS then I would probably do so in two sittings.

hey just watched this movie, It starts off a bit boring but eventually the plot picks up, its actually a bit hard to understand at the beginning but by the first 45 minutes you have a rough idea of whats going on. Probably one of the main problems is that it doesn't fully explain about certain things until the end of the film. At first I thought this was a home made film, but then i realised it was for real. It was a bit pathetic and did get a bit boring at certain points but if you just hang in there and watch it to the end it is an OK low budget film. I mean I wouldn't say this was better than the other low budget films I've seen like the ice cream man and the gingerdead man but it was OK. I suppose its worth watching.

It would be a crime against my conscience not to. It is one of the funniest, goriest, and most unique vampire movies I've seen, and I would gladly place it right next to "Near Dark" as an essential indie horror flick about vampires. Of course, it is a long movie and I admit it does seem to go on forever, but this is actually one of those movies where I was thinking, "It seems to take forever, but if it did go on forever, I could still sit and watch and watch and watch." It really is a movie where you just have to let it run its course as it introduces such a wide range of emotions, characters, and ideas and winds them into a clever and cohesive whole. As much as I loved it, I don't mind how it took it's time doing that; you have to just lose yourself into its weird, little world. All of the characters had a place in this, and most of the actors were just as good as any you're likely to see at a multiplex. Why is it a small handful of less than stellar (yet still cheezily engaging) actors are blamed for a bad movie just because it's shot on video? I would dare to call this a GREAT movie, and for every less-than-convincing actor there are literally several who truly friggin' deliver here! Don't even let the Tarantino comparisons color your idea of what the movie comes off as. I, for one, more than half-expected this to suck, since the only other movie I've yet seen from Brain Damage films that I liked was the admittedly schlocky "Terror Toons", and many others caused me pain to watch them. Just throw out your preconceptions and SEE THIS MOVIE! It is one of the best horror flicks of 2003, hands down!

I was really impressed by Marc Fratto's second film Zombies Anonymous (AKA: Last Rites of the Dead). So, I was eager to see Strange Things Happen at Sundown. Overall I was disappointed. Not because of the camera-work, or the acting, or the lighting, or the special effects, I knew they would be sub-par. What really disappointed me was the writing. Zombies Anonymous was well written and well edited (assuming you see the full version), Strange Things was overlong, and overly ambitious. There are plenty of great ideas, and funny moments, but overall they don't add up to much of a movie, which is too bad.

I can't recommend this video, but at the same time I can't trash it. If you're interested I say pick it up, check it out. If your on the fence about watching it, don't bother, rent Zombie Anonymous instead.

Interesting take on the vampire tale, but this film has one major problem...it is 2 hours and 15 minutes in length! Normally that isn't a problem with certain films. However, when scenes become so long that they begin to bore you to death you've got a real problem. This movie could have been easily cut by about 45 minutes and been much, much better. It's almost as if the director had never heard of deleted scenes or good pacing in a film. The editing job should not have been handled by the director in this movie. There is no way that this movie should have been as long as it is in it's finished product. I'd hate to even think that there was a longer Director's Cut edition out there. There is also a brand of comedy peppered in the plot that I really just didn't get or find all that humorous in the least.

One final thing that was annoying about the film, the "F" word and every other profanity is used in practically every line of dialogue in the entire movie. Again, normally this isn't a bad thing, but when you hear the same exact words in a movie over and over again it becomes really repetitive and downright annoying. I know I've seen literally thousands upon thousands of films in my life so far, and this easily ranks in the top 10 as far as that goes. There's also a lot of "moaning" in the sound mix if you get my drift, but curiously not very much nudity or sexual situations.

The film does have a few good points such as good characters and some memorable lines of dialogue spotted in here and there. But I'll wait for a heavily butchered TV edit version before I waste 135 minutes again.