Are you sick of all these vampire flicks that are being released lately? Does the plot of taking over the world by turning everyone else into vampires seem like a big steaming pile of horseshit to you? Good. I thought I was the only one. Needless to say, when this little number appeared in my mailbox the familiar cramps of bad movies began to wash over me. Not another vampire movie?!?

Then I watched it.

STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN AT SUNDOWN introduces us to the foursome of Jimmy Fangs, Joey The Butcher, Fat Frankie and Nicky The Tooth. At first you think you've stumbled into a new episode of The Sopranos or some such gangster flick. And, for the most part, you'd be right. As long as the gang of thugs are vampires. That's right it's GOODFELLAS meets FROM DUSK TIL DAWN. Sort of.

Jimmy The Fang has concocted a master plan with a friend who is an amateur chemist. It seems that they have discovered a way to take Jimmy's blood and bond it to a potent strain of marijuana. Anyone who smokes it becomes an undead minion of the vampire gang. Jimmy realizes that the last thing he needs is some horde of vampires infringing on his turf. When he feeds the victim gets whacked. Now to pull off this little escapade Jimmy needs a serious buttload of cash. Unfortunately for Jimmy his cash has been taken by one of his underlings, Marcel and Amy, Marcel's main squeeze. It's time to get out from under the iron fist of Jimmy so these two take it on the lam with his cash.

Seriously pissed, Jimmy decides to pull in an assassin by the name of The Reaper. They call him that because, with the exception of some multicolored, striped socks, is dressed exactly like The Grim Reaper. We get a little more insight into The Reaper later on as he slaughters a group of picnickers. One of them gets the impaling treatment. Pretty much a dead giveaway. And in what may be the scene stealing moment of the film we are introduced to The Reaper's lovely wife, June. Yes, she is dressed exactly like June Cleaver. But there's something different about our little June here. Hundreds of years married to The Reaper have taken their toll and she has become a compulsory neat freak. And when I say neat freak I mean psychotic. Her screaming tirades at the smallest mess are the highlight of the picture.

Anyway, moving along. The Reaper is hired to snuff out Marcel and Amy and get Jimmy's cash back. Marcel and Amy have kidnapped Annabelle. A sweet young thing that they plan on saving for dinner. Annabelle has different ideas though and being a born again Christian starts trying to convert the very confused Amy.

Does this sound like the busiest movie in the world or what? Well hold on because we have yet to introduce the mysterious woman clad in black leather. She is a killing machine, hell bent on seeing Marcel's head on a platter no matter how many vampires she has to kill.

At a running time of 135 minutes, STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN AT SUNDOWN is probably the most ambitious low budget film in quite some time. The sheer number of diverse plot elements guaranteed the length of this epic and it doesn't suffer from mid film drag. As a matter of fact there is only one thing I didn't like about this film. The twitching. It seems that when one of these vampires bites you you begin to change immediately. This means you twitch, a lot. If I had to guess I would say that there is at least twenty minutes devoted to twitching. That's a lot of twitching. As a matter of fact it sort if made me tired after a while. I don't even want to think what an ordeal it must have been for the actors. Poor bastards.

Other than that the film is excellent. The combination of gangsters and vampires has never been done so well before. Even INNOCENT BLOOD didn't do as good a job as STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN AT SUNDOWN. And they even invented their own mythology concerning vampires. Sunlight doesn't bother them. And they have their own problems. Some vampires can do all the classical vampire stuff: cast no reflection, mind control, stuff like that. Others have trouble getting their fangs to come out. That's the reason one of the mob is called Nicky The Tooth. Seems he has fang dysfunction and can't get them both to come out.

As for the technical aspects of the film it is shot beautifully. The director went for a deep, rich color for most of the indoor shots, but when you get outside it becomes washed out, probably to reflect what the vampires see in broad daylight. And where do production companies like this come up with so many gorgeous, naked women? I'm not complaining mind you, I just need to know if I ever direct my own horror opus.

With a vampire film you know upfront that it will have a dark, menacing quality to it. This is one of the things that make the vampire such a popular character in film. With STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN AT SUNDOWN the director realizes this and infuses a cold, sometimes wet feel to the darker scenes in the film. In addition we get a washed out feel to the daytime scenes reflecting the vampires having to move around in daylight. we get the idea that while they are unaffected by daylight it still isn't very pleasant for them. The washed out look makes us feel their discomfort. The sound conveys the misery of the transformation to vampire. The soundtrack is multi layered with harsh sounds that show the discomfort of the vampire's victims. It's subtle, but effective bringing a higher quality to a low budget film.

And on a final note, it's best to buy this film from Brain Damage (www.braindamagefilms.com) directly. Amazon.com has a list price of 35.00 !!! Sure the movie's good, but I won't pay thirty five bucks for any disc.