At Dawn They Sleep

I am not ashamed to admit this. I had no idea what was going on for half of this movie. It is one of the most incoherent, confusing things i've ever seen in my life. (I am not saying worst horror movie ever, because that award still goes to "The Maize: The Movie".) Which is sad, because if you look at the general plot of this movie, it actually sounds pretty cool. if it had some better.....well everything, this could have been a pretty cool movie. and that's where my compliments end. To start off with, there are NO likable characters in this movie. AT ALL. Every character is either a demon, a murderous drug-lord, or a revenge seeking angel. You're sitting there wondering who you're supposed to root for in this confusing crap fest.

Speaking of confusing, this movie's editor must have had ADD or something because there are so many scenes where things just skip and jump and you could have sworn you pushed a button on your DVD remote that you shouldn't have. Half the time you don't know who's fighting who, who's where and what's what. The camera jiggling around also doesn't help. The acting by the angel women and the Ian are all pretty laughable not to mention that in the first 5 minutes they must drop the F bomb at least 25 times. classy. The gore is pretty decent but overused to the point of ridiculousness for no reason.

I'm not going to give away the ending, because in all honestly, i CAN'T. i have NO idea how this movie ended. This is one of the most confusing things i've ever seen to end a movie. i wish i knew how the movie ended, but i really don't. i know what happens to the two main characters, but the last 5 minutes are like someone slipped in a soft core porn by mistake. There's another person on this site who left a similar question and i repeat it. WHAT HAPPENED at the end of this movie? i REALLY don't know. see it for yourself and you'll know what we're talking about. With incredible continuity, visual, editing, scripting, and acting errors, this movie gets 1 Angel creating vampires. (i know. don't ask) out of 10.

I have full respect for independent film making but I have to draw the line somewhere. I expect at least an attempt to make the film understandable and be able to follow the plot and action simultaneously. I had seen Bone Sickness and actually did like that film so I gave this one a shot (Both are by Brian Paulin/Morbid Visions). Boy that was a mistake. The editing was almost nonexistent and done so badly I couldn't even follow the storyline due to all the gaps in the plotting. Events would just happen by a couple of frames and we're left wondering just how the heck it jumped from point A to point B so fast. The acting is okay and they make an attempt at visuals to further the story but they just failed miserably on so many levels. I gave it a 2 for the effort at least.

First of all I would like to react to the other comments. Did they watched the movie I saw? Let me say, you have to respect independent movie makers. They have a hell of a time to make their movie, and mostly they have no budget. Okay, the problem Brian (the director) has is that one of his movies, Bone Sickness, was much acclaimed due the reason that zombie flicks were a hype a few years ago. Not only that for a reason, Bone Sickness was distributed by his own label and a few others some with much fame like X Rated Kult. This movie was made a few years earlier then Bone Sickness so you can't compare both. About the editing, all comments are breaking down the editing but hey, did you guys understood the movie, for me there was no problem with editing. To make the movie going they cut out some frames so you don't have to watch the whole acting, but you don't miss anything. Otherwise they use editing to cut away from no existing effects like flying trough the air and having those crazy jumps as vampires like in eastern flicks. Friends of mine on the web gave me the opportunity to make contact with Brian's wife. After a few mails it came clear that we had an agreement that she would send some signed DVD's. As she did, this one was included. It is watchable and the acting for me was better than in Bone Sickness. The red stuff flows frequently and the gore is intact. Of course as in his flicks some girls have their nudity scene's but it never goes XXX like in those German splatters. That's good, if you want more of them watch the short movie included Damnation. The nudity never distract you from the storyline. I don't know if it was meant to be that way but the girls have there 70's tanned body (T&A are white). Funny to see Brian wearing his Buttgereit T shirt Der Todesking. The stop motion used with the corpse did in fact remind you of Evil Dead, and the end, well I got it, weird that most of the viewers didn't got the end. Won't spoil it, watch this flick in confidence. I have seen more then 1000 horrors, and I can tell you, I have seen worser. For one of his first movies it's a big cheer to Brian. And if you want more watch Fetus.

At dawn They Sleep is song about vampires on Slayer's classic album Hell Awaits. It is also a film, most certainly named after the song. The film was made on the cheap, but looks good for the resources they had. The film, of anything is totally metal. There is a soundtrack with Usurper, War, Dawn and others (all appearing courtesy of the legendary defunct Necropolis Records). The film is from the same company that produced Ravage and has similar, extremely gory and ultra bloody action scenes. However, this film moves along faster and is more interesting. Our two main heroes are drug dealers turned into vampires and are pawns in a eternal conflict between angels and demons. There is quite a bit of titillating scenes with nude women to compliment the crazy Hong Kong inspired action scenes, blasphemy and sick gore scenes. At Dawn They Sleep is a very entertaining cheap horror flick with great execution and some interesting ideas. Plus I love how metal this movie is. The man down below would certainly approve.

What a mess. It had potential, but lost it somewhere near the beginning.

I'll start with the good points, there were some. There were a few well done visual effects (I really liked the demon and the cocoons) and the acting was alright, especially for an independent film like this.

Unfortunately, that's where the good points end.

The editing was so bad that I spent half of the movie wondering if I missed some very important part that would let me follow the story. I rewound and realized that I didn't miss anything.

There were a few very pretentious dialogue scenes that seemed to be put in for no other reason than to show how "cool" the movie writers are. Although they were the best scripted scenes, they had nothing to do with the plot. Maybe if they had been cut there would have been time for some scenes that explain what is actually going on.

The ending...could someone explain? I have *no* idea what that was about.

I think that the filmmakers have definite potential, but they need to pay more attention to continuity, and less on naked women and heavy metal.