In joining this site, one of my primary objectives, in addition to scoring a few DVDs for free that I would have had to pay for otherwise, was to gain new and exotic cinematic experiences. So far, in the year-and-a-half that I’ve been an official Monster at Play, this site has lead to me seeing my first martial arts and hentai movies; it’s given me a new appreciation for Jess Franco; and, lastly, it’s facilitated some rather incredible experiences with indy cinema. Today’s review, of Brian Paulin’s At Dawn They Sleep, covers one of the latter.

Working with funds in the middle four digits here, director Paulin constructs a rather epic independent production centering on a couple of guys involved in the drug trade. After a deal goes bad and a couple of subordinates get their heads blown off to teach them a valuable lesson about stealing, the two become the targets of the local crime lords, who are unhappy with how visible the two are making themselves.

The two having spent a wild night that neither of them can really remember with a couple of hookers, Stephen (Paulin), heads out for a walk and is promptly chased and then gunned down by a hit man for the crime lords. Luckily, Ian, the other member of their duo, happens to be driving around nearby and so picks up Stephen to take him home. Considering the seriousness of his wound (half his chest did kind of explode, after all), the two are perplexed that he’s not dead; however, they don’t have much time to meditate on this, as they happen to spy the hit man up the road. After a quick chase, the two manage to get the guy out into the woods, by which time Stephen has recovered enough to give the man a few whacks of retribution with a handy axe.

Later that night, things only get stranger, as the two find themselves writhing on the ground in agony, spitting up weird fluids, and then being encased in cocoons. The following evening, their pods break open; and the two, released, are visited by one of the mysterious women of the night whose presence they had been enjoying a few evenings ago. She explains to them that she and her friend are both angels who are waging a war against mankind for inhabiting Earth. After casting Satan out of Heaven, she says, the angels felt they deserved Earth as a reward and were quite chagrined to find that God had given it to man; therefore, they apparently decided to seek retribution by creating vampires who would do their work of slaughtering mankind for them.

(If this all sounds pretty preposterous to you, just shrug your shoulders and go with it. It allows us to get to the film’s best throat-tearing, blood-gushing, blaspheming set-pieces.)

Following the conference with the angel, the two promptly sack a church (complete with a priest stealing from a children’s fund) in a wonderfully gory sequence. From here, things only get more outrageous, with a demon making an entrance and the fate of all humanity finally coming to rest on the shoulders of these two vampire drug-dealers from Massachusetts.

I don’t know... Writing it down, it somehow doesn’t seem as good as it ended up being. Really, though, I guess the quality is in the presentation, and on that level, this film really shines. I’ll definitely admit to there being more than a few moments in this movie which really took my breath away and made it clear that a lot of hard work went into this production. The early scene where Stephen is chased by the hit-man, for example, climaxes in the car that’s following him crashing into a house and the fight between the two continuing inside. Other notable scenes include the “metamorphosis sequence,” which includes some excellent cocoons; a number of nice “exploding head” shots (Olaf Ittenbach would be proud); and a finale that throws as many melting effects as possible into a two-minute period.

Dawn looks surprisingly good for a video production, too, which is clearly due to the use of some higher-end digital equipment that, according to the film’s commentary track, accounted for much of the movie’s budget. Believe me, guys, it was worth it; and it makes the project feel a lot more professional than analogue VHS, hi-8, etc. would have.

Anyway, this whole little shot-on-video epic has been given a very nice presentation via Alternative Cinema’s Video Outlaw branch. The movie itself is presented in its correct 1.33:1 video ratio, and the transfer is crisp and free of defects. Audio is generally good, though, unfortunately, the film’s demon’s voice is still rather garbled (the commentary references trying to improve that). Aside from this one minor problem, though, this little indy gem has received a very nice presentation.

The same can be said for the disk’s extras, which are plentiful. Brief behind-the-scenes, outtakes, and “Scenes That Hurt” (painful outtakes) sections provide a fascinating look at making a horror-action-vampire movie with next to no money, and a couple of still galleries prove alternately educational and titillating.

Also included is a twelve-minute short film titled “Damnation,” half of which is spent watching the angel girls writhing around in various states of undress (I won’t complain, though...), and the other half of which is spent seeing what happens to our two vampire anti-heroes once they end up in Hell. Again, there’s some absolutely fantastic creature make-up on display here, as well as some fairly nasty gore (including what must be the first reference to “Guinea Pig: The Devil’s Experiment” I’ve ever seen) to go with the plentiful nudity.

The video bonuses are wrapped up with several other trailers for Video Outlaw releases, one of which is for Demon Lust with Brinke Stevens, which is just a little better made than Dawn but lacking its consistent, out-and-out coolness. Still, if you’re looking for a good double feature, I’m cross-promoting it here, as both represent the crème-de-la-crème of microbudget, action/vampire (is that a new genre?) cinema.

Anyway, as if all this weren’t enough, the disk also includes a commentary track with director Brian Paulin and Rich George, who plays the second vampire in this film and basically managed the entire production along with Paulin. The two’s discussion is fairly interesting throughout, covering how the film was received upon its initial release, changes made to the film for this special edition (some loose editing was tightened, for example), the techniques behind various make-up effects, and how the film’s lesbian nun scene had to have some footage cut from it because it apparently went a little too far (alas, no deleted scene for us). For anyone interested in producing a big-looking picture for an absolute pittance, this commentary should prove very informative and highly entertaining, too.

In the end, At Dawn They Sleep isn’t perfect, but it is a lot of fun and, considering the conditions it was made under, quite a remarkable achievement. If perhaps a burning church or exploding power plant looks a little like a model or it seems a little odd that a couple of drug-dealing thugs live in a house with watermelon oven mitts on the fridge, the film more than makes up for such shortcomings with gallons of grue, cool effects and plenty of writhing, naked bodies (and nunilingus!). Never making too much sense but always very entertaining, At Dawn They Sleep is highly recommendable simply because of the passion so obviously behind it. Give it a shot, because this is exactly what micro-budget cinema should be: crude, rough-hewn, and a hell of a good time.