[.ca] Darkness: The Vampire Version

Puts most vampire movies to shame - are you listening John Carpenter?:
Darkness isn't the best vampire movie ever made, but it's possibly the most entertaining. There's never a boring moment in this film. The acting in Darkness isn't very good, but it's good enough. (Virtually the entire cast was comprised of teenagers, with no prior acting experience.) Darkness is similar to the typical zombie movie - a town is overrun by vampires, and the few survivors are forced to fight for their lives. But what I liked best was that the survivors don't spend the whole movie holed up in some house, fending off waves of attacking vampires. If that was the case, this would just be another lame Night of the Living Dead imitator. Most of the time, the survivors in Darkness are on the run from vampires. The survivors are also heavily armed, and they manage to kill lots of vampires while running for their lives. And the survivors are safe as long as the sun is up - it's during the daytime that they can relax and gear up to battle the vampires again after the sun goes down. The vampires of this movie are brutal, savage killers with no regard at all for human life. The calling card of the stereotypical vampire is to leave two neat holes on their victims' necks. I think Liven (the lead vampire) has fangs, judging by the two holes in the neck of a dead girl in Liven's car, but it seems that all the other vampires do not have fangs. Even so, Liven doesn't always use his fangs. In one cool scene, Liven digs his fingers into a girl's neck, tears out a huge chunk of flesh and then proceeds to drink her blood. It's also important to note that the vampires will sometimes use weapons, like drills, machetes, guns, and chainsaws. But they rarely use weapons, preferring to use their teeth or their bare hands instead. The vampires often use their teeth to rip out someone's throat (or take a bite at any exposed part of someone's body). The vampires also enjoy bathing in the blood of their prey. So everytime a vampire kills someone, it's real messy. And everytime a vampire bites someone, that person will turn into a vampire. This means that some of the vampires have gaping wounds all over their body. There's times in the movie where you'll feel like you're watching zombies (and not vampires) killing someone. I also found it amusing that the vampires don't like driving. There's one scene where Liven steals a car, but the rest of the vampires simply prefer to run. I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing that they find it more fun to chase people on foot than to chase them in an automobile. And another thing I found cool is that Liven doesn't rest in a moldy crypt during the day. He'll just bury himself in dirt, shortly before sunrise. It looks really cool when it shows him rising out of the ground after sundown. And keep in mind that it's DIRECT sunlight that's harmful to a vampire. And it's incredibly messy when they're caught in direct sunlight - their skin erupts in blisters, and the flesh literally melts off their bones. The end result is a big gooey mess, and it looks (and sounds) AWESOME when that happens. I also would've preferred it Liven couldn't fly. He looks quite silly when he's flying. If you've ever seen a horror movie called Warlock, you'll know that it's not always a good idea to allow the villain/monster to fly. The single and double disc editions of Darkness are jam-packed with special features. Disc one contains Darkness: The Vampire Version (which is a director's cut, digitally remastered and re-edited). Disc two contains the original unaltered version of Darkness. I'm a Darkness fanatic, so I was glad to get the double disc edition. There's A LOT of differences between the two versions of the film, which are explained in the various commentaries. I like the grainy and blurry look of the original version, the heavy metal music is good, and it contains some good footage that doesn't appear in The Vampire Version. But The Vampire Version is infinitely better - I prefer the remastered look of the film (which still looks grainy), features EVEN BETTER heavy metal music, the final showdown on the highway makes more sense, and the vampires' voices have been altered to sound deep and raspy (this was especially necessary for the high-pitched vampire in the alley, who sounded like he hadn't gone through puberty yet). And I'm glad Tobe's narration in the original version wasn't included in The Vampire Version. I'm also glad the rather cheesy speech Liven delivered in the original version wasn't used in The Vampire Version. Unfortunately, The Vampire Version contains a ridiculous scene where Tobe pours Holy Water in a pond. THERE IS NO WAY that one little bottle of Holy Water would be enough to make THE ENTIRE POND harmful to vampires. And there's lots of amusing inconsistencies in both versions of the film, like the hairstyles of various characters inexplicably changing over the course of the film. Anyway, there won't be much on the second disc to interest you, unless you're a movie buff. And if you're not, you'd be better off getting the single disc edition of Darkness. It's been a long time since I saw a good horror movie about vampires. Darkness is a welcome break from the recent string of vampire action movies like Blade and Underworld (they weren't bad movies, but they weren't horror films either). I'm also glad Darkness doesn't feature any compassionate vampires, unlike the TV shows Angel and Forever Knight. (I'm actually a big fan of Joss Whedon's work, and I think Forever Knight is a terrific show). But if you like the kind of nightmarish horror movies that Blue Underground and Media Blasters (Shriek Show) are putting out on DVD these days, you'll enjoy The Vampire Version of Darkness.